The Porch Phantom | 门廊鬼影

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Back in the early 1980s, my aunt lived in a house literally located in the middle of nowhere. It used to really creep my younger brother and me out, but we loved to go there because my aunt had four children.

The house was very old, with all wooden floors. There was always an uneasy feeling inside. For the most part, not much out of the ordinary happened when we were there, though there were a lot of noises at night. On several occasions, I heard floorboards creaking as if someone were walking around, mostly from upstairs, and sometimes from the hallway downstairs. I also heard a thumping sound from upstairs at night. The thing is, no one ever stayed upstairs; there was just a spare room, a bathroom, and some small storage spaces.

My aunt's room was downstairs, and we all stayed in a room down the hall from hers. I told myself the sounds were caused by the wind or the house's age and never thought twice about it. I refused to go upstairs, though. The thought that the place could be haunted never crossed my mind. I just thought it was a creepy old house. That is, until one night in particular.

Bedtime had come long ago, but we kids stayed awake and goofed around. Eventually, we all fell asleep. That night, I had trouble staying asleep. I kept waking up periodically for no reason. On about the fourth time, I felt a poke on my heel, which woke me. I rolled over and looked around, but nothing was out of the ordinary.

I lay back down and tried to sleep. After about five minutes, I started to hear a tapping sound. I listened and realized it was coming from underneath my bed! I was too afraid to look, so I tried to ignore it. After almost ten minutes, the tapping suddenly stopped. What happened next, I will never forget.

There was a lone window in the room, and the curtains were pulled back that night. I was facing the window. Just moments after the tapping stopped, a white, transparent figure slowly moved past the window from right to left. It seemed to be walking on the front porch, which covered the entire front of the house. The figure had a glow, kind of like the moon. Needless to say, I was horrified. I froze in terror, my eyes fixed on the window. Fortunately, I didn't see it again.

I tried to rationalize what I had seen, but I couldn't. We were in the middle of nowhere—no roads, no cars, just a long dirt road and trees. Everyone else was asleep, so I was the only witness. I was too scared to sleep and just lay there the rest of the night.

The next morning, I remembered my aunt sometimes hung clothes on the porch. Maybe it was a sheet? I asked her at breakfast if she had left any clothes out last night. She said she hadn't dried anything at all yesterday! There was no other explanation. Honestly, I didn't think a sheet could look like that anyway. Its movement was too animated. I guess I just wanted to believe it was something ordinary.

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