onceuponathrow Thread

So this is my true story. It's a bit long, so bear with me people of Reddit.

So most of this story takes place back when I was just a little kid. I lived in a nice neighboorhood, in a relatively small town in Southern California.

I had this... Person, growing up. There is a reason that I don't call him a friend. I would see him everywhere; but the majority of the times that I saw him, it was in my house.

The man was completely black. And no, I don't mean race. I mean actually full on pitch black. His clothes were indiscernable. His face was hard to make any judgement calls about. The only distinct feature I remember is his red eyes. He had the most terrifying red eyes (the entire eye was red, not just the iris, by the way). It's weird writing about them now, I can see them in my mind's eye. Gives me the chills.

It would never be an auspicious moment when he arrived. It wasn't the clock striking noon (we didn't have a grandfather clock anyway), or the second the sun went down. It would be random. I would be playing with my Linkin Logs (never a huge fan of legos, no idea why) and without as much as a wisper, he'd be there with me.

He would never do much. Just stare. And smile. Then leave as quietly as he'd come. The longest he stayed with me was probably a little over an hour. Just standing there. Looking down.

Anyway, as the years went by, I began to get accostomed to his presence. He'd appear, and usually I would just nod. I even got used to using the restroom around him (#2 included), that's how often he was around. Standing ever so close or ever so far away.

The funny thing was, my entire family knew about him (and to this day, still know). They never saw him themselves. (By the way, I have two siblings). My sister was the one who always believed me. My parents were slightly more skeptical, and eventually it became normal for them to hear about "the black man in my room". I eventually stopped saying anything at all when he appeared.

I tried everything. Talking to him. Yelling at him. Asking him questions. One time, I even got the courage to touch him. He merely stepped away from my reach, so I left it at that. Occasionally, he would give me a smile.

The reason I don't refer to him as evil or hateful or whatever is because he never hurt me. Never even tried. Just watched and smiled. Those red eyes never stopped making me shiver, but that was mostly just me.

We eventually moved out of that house. Childhood gone, I bid goodbye to the shadow man. He was there on the last day before the move. His grin that day seemed to be plastered on his face. It didn't waver for a second. I was about age 9 at this point.

The next years of my life were blessedly free of his presence. No more watchful red eyes, no more crying myself to sleep (speaking of sleep, I have in fact experienced sleep paralysis before. The shadow man was never part of these experiences. The same goes for lucid dreams (which I have quite often)).

Fast forward to age sixteen. I was walking up to my room. It was after midnight. I hadn't thought about the black man in a long time. I was walking down the hall that leads to my room, when the man emerged from my brother's room. His red eyes focused on me, and he flashed me a smile. He slowly walked across the hallway into my room.

This is where most movie protagonists would chase that bitch down and ask for some answers. Or fight him to the death.

I did neither of these things.

I turned around, walked back down the stairs, and left my house. I then sat on the curb until morning.

I haven't seen him again since then. My sister still remembers him though. My parents remember hearing so much about him, but think that it was just my imagination. (To be fair, I am a pretty imaginative person. I daydream a lot, but nothing ever physically manifests out of these daydreams). I understand why they are skeptical.

There are probably a few details that I left out, I kind of just jotted this down on my phone really fast. Feel free to ask for clarification, and if you have any answers for me, I'd love to hear them. My main questions are: "What the hell?", "Why me?", and "Is this going to happen again?"

Also: "Who the fuck is this guy?"

I honestly don't know what to think. I mean, should I be worried? Should I see a psychologist? A clergyman?

Anybody? This has been on my chest for a while now.

EDIT: WOW! So much support and similiar experiences being offered. Thank you to everyone who replied! It's crazy that so many people know exactly what I'm talking about!

EDIT 2: Gonna copy paste this from one of my comments because it is relevant:

This one time, I was washing my hands (was about... 6 years old? 7?). I was standing on a little stool in order to be tall enough to reach the sink. I saw the man out of the corner of my eye, walking up the stairs to where I was. I didn't react much, but I knew that my sister was home. I yelled if she could come help me wash my hands. Needless to say, she was a bit confused. When she came over, I pointed at the man. I then watched him walk back down the stairs backwards until he was out of sight from where we stood. My sister couldn't see what I was pointing at anymore. When she turned to look at me, he creeped back up the stairs. That was about when I gave up trying to introduce him to people. He clearly did not want to meet anyone (lucky them .-.).

Ohhhh, just thought of one more. Not sure if it's related, but this one time I was playing in our front yard (we had a mini-garden of sorts). I was with my sister, picking flowers or some shit, when we both hear a commanding voice call my name from behind us. (I have a pretty unique name. I have never met anyone with my name before, so this was no accident). The voice came from our garage, but it sounded nothing like my mom, who was the only other person home at the time. It was a male voice. We never found out who it was, and there was nobody in the garage. To be clear, my sister heard the voice too. Could of been him, could have been something (someone?) else entirely.