Rude Awakening (1)

I've read the countless stories that have been submitted on this website, and I thought I would take the time to share a story of my own.

It occurred to me when I was a young boy, growing up in a country town in New South Wales, Australia. I lived in a very small shabby house with my family, and due to a lack of bedrooms in the house, I shared a room with my sister. It was in this room that my "rude awakening" occurred.

I woke up one morning on what would have been a very nice day. As I raised my head to get out of bed, I noticed that there was a woman, completely shrouded in darkness, standing at the foot of my bed with her arms at her hips. I could only tell that she was a woman by the outline of her body because the rest of her was pitch black, including her face. The outline of her hair was puffy, which suggested to me that she had it done up in curls. She was also wearing a skirt of some kind, but the foot of my bed concealed the lower part of her body.

She just stood there, facing my direction and not saying a word. The first glimpse of her sent me under the bed covers for a period of time that I cannot remember. During that time, I was trying to put myself back together from the shock, but I couldn't rationalise what I had just seen.

After some time cowering, I did take the courage to look again, to see if she was still standing there. I took a peek over the bed covers to discover that she was still standing there, Ominous, unmoved, and in the same position that she previously was. Once again, it was back under the bed covers for me. At the time that all of this was occurring, my sister was sleeping soundly on the other side of the room. Her bed ran parallel with mine, so her bed was directly to the right of me.

While hiding the view of this "visitor" with my bed cover, I tried calling out my sister's name. I didn't want to call out too loud because I felt that being quite as possible was the best thing to do under the circumstances. My sister remained asleep despite my desperate and repeated callings, so I decided to take some drastic measures. I climbed out of bed and slowly walked across the room towards my sister's bed while covering the view of the spectre with my hand (I was scared after all). My plan was to wake up my sister so that she could see the thing for herself and possibly provide an explanation for why there was a woman, in complete darkness standing at the foot of my bed. I couldn't rationalise what I had seen, so I figured I'd get someone else to do it for me.

I reached my sister's bed without any drama and I was about to wake her up when I decided to look back one last time to see if she was still there (I would have felt like a fool to wake up my sister and find that the thing was gone). The figure was still there in the same place and position. The only difference was that her head was facing my current position. Even though I couldn't see her eyes, I knew she was watching me. She would have been watching my every move when I had climbed out of bed to wake my sister. This heavily dawned upon me and I nearly collapsed with shock. My first act was to get back under my covers as quickly as possible. I never woke up my sister, and I've always regretted that. She would have been the only other witness to this event, and I let it slip away due to my terror.

I stayed under those covers for several hours, curled up and shaking. My mother soon came into the room to inquire why I was so late in getting up, and why I was so deeply buried under my bed covers. Naturally, she quickly dismissed the account I had given her. I never saw my morning visitor ever again, thankfully.