I had my house built in a cookie-cutter subdivision in 2003. The stock floor plan for the model was a three-bedroom home with a two-story foyer and family room. I worked with the builder and had the plans modified so that it was a four-bedroom.

To get to the master bedroom, you would go up a fairly steep set of stairs in the foyer from the front door. Were you to turn right at the master bedroom door, you would go down a short hallway with a bathroom door on the left, a kitty-cornered door to what was my daughter's bedroom, a door straight off the end of the hallway into a third bedroom, and then a hook to the right to the smaller fourth bedroom. The point of describing it is to point out that there were a number of doors off a relatively small section of hallway, which gives light and shadow plenty of opportunity to mess with the mind.

Anyway, I used to catch a glimpse of something when I'd walk upstairs to the master bedroom. I'd catch it out of the corner of my eye to the right at the end of the hallway where the doors wer, but it would always be gone when I'd turn to look directly at it. I don't know why, but I got the distinct feeling it was a child. Something like a child, but I never felt threatened even though I had this sensation frequently.

From time to time my daughter's toys would randomly make whatever noises they made and I just assumed it was batteries running low. Of particular note was a Boobah doll that just flipped its shit at random points in the night or a Barbie Townhouse that made shower noises. But it always happened on nights when my daughter was with her mother (shared custody arrangement). I'd always go check, but I'd never find anything. And I'd still catch a glimpse of the child-sized shadow down the hallway that was never there when I looked directly at it from time to time.

In 2010, my girlfriend and her kids moved in with us and it wasn't long until her son was waking up in the middle of the night freaked out and talking gibberish. I just assumed he had to piss and I'd go get him calmed down, ask him if he needed the restroom, and kinda corral him into position. He typically slept just fine after that so I'm not sure it was related, but it happened so often as to become semi-routine. He never claimed to have seen anything, but shortly after that my girlfriend started saying she thought she saw something at the end of the hallway late at night when the lights were off in those rooms. My daughter mentioned that she sometimes felt the same, and sometimes came back downstairs instead of going to her room because it just felt creepy. I'd not mentioned it to them since I thought it was in my head, but they both said it seemed a child-like shape and size. My girlfriend said she felt dread when she experienced it, but my daughter just described it as creepy.

My daughter's mother and I elected not to continue a pregnancy before she became pregnant with my daughter. I would normally just write this off as some sort of guilty feeling or sense of loss, but for the fact that my girlfriend and my daughter both shared the sensation that there was frequently a presence at the end of the hallway.

I've been typing for a bit and I'm sure this will read like a mess. I should have probably put it into Word or something to proofread, but I'm just spitting it like it comes to me for your reading pleasure.