My Former House and the Media Room

Hi there! This is my first time posting.

When I was younger (around 7-12), I lived in this house with my family: me, my mother, father, and sister. We also had three dogs, though they were kept in my parents' room downstairs. Originally, we lived in my hometown (and state) and then we moved to another state and into this house. When we first moved there, I immediately didn't particularly 'love' the neighborhood. It seemed a little off in general, but that was probably due to me just being in an entirely new place.

The house your typical home, it wasn't huge and it wasn't small. The garage was on the right side of the house. Inside, there were two hallways; one going directly forward, and one going directly to the left. The forward hallway met with our guest room with a bathroom next to it. The left hallway led into the rest of the house. Walking down the left hallway, the kitchen was on the right side with the dining room to the left. We had a large, open living room in front of the kitchen. The very end of the hallway was the entrance to my parents' bedroom, which was probably the largest among all of the rooms. There was a stairwell leading upstairs by the front door. You went up, hit a platform, and then went up a little more and reach the second floor. My room was the first room you'd reach when walking down the hallway. The bathroom was directly across the hallway; it was a jack and jill, so it connected to my sister's room at the very end of the hallway. Across her room was the media room.

The entire time I lived in this house I was horrified by the media room. When we first moved there, I had a funny feeling about it, but it soon escalated to just fear. Every single time I left my room to go downstairs, or going upstairs, I *always* had the feeling someone was staring at me from the entrance of the room. I would literally look back at the entrance every time I went up or down, and usually I had this adrenaline rush to sprint down stairs or to my bedroom and shut my door. My parents picked up on this behavior, asking me why I was always 'in a hurry.' I never really said *why,* cause I knew they'd think it's silly. That was the *start* of everything. That fear of being watched. My family and I would go to the media room to watch movies or play board games, or something like that. It was a rectangular room, not too large, with a small closet. When I was in there, I always just felt this bizarre presence there. It was like I wasn't *allowed* to be in there, and every time I was, I felt myself desiring to get out as soon as I could. It was just me.

My sister was usually never in the house. She'd constantly be out with her friends, or busy with her extracurricular activities. My father worked until around 7 at night, and my mom was usually downstairs or running errands. My gaming consoles were in that room, so I'd go in there to play my games to pass the time. There was a sofa chair in the middle of the room, with two sofa couches on the left and right of me a little further up. When I played, I always heard thumping noises behind me. It would be almost constant, varying from seemingly farther away (like my sister's room), or right by the entrance (the doorway wasn't at all far from the chair). I would commonly pause or mute the TV to find out what it was, but that was when it would seemingly stop. Eventually, it escalated from just simple thumping; I would begin to hear what sounded like dragging all around the place. I never noticed any large item being pushed or pulled across the carpet, so it never made sense to me. Other than dragging and thumping, I would notice an 'indent' in the couches beside me, like someone was sitting there or applying pressure to it. This in particular would lead me to get out of the room, because it freaked me out the most.

I would always sleep with my door closed tightly. I began doing this because of the fear that something would enter my room, or be in my door way. I began having nightmares more and more frequently - in them, I would find myself waking up in the media room, and a shadow man would be standing over me and pushing me down harder and harder. The noises that I heard primarily *in* the media room began to occur throughout the house, too. I would hear footsteps on the wood flooring we have downstairs by the stairwell, I would hear loud thumps above me when I was in the kitchen, and I began to hear whispering whenever I left my room, making me sprint to the stairs and glance back more often than before.

Around this time, my pets' behavior began to grow erratic. One of our three dogs, a retired racing greyhound, began to profusely pant and freak out over seemingly nothing. She would panic when she was near the stairs, or she would glance up towards my room and then retreat to her cage in my parents' bedroom. One of our other dogs, a small yorkie, had a *seizure* in the media room. My mother and I brought her up to watch a show, and the dog began to shake and whimper near the closet door before just seizing up. We took her to a vet, and there was nothing particularly odd that they found. The other dog, another yorkie, was seemingly fine. Throughout the years of living there, we owned a few other pets. We adopted a cat, who *never* set foot in the media room, even if we were all there - she loved being around us. At one point, we had two parakeets who were in my room - one of them attacked me constantly, and the other one was always scared, so we had to get rid of them. Not only that, but my *family* began to grow more erratic with one another. I'd rather not get into the details, but there was just overall negativity, especially between my sister and I.

My *most* horrifying moment to date occurred in the fourth year of living there when I was 11. My father was out on a business trip for around 4 days, and he had left the night before. My sister was downstairs in the guest room bathroom showering, because our bathroom was having problems with the pipes. My mother was asleep in her room; this was around 12 or 1 AM, I'd say. So, I was awoken by the sound of my dad whistling - he always does when he comes home to let my mother know he was home. It was almost *exact*, so I wondered why he was home so soon. I kind of ignored it, figuring I was probably imagining it, or whatever. Then I heard the sound of my mom calling me by my household nickname; it wasn't extremely loud, but I heard it enough that I knew what she was saying. I began to feel extremely paranoid - I knew my mom was sleeping, and that my dad wasn't even home. All my hairs stood up and I began to shake. I stayed awake and watched TV in my room, and around 5 minutes after this, I heard *knocking* on my wall leading to my door. It was one knock, pause for 10 seconds, another knock closer, pause for 7 seconds, a third knock next to my door. It *horrified* me, and I felt compelled to go to the door. I figured it might be my sister coming up the stairs, but the hall light wasn't on as I could see from under my door it was pitch black. I opened the door and instantly felt a presence *right* next to me. I felt a sharp chill go down my spine, and I bolted to the stairs. I heard thumping behind me, and I felt myself being pushed onto the platform. I screamed and quickly got up, shouting and sprinting down to my mom's room. I instantly opened the door on the verge of crying, trying to catch my breath. In my fit of sheer panic, I tried to explain to her everything that was going on, but she was just waking up and figured I was just having a nightmare. My sister was still in the shower when my mom walked me back up to my room.

This sort of...mimicking 'occurrence' happened again, this time with my father. I was out on a school trip to a science center for 3 days, and when I got home, he joked with me and said he thought he saw me leave my room and walk down the stairs and I wasn't actually there. He said he must've just been "missing me."

After we finally moved out of that house, I thought I was free from it, or that it must've just been me being a scared child. In the new house and new state we moved to, I still felt paranoid and that something was watching me when I walked throughout the house, especially in the afternoon. One night, I had sleep paralysis one night and woke up to see a dark figure by my left leg. He was rather tall, and he just *stared* at me. I've read stories about sleep paralysis and dark figures and whatnot, but this just felt *familiar*.

My mother and I returned to our old city a couple years later because my sister wanted to visit some friends, and we decided to go to the old house. Funny enough, we typed in the garage code and it still worked - the house was also unlocked. As I walked to the media room, I said, "you need to leave; you cannot follow me, or stay here," and then we left the home. Since then, I haven't had any *notable* freaky incident, and we've since moved to an apartment. I'd like to think after everything I went through, I found myself more confident to confront it, especially where it all resonated.

Thank you all for reading. There are a few things about the house I didn't mention, but those are all the 'major' aspects that impacted me. I still think about it sometimes, and all the strange encounters still puzzle me.