True Ghost Story: Heavy Breathing Right Beside My Ear

 

Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

The following report was sent into our website by Caley on March 20, 2014:

“I had this experience on the night of March 1st 2014 when I was at my sister’s house babysitting her children.

My sister and brother-in-law were going to a party and would not be back until very early in the morning. So it was my job to put the kids to bed and then watch the house until they came back. As I knew that I would be spending the night there and would most likely be awake for the most part (I work night shifts so it is normal for me to be awake for most of the night). I packed a few things to entertain myself: a handheld game, an mp3 player, and a book of ghost stories. I mention the book because I very much believe that it is possible to ‘prime’ yourself for a ghost experience by reading books or watching movies, which turns normal noises and such into ‘ghosts’. To be fair, I’m still not quite convinced that this did not happen to me, but the experience I had was strange enough that I’m not so sure.

The first part of the night went smoothly. We watched a couple of movies, I read a story book, and the kids went to sleep. This would have been around eleven at night. I turned off some of the lights and went to lie down on the couch and read my book. After a while I got a bit tired and decided to have a nap, so I stretched out on the couch and put the book over my eyes to keep out the light. I alternated between having short naps and reading/playing my game, covering my eyes each time I tried to sleep, until my sister and brother-in-law came home at around three in the morning. We talked briefly about the kids and then they went upstairs to go to bed, with the parting warning that the kids would be awake early so to get what sleep that I could.

After my sister and brother-in-law went to bed I stayed up for about an hour, reading my book, when I decided to try to sleep to ‘kill time’ while I was waiting for the kids to get up. My sister had turned off most of the lights that I had left on with the exception of the living room lights which were on a dimmer, as that was where I was staying. I turned these lights down to make the room a bit darker before I tried to sleep, layed down on the couch, and put the book over my eyes again.

Shortly after putting the book over my eyes, but before I could fall asleep, I heard the floor start to creak. I should mention at this point that my sister lives in an older house with hardwood floors — I’m sure everyone knows the type, you can’t move over them without the floor creaking in some places. So here I am, laying on the couch with a book over my eyes and the floor is creaking, and the first thought in my head is ‘one of the kids must be up and want something’.

So I pulled the book off of my face, fully expecting to see either my niece or nephew. There was nothing there. Not only that, but as soon as I took the book away and looked, the noise stopped. It puzzled me a little because I was *convinced* that I was hearing one of the kids. I put it off as a normal noise that the house made — I had never spent the night here before so how would I know what was normal?

I made myself comfortable again and put the book back over my face to try to sleep. The second I put the book over my eyes the noise started again. Creak…creak…creak…I took the book off of my eyes and looked towards the noise again. Just like before, as soon as I took the book away and looked, the noise stopped and there was nothing there.

Now I was getting a bit creeped out, I’m not ashamed to admit. Not only because of the noise but because it was so deliberate to me. It sounded like a person trying to sneak across the floor. Like they would take a step, hear the noise, pause, check and see if I reacted, then take another step and so on. Still, I was sure it was just a normal noise and I was just turning it into something paranormal, so I prepared to go to sleep a third time, laying back and putting the book over my face. This time, no steps, but something far worse — the sound of heavy breathing right beside my ear. I *tore* the book from my face and I was absolutely certain I would see something. Nothing there. This time I got up, looked around the living room, in the kitchen, the hall, up the stairs, and at the kids’ rooms. Nothing there. Doors to the kids rooms were closed.

I was freaked out, I can tell you. I did not try to sleep again!

Looking back on it, I still try to dismiss it as a normal noise that I ‘turned into’ a haunting. The creaks on the floor could have been the house settling. The breathing could have been my own breathing that I was hearing because the book over my face made it sound like it was coming from somewhere else. However, I hadn’t heard any creaking at any other point during the night, and I hadn’t heard the breathing any other time I put the book over my face…who knows?”

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