Well, to start with, my name is James and I live in Seattle, Washington.I have always believed in the phenomenon of ghosts; that they exist and that they are dangerous. Ironically though, I had never experienced a live encounter with one throughout my childhood and adolescence. I kept hearing other’s accounts of ghosts and was dreading the day when I would be facing one myself.

When I finished high school in my parents’ town of Port Angeles, I made a decision that I wouldn’t be staying with my parents anymore and moved to Seattle to study further. My parents supported me whole heartedly and also funded part of my further education. Little did I know that the first apartment I moved into in Seattle, would also hold the first experience of the thing I had been dreading since childhood.

The apartment I which I moved in along with my girlfriend was a part of an old residential complex. On the very first day, when we were getting our things in, my dog hid himself underneath the bed and wasn’t willing to step out. I just thought that this was because it was a new place and it would take some time for him to adjust. However, this kept on happening for the next six months; whenever we returned home; he used to come running to me and would stick to like a wart plaster me for the remainder of the day.

Even I had started having some strange experiences. Whenever I tried to sleep in my bedroom, sleep would evade me. I tossed and turned for many hours on end, but in vain. After that I would get up and go to the couch and fall asleep immediately. When I put the mathematics together, I concluded that there must be a ghost in this apartment. I made a decision to move out with my girlfriend and my belongings.

However, my suspicions turned to reality on the day I was moving out. A few friends of mine were helping us move. In the night, one of them, Mike, had to return to fetch some boxes. Immediately after entering the room he found that he was covered from head to toe in goose bumps. He didn’t get scared immediately because he wasn’t aware of my suspicions and passed it to be a slightly cold breeze. He transferred a few of the boxes to the van waiting downstairs and returned to fetch the remaining ones. He found that the same thing happened again. This time he got a bit scared and called for me. I went upstairs and found him shivering for no reason at all. I immediately told him my suspicions and he being a non-believer in ghosts, tried to laugh it out.

We then went to clean something behind the door and had to shut it in order to do the cleaning properly. The moment we shut the door we felt a lot of pressure on the back of our necks and within our chest. We stood up straight to see that the bathroom door had opened on its own accord. And in the bathroom was the scariest thing I have ever seen in my life. It was a partial apparition of an old witch-like woman who was wailing in despair and anger. My friend was so terrified that he wet his pants and was completely stupefied. The woman started walking towards us and was abusing us in a language known to her alone. I took my friend’s hand and made a dash for the door to find it locked from the outside. My friend came to his senses and within a few seconds, we managed to break open the door and flee from the apartment.

According to me, that was the worst day in my life. I took all of us at least a month to come out from the resulting trauma. Luckily for me, I never met a ghost after that day, and hopefully, I never will.