Eerie Encounters : A Haunted Hallway

 We were in search of a new house as my father’s retirement balances were settled by the company he was working for. After checking out quite a few houses, we stumbled upon a property that was being sold for a quarter of its worth. The house had enough room for all nine of us but, it was isolated and surrounded by nothing but forest. The owner of that house said that he was being disturbed by something unworldly in that house and was selling it only because of that. My family being firm non-believers of the paranormal, decided to purchase that house as we were getting a property whose worth was three times the amount, we were paying for it.

 The purchase went smoothly and we moved into our new house in the winter of 2020. Our family is made up of me, my mom and dad, my elder sister, my paternal grandparents, a German Shepherd whom we named Lisa, and two Labradors whom we named Teena and Maria. Our initial days in that house went peacefully and we thought the man who sold us the house was a mad man who imagined things that were actually not present but little did we know he was right.

 My family had to leave to the neighboring city for my uncle’s wedding and I was not able to join them as my board exams were nearing and I had no time to waste. I was left alone in the house along with our dogs. I shut the house door after waving them goodbye and went back to my room to continue studying. While entering my room I saw a man standing in the hallway on my peripheral and when I turned to see who it was, I saw no one. I paid very less attention to it and continued studying

 The clock struck 8 PM and it was time to feed our dogs. I went to the kitchen using the light of my mobile phone’s flashlight as there was a power failure. When I bought Lisa her food, I saw her stare into the empty hallway empty-eyed. I flashed the torch light on the hallway to see what was intriguing her and I saw no one again. I petted her and sat with her until she calmed down. The Labradors who were just 6 months old then were already asleep and I had to wake them up to feed them. Maria stopped eating and started barking at the hallway all of a sudden. I was confused by the behavior of my dogs and decided to stay with them for a while as they were visibly scared.

 Thankfully power was back on and I turned on the lights in the hallway. The dogs were calmer now and I went back to my room after turning off the lights in other rooms. I had apparently slept while studying and I woke up in the middle of the night to the barking of Lisa. When I rushed out of my room, I saw a shadowy figure standing near the Labrador pups. When I ran downstairs shouting back off, the figure disappeared right in front of my eyes. I turned on the lights in the hall and slept on the couch with the dogs near me.

 I was woken up in the morning by my mom who asked why I was sleeping in the hall instead of my room and I explained to her what had happened the previous night. She did not seem to believe me and told me that I would have had a nightmare. Things were not the same in that house after that. I started hearing someone walk in the hallway at night and my door was knocked on repeatedly when I fell asleep until I woke up. My parents were worried as my grades were dropping and I was falling sick often because of not having enough sleep every night.

 I was now used to the knocks at night as I thought I was safe as long as I stayed inside the room. One such night, I heard the knocks along with the mumbling of a man in his twenties. I was startled when the man started yelling my name and ordered me to open the door. I covered my face in a blanket and with the holy bible in my hand, I wished for the night to end soon. I rushed to my sister and told her what I had been going through and I was relieved when she told me I was not the only one as she was also experiencing the same. The hallway was always colder than the rest of the house and we were not able to figure out why or how it was happening

 While watching a movie in the main hall together on a Friday evening, we saw Maria play fetch in the hallway all by herself. My dad went upstairs to see what was happening and brought the dog with him when he came back. He was pale and did not tell us what he saw despite us asking him multiple times. Later that night all of us were woken up by a screaming Maria and when we rushed to the hall to see why she was screaming, we saw her being carried and thrown from one corner to another by a shadow. The shadow disappeared when we turned on the lights but the poor dog had already died. My dad now told what he had seen earlier. He saw Maria catch a ball that came out of the darker side of the hallway and when he turned on the lights he saw no one.

 We went to the local priest the next day and told him about the issues in the house. He suggested we perform exorcism rituals in the house which proved to be of no use. Despite many attempts, we were not able to drive that entity out. Now we live in the same house with fear and none of us step out of our rooms during the night.