From: Ghostmane
Sent: Saturday, September 30, 2023 10:22 PM
To: The Official Shadow People Archives
This is my shadow person story. It was 1990 and I was 5 years old and asleep in my room in my parent's apartment. My bed was on a wall with a window behind it, but the shades were drawn. The door was in front of my bed and opened just a crack, with the hall light on.
I woke up from a dead sleep and now I notice that I can't move. Totally paralyzed, I can only move my eyes. As my eyes adjusted, I noticed a darkness in the corner. This darkness, as I focused, turned into a figure that moved from the corner into the room and slowly side-steps to the right until it is now in front of my bed. It side-steps again but now crosses the crack in the door completely blocking the light from the hall. It distinctly moves its long arms in a wave motion up and down on the sides of its body as its side-steps in front of the crack in the door. That's when I saw it had very long fingers on its abnormally long skinny arms with almost sharp nails on the tips of the fingers.
Now as it blocked the light, I knew this was very real and right in front of me in the room. I felt pure panic and could feel absolute pure evil omitting from this shadow that was darker than the dark of the room.
Even at such a young age, I could tell this was the feeling of death. I am trying to scream but cannot. So, the shadow creeps up close, right in front of the bed, and comes closer and closer and puts its face right up to mine. This is when I finally let out the loudest scream, I think I ever made.
I hear my mother running down the hall, and the shadow simply stands up, takes one step back, and completely dissolves into jet-black smoke. Of course, then my mother steps into the room.
I don't remember anything after that but being older now and looking back, the experience seems almost alien. But I'm not sure because I absolutely can remember and still feel the pure evil presence of it.
So, in the almost 30 years that passed, I never thought of it much. I just lived my life. But maybe 5 years ago this thing crept back into my memories, and I had to research and try to find an answer.
I read that they call this the sickly shadow man. It was probably six feet tall, extremely skinny, with long arms and long fingers. No other details at all; just a three-dimensional shadow in the shape of a skinny person and, for sure, the darkest dark I've ever seen.
Being curious, I asked my mother if she remembered me screaming back then. Of course, she didn't. She asked why, so I told her the story and as I'm telling it, I can see the color leaving her face. I asked what was wrong and she says, “I saw that too but when I saw it, it was wearing a hat, like an old fedora.” She wouldn't go into details because she was freaking out. But she said she was 15 or 16 years old when she saw the Hatman. I was speechless, my mother saw the fuckin' Hatman.
