The Silent Visitor

This is my first time writing down my experiences. I used to share them with close friends, but they always brushed me off, saying I was imagining things. Maybe I was, maybe I wasn’t. But I want to put it out here and see what others think.

Back then, I was living with my family, and everything seemed fine—until it wasn’t. My parents started arguing a lot. My grandfather got very sick, and I was struggling with school. My dad started blaming my mom, saying she had some strange connection to spirits, that she attracted them. He believed she was calling something unnatural into our home. Their fights got worse, and he warned me to stay away from her. But I never listened.

One evening, when my grandfather had just returned from the hospital, we were having dinner together. It was quiet, tense. Then, suddenly, he looked toward the front door and whispered, “There’s someone there.” A girl. Then, moments later, another one.

I was sitting close to him, and when I saw his face, I knew he wasn’t joking. My stomach turned cold, and I moved to stand beside my dad. But when we all looked, there was nothing there.

A few weeks later, my grandfather got sick again. He was taken back to the hospital, and that night, he passed away. He had always believed in spirits. He used to talk about them when he was younger, though I never took him seriously—until then.

After his death, strange things started happening. I saw shadows moving around the house—small ones, like children. At first, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. But one evening, when I was with two friends in my room, something happened that I couldn’t explain away.

We were sitting together, playing games on our phones, when one of my friends suddenly turned her head toward the hallway. “Did you hear that?” she asked.

I looked too, just in time to see a small figure, a child in red, running into my grandfather’s old room. He was fast, so fast that I couldn’t see his face.

I thought it was the neighbor’s kid, who often wore red. I called out his name and walked to my grandfather’s room. My friends hesitated but followed. When we stepped inside, the room was empty.

After that, the noises started—children’s laughter, footsteps running up and down the hallway, soft whispers in the night. I was only twelve or thirteen, but I knew one thing for sure—whoever that child in red was, he wasn’t from our world.