- Joined
- Jun 7, 2010
- Messages
- 3
Hi folks, I've been a bit of a lurker on here for a good while now, but never had anything interesting/useful to say, until now, finally! I'll dive straight into my little story now or my babbling will get the better of me:
I recently embarked on a completely new career far from home. One lunchtime, someone in my office and I got talking (we'll call her Layla as that song is in my head right now) about the paranormal, and I discovered she was a firm believer in ghosts and all manner of things - she gives ghost tours all over the countries and believes she can see and communicate with spirits. I'm not really a believer but also not really a skeptic, but I'm extremely fascinated with all things ghost related so immediately unleashed a barrage of questions at her.
We work in an old building so naturally one of the first things I asked was whether she'd ever seen anything there. She was a bit reluctant but eventually she told me that she used to frequently see a ghost in the building, more specifically in the narrow corridor just outside our office. She explained that before I started she had sat where I do now, which is facing a door to the corridor that is no longer in use due to too much furniture/too little space. The door has a window that was covered in paper, which was a little odd as our little office room wasn't exactly private, we have the other 2 doors open all day anyway. She had put the paper up herself.
Layla told me that since she started work there (around 8 years ago) she had seen a rather dapper looking man in his mid/late 40s dressed in a 50s style suit walking up the corridor when she used to arrive in the mornings. It's impossible to walk up the corridor quietly, the floorboards are old and creaky, but he made absolutely no sound. She said that his walk didn't seem to be in time with the amount of distance he covered with each step - I'm not sure what she meant by this. When she looked at him, she immediately felt an overwhelming feeling of sadness and guilt, and almost broke down in tears as these emotions were so strong and seemed to come from nowhere. As she starts an early shift at 7, there was never anyone around to help her, or for her to walk in with. Eventually she got used to it after seeing him most mornings, the feelings would fade by the time she sat down and started work.
After a while, she noticed a slight change in the way he acted - she would round the corner into the corridor (our office is not far along from the stairs) and see him as usual, but he would speed up as they neared each other. By the time she reached the door to the office he would be almost running at her - but he never followed into the room. This used to shake her pretty badly, and the sadness/guilt she had felt before was turning into something a lot more threatening.
After a few months of this, one afternoon she was working away and suddenly felt the sensation that someone was watching her. She looked up and saw the man staring at her through the window in the door. It made her jump and she screamed, and her colleague ran over to see her looking at the window - I asked him about this and he told me he caught a glimpse of a man stepping out of sight before he got to Layla.
Every few days or so after that she would look up and see him staring at her through the window, looking increasingly more angry, so she covered the window with paper. After a while, their morning meetings in the corridor happened less and less and apparently she only sees him every couple of months, and he doesn't seem as threatening, and walks very slowly.
What I took so long to get to in this story is this - last week Layla was on holiday. I let curiosity get the better of me and took down the paper covering the window on Monday. I kept stealing glances there all through that day and Tuesday but saw nothing - by Wednesday I'd become immersed in work and forgotten about it, but at around half 11 on Thursday morning, I suddenly felt that someone was watching me, well, staring at me. I looked over at the window and saw a man looking in at me. He was handsome, with thick, dark grey hair very neatly styled. He didn't look anything like what I'd imagined a ghost to look like and I would have easily took him for someone else who worked there, but the look on his face was such intense despair that immediately affected me too. The moment I looked at him I felt so awfully depressed and empty - I suffered from depression and it felt like one of my lowest points - and the more I looked at him the deeper I felt it. I had been writing just before I looked up and my pen was still touching the paper. I couldn't look away from him, it sounds strange but it felt like he was trying to make me understand what he was feeling, but I started to feel nauseous and finally looked down. On my pad I found that I had drawn a series of random, jagged lines across the page, and I had pressed down so hard I had partly ripped the paper, but I didn't realize I had done it.
It took me the rest of the day to recover, and my boss let me leave a couple of hours early after seeing me shaking and generally acting like I'd just seen a ghost (ha!). I dreaded walking in on Friday in case I would see him in the corridor, but I didn't see anything. I also put the paper back up over the window and didn't venture out into the corridor until I absolutely had to. I'm not looking forward to next week!
The thing that got me though was that it wasn't immediately obvious that he was a 'ghost' I just kind of instinctively knew he didn't belong there. I'd never felt that before, and I'm still not completely certain what I saw was a ghost as such, in fact I've just been trying not to think about it. Layla is back next week so I plan to question her more.
