When I was around 10 years old, I had an experience one night that’s haunted me ever since. It was the kind of thing that sticks with you, so vivid and real, even years later, you can still feel the chill creeping up your spine when you think about it. It happened during the summer, and I was staying up late, as most kids do when school is out. The house was quiet, everyone else was asleep, and the only sound I could hear was the hum of the ceiling fan in my room.
Actually, my room was at the end of the hallway, next to my parents’ room and the bathroom. The hallway had a dim light at the far end, near the stairs, which was usually left on to help me get to the bathroom during the night. I never thought much about it, but that night, the light seemed especially bright. Maybe it was the way the shadows played in the hallway, but I felt a strange sense of unease.
I remember lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, trying to fall asleep. It wasn’t the usual restlessness. This felt different, like there was something in the air, something I couldn’t quite place. My bed was positioned in such a way that I had a clear view of the hallway, and the door to my room was slightly ajar. I don’t know why I did it, but I glanced toward the hallway. At first, I saw nothing, just the usual shadows cast by the light in the distance. But then I saw it. A figure.
It wasn’t clear at first, just a blur, like a tall shape standing near the edge of the light. But as my eyes adjusted, I saw it more clearly.
It was a man, or at least, it looked like one. He was tall, much taller than any adult I knew, standing perfectly still. He wore a dark trench coat that seemed to blend into the shadows of the hallway, but what caught my attention was his face. His face was completely obscured, like there was no skin at all, just a dark void, like someone had taken the shape of a man but removed all the features. Except for his eyes. They were the only part of him that stood out.
“They glowed a deep, eerie red, almost like the light from a fire. They burned in the dark, and they were locked onto me. I could feel them, piercing into me, even though the figure didn’t move. I couldn’t make out anything else about him, just the glowing eyes.”
I remember feeling completely frozen, my heart racing in my chest. I wanted to move, to scream, but my body wouldn’t obey. It felt like I was in a dream, but I knew I wasn’t. My mind was wide awake, and I could hear the quiet hum of the fan, the creaks of the house settling, but all of that felt distant. All I could focus on was those eyes, those glowing red eyes.
After what felt like forever, I finally managed to turn my head. I pulled the covers up over my head, hiding myself from whatever it was that I had just seen. I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping that when I opened them again, the figure would be gone. But when I peeked out from under the covers, the figure was still there, standing in the hallway. The eyes were still glowing, and I could feel the weight of their stare. I don’t know how long it lasted, but it felt like hours.
Then, without warning, the figure stepped back into the shadows and disappeared. It was like it had never been there, like the hallway was just as it had been before, empty and quiet. But I didn’t dare get up, didn’t dare move from my spot. I stayed under the covers until morning, too afraid to even look toward the hallway again. I told myself it was just a trick of the light, maybe a shadow, maybe something my tired mind had created.
“But deep down, I knew it wasn’t. I knew what I saw.“
The next morning, I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. It wasn’t just that one night, either. For weeks after that, I would wake up in the middle of the night, my eyes darting toward the hallway, expecting to see those glowing eyes staring back at me. But nothing ever came back. The man, or whatever it was, never appeared again. Still, every time I walked down that hallway, I couldn’t help but glance toward the spot where I had seen it. My imagination would run wild, and I’d feel that same eerie feeling, but nothing would be there.
Eventually, I told my mom about it. She didn’t seem overly concerned, but I could tell she was uneasy. She said it was probably just a bad dream, or maybe I had seen a shadow from the streetlight outside. I wanted to believe her, but part of me couldn’t let go of the fact that it felt so real. It wasn’t like a dream. I wasn’t asleep. It was too vivid, too specific, and too terrifying to just be a trick of the mind.
I tried to push it out of my head, but the memory kept resurfacing, particularly when I was alone at night. The house seemed different to me after that. It felt like there was something just beyond my sight, lurking in the corners of the rooms, waiting. Sometimes I would hear sounds, small noises that I couldn’t quite place, and I’d find myself glancing over my shoulder, half-expecting to see those glowing eyes again.
Years went by, and I grew older, but the memory never fully faded. I had other experiences with fear, with strange feelings of being watched, but nothing ever quite matched that night. Eventually, I came to terms with it. I convinced myself it was just a figment of my imagination, a trick of my mind, or maybe even something I had dreamed. But I never fully believed that.
Then, a few years ago, I read a story online about something called “The Man in the Hallway.” It was a terrifyingly similar experience to mine, the glowing eyes, the tall, shadowy figure standing in the hallway. The details were different, but the sensation was the same. The feeling of being watched, the unexplainable fear, the sense that something wasn’t right. The person who shared the story was an adult now, but they had experienced the same thing as a child. The more I read, the more I realized that I wasn’t alone.
Other people had seen the same thing, experienced the same fear, and it had been following them for years, just like it had followed me.
It was a strange comfort, in a way, to know I wasn’t the only one who had seen it. But it also made me wonder, what was it? What was that thing I saw? Was it just a figment of my imagination, or was there something more to it?
I still don’t have the answers. I’ve heard stories of shadow people, of figures that appear in the dark, but none of them quite match what I saw. It wasn’t a shadow person in the traditional sense. It wasn’t just a dark shape. It had eyes, glowing red eyes that seemed to burn into me, like it was trying to tell me something, or maybe even trying to harm me. I still don’t know what it was or why it showed up that night.
All I know is that I’ll never forget the feeling of those eyes on me, the way they seemed to see straight through me. And every time I walk down that hallway now, even as an adult, I can’t help but look into the shadows, half-expecting to see those glowing eyes again.