Letās start with the earliest encounter I remember.
When I was 3 my family moved. (Yes I know a very cliche beginning). In our first house, my oldest sister (7) had her own room, two of my brothers (5, and 5) shared a room and my youngest brother and me (4 and 3) shared a room. My entire life I shared a room with someone, first my sister, then my brother after she got her own room.
When my family moved into this new house, there was enough bedrooms for all of us siblings to have a room, but my brothers (5,5) wanted to share a room, leaving a guest room. The first night there, was my first night ever sleeping alone. In the middle of the night, I remember seeing a man, maybe a few years senior of my father. He had no eyes, there was no blood, he just didnāt have eyes, and at first glance you didnāt notice his lack of eyes, because he had long hair that covered the empty sockets.
The first night he didnāt say anything, he just stood over my bed and stared at me. Being the young niave three year old I was I fled to my brothers room, and refused to sleep in my room. My parents being the level headed people they where assumed it was a nightmare, and allowed me to sleep with my youngest brother for a little longer, but eventually summer ended and my brother started Preschool meaning he needed to get his sleep (being the cheeky children we where we stayed up all night playing Barbies because my brother is the best an always let me pick <3 love you Issac)
Back in my own room, the creepy eyeless man came back, and being the ever obedient child Instead of climbing the stairs to my parents room, or hiding in my brothers room, I hid in the closet where I met the closet man aka Theodore. Unlike the eyeless man, he talked and I didnāt feel threatened by him. He was more like an imaginary friend, but he definitely wasnāt an imaginary friend, because he could move stuff.
I started sleeping in my closet because the eyeless man couldnāt come in the closet, and spending as much time as I could outside or as far away from my room as possible.
One night my father decided to check on me and completely freaked out when I wasnāt in my bed, and I wouldnāt leave my closet because the eyeless man scared me. Apparently the closet wasnāt an appropriate place to sleep so I was firmly tucked into bed and forced to stay there while the eyeless man fiddled with my hair. Believe me when I said a shiver went down my spine.
At this point young me was terrified beyond my wits, and clung to Theodore.
Every night my dad made sure I was tucked into bed, and each night the eyeless man would come back. My father got so tired of hearing about Theodore and the eyeless man that he began taking me out to make friends, thinking the two men where just imaginary friends I created because I had no play mates. The less and less amount of time I spent with Theodore the less he appeared, and for a long time I thought he was just an imaginary friend, but he could never leave our house.
The last time I saw Theodore, he was upset that I never played with him anymore, and I swear to god and the heavens above he dragged the eyeless man into the closet and locked the door. After that night I never saw either of them again, and besides the occasional jiggle of the doorknob there was no proof either of them ever existed.
No matter how many times I insist that the two ghostly men where real my family never believed me. They are all set on the fact that they where nightmares, figments of my imagination.
But you canāt fake a locked door.