Apologies for the length of the story!
I recently embarked on a completely new career far from home. One lunchtime, someone in my office and I got talking (we'll call her Layla as that song is in my head right now) about the paranormal, and I discovered she was a firm believer in ghosts and all manner of things - she gives ghost tours all over the countries and believes she can see and communicate with spirits. I'm not really a believer but also not really a skeptic, but I'm extremely fascinated with all things ghost related so immediately unleashed a barrage of questions at her.
We work in an old building so naturally one of the first things I asked was whether she'd ever seen anything there. She was a bit reluctant but eventually she told me that she used to frequently see a ghost in the building, more specifically in the narrow corridor just outside our office. She explained that before I started she had sat where I do now, which is facing a door to the corridor that is no longer in use due to too much furniture/too little space. The door has a window that was covered in paper, which was a little odd as our little office room wasn't exactly private, we have the other 2 doors open all day anyway. She had put the paper up herself.
Layla told me that since she started work there (around 8 years ago) she had seen a rather dapper looking man in his mid/late 40s dressed in a 50s style suit walking up the corridor when she used to arrive in the mornings. It's impossible to walk up the corridor quietly, the floorboards are old and creaky, but he made absolutely no sound. She said that his walk didn't seem to be in time with the amount of distance he covered with each step - I'm not sure what she meant by this. When she looked at him, she immediately felt an overwhelming feeling of sadness and guilt, and almost broke down in tears as these emotions were so strong and seemed to come from nowhere. As she starts an early shift at 7, there was never anyone around to help her, or for her to walk in with. Eventually she got used to it after seeing him most mornings, the feelings would fade by the time she sat down and started work.
After a while, she noticed a slight change in the way he acted - she would round the corner into the corridor (our office is not far along from the stairs) and see him as usual, but he would speed up as they neared each other. By the time she reached the door to the office he would be almost running at her - but he never followed into the room. This used to shake her pretty badly, and the sadness/guilt she had felt before was turning into something a lot more threatening.
After a few months of this, one afternoon she was working away and suddenly felt the sensation that someone was watching her. She looked up and saw the man staring at her through the window in the door. It made her jump and she screamed, and her colleague ran over to see her looking at the window - I asked him about this and he told me he caught a glimpse of a man stepping out of sight before he got to Layla.
Every few days or so after that she would look up and see him staring at her through the window, looking increasingly more angry, so she covered the window with paper. After a while, their morning meetings in the corridor happened less and less and apparently she only sees him every couple of months, and he doesn't seem as threatening, and walks very slowly.
What I took so long to get to in this story is this - last week Layla was on holiday. I let curiosity get the better of me and took down the paper covering the window on Monday. I kept stealing glances there all through that day and Tuesday but saw nothing - by Wednesday I'd become immersed in work and forgotten about it, but at around half 11 on Thursday morning, I suddenly felt that someone was watching me, well, staring at me. I looked over at the window and saw a man looking in at me. He was handsome, with thick, dark grey hair very neatly styled. He didn't look anything like what I'd imagined a ghost to look like and I would have easily took him for someone else who worked there, but the look on his face was such intense despair that immediately affected me too. The moment I looked at him I felt so awfully depressed and empty - I suffered from depression and it felt like one of my lowest points - and the more I looked at him the deeper I felt it. I had been writing just before I looked up and my pen was still touching the paper. I couldn't look away from him, it sounds strange but it felt like he was trying to make me understand what he was feeling, but I started to feel nauseous and finally looked down. On my pad I found that I had drawn a series of random, jagged lines across the page, and I had pressed down so hard I had partly ripped the paper, but I didn't realize I had done it.
It took me the rest of the day to recover, and my boss let me leave a couple of hours early after seeing me shaking and generally acting like I'd just seen a ghost (ha!). I dreaded walking in on Friday in case I would see him in the corridor, but I didn't see anything. I also put the paper back up over the window and didn't venture out into the corridor until I absolutely had to. I'm not looking forward to next week!
The thing that got me though was that it wasn't immediately obvious that he was a 'ghost' I just kind of instinctively knew he didn't belong there. I'd never felt that before, and I'm still not completely certain what I saw was a ghost as such, in fact I've just been trying not to think about it. Layla is back next week so I plan to question her more.
Apologies for the length of the story!
