Just Scary!
Claire, Cambridgeshire, UK
June 2003
Before I tell this, I have to say that I've been telling people for 24 years and only 1 person has ever believed me; my gran who is quite sensitive to all things 'psychic' if you know what I mean, but I swear it's true and as fresh in my mind today as when it happened.
I was about 5 years old and in my bedroom one evening with my Dad. We were leaning on my bed colouring in some colouring-in books. My bedroom then was a 'box-room', right at the end of the landing, with a wall in the middle of it between 2 doors. It was in the autumn, can't remember exactly when, but it was dark. My Dad decided that he was bored with helping me colour in and wanted to go downstairs to watch telly with my Mum. So, he got up and left my room and walked along the landing without turning on the light. I also decided that I'd had enough and would also go downstairs and followed him, a few paces behind, out of my room (he had no idea I was behind him). At that age, I had no reason to be afraid of the dark, so it didn't bother me that he hadn't turned the light on and I just carried on walking along the landing.
Something on the landing wall caught my eye and I turned to look. I will never forget what I saw there. It was what a kid, I suppose, would imagine the 'Devil' to look like - the stereotypical image. It was very tall, nearly to the ceiling and, yes, it did have horns and carried a fork. It was a kind of transparent red and scaly, like a stained-glass window. All the bedroom doors were shut, with no-one in them, so there was no light coming out of them that could have created this image. The only window was the small landing window further round by the bathroom, but the curtains which were thick, velvet and lined were closed and there were no streetlights outside as we lived in the country.
I screamed and shut my eyes, reached-out and switched on the landing light. When I opened my eyes to look, it had gone. I then raced downstairs to my Mum and Dad.
Now all this had happened in a matter of seconds, but my Dad said he had been seated down there for a few minutes!
Now I know that people may laugh when they read this, but it did happen to me. I'm not suggesting that I did see the Devil, or even that he exists, I just know what I saw and that it seemed very real to me then as it does now (I'm 29 now). Maybe it was a kids' over-active imagination or maybe it was real. Who knows? The time-warp definitely happened though and neither of my parents heard me scream or they would have come running.
Like I say, who knows what happened, I just know it did and would like to hear from anyone who has maybe had a similar experience.
Thanks.