It Started With A Sound

I grew up in Wakefield, Massachusetts. The old house I grew up in was built in the mid 1800's. Prior to being a house, it was a firehouse, church and school. I learned this as a teenager when I did a history of my house for a school project.

I was the youngest of 8 kids. My three brothers and I shared the third floor attic as a bedroom. Being the youngest, I went to bed first and was always in the room alone for a hour or two before others came up to bed.

In 1982, I was about 10 years old. I was up in my room alone. The family was downstairs watching TV or doing homework. I heard a sound, very slight. It was an odd sound that I would best describe as sounding like an orchestra warming up before a concert. Many different sounds all doing their own thing.

I looked around for the origin of the sound; the closet, the stairway, outside. I couldn't distinguish a specific direction for the sound.

As a minutes or two went by, the sound began to get louder and I started to get nervous. After 5 minutes or so, the sound was so loud that I was curled up on the floor in the fetal position with my hands cupping my ears; it was painful. The all of a sudden it stopped; dead silent.

I went downstairs and asked my family what had happened. They replied that they had heard nothing unusual, then sent me back to bed.

That was the day I started to see shadow people. Mostly I see them in my peripheral vision, but sometimes I see them outright. I also began hearing voices saying my name, or laughing.

Today I'm 36 years old. I have few clear memories of my past, yet I remember that incident like it just happened.