Shadowing Practice: 3 Disturbing TRUE Unexplainable Horror Stories - Learn English Speaking with Video

I'll be the

first to admit that I'm one of the most skeptical people I know.

I don't believe in ghosts or any other paranormal stuff.

I'm quick to dismiss stories that seem fake or at the very least fabricated.

That's why I'm completely at a loss for words at what happened to me just weeks ago.

I wanted to write all this while it was fresh in my mind.

I can't explain what happened to me and to be honest, I'm still terrified.

I thought to myself, maybe if I write what happened to me and share it with the internet, maybe someone out there can explain what happened.

Well, hopefully somebody out there can explain.

My friend Steve and his wife were going out of town for the weekend for their anniversary.

The two of them don't travel alone a lot because they have two children and a dog.

I know for some people that's a first world problem, and you're correct, but Steve isn't struggling financially.

He built this massive home in the middle of nowhere because he likes privacy, and if you're fortunate enough to do that, I can't blame you.

Well for Steve and his wife, the stars were about to align perfectly.

The two kids were going out of town for some type of school trip, so they were going to be alone with just the dog.

When Steve told me all of this, I insisted on going over and watching the dog for the weekend

so he and his wife could go on a romantic weekend getaway.

He agreed and the plan was set in stone.

I would be watching his beautiful golden retriever for the weekend.

I made my way to the house on Friday afternoon.

I didn't work weekends so I planned on just staying there Friday through Sunday.

Steve stocked the house full of food and snacks for me and made sure I had everything I needed.

It was a bit overkill for a weekend pet sitting job, but I wasn't complaining.

I love dogs and I love quiet weekends, so win-win for me.

Now for the scary part.

On Friday night, the dog and I just hung out and watched movies.

Steve sent me a text around 9pm and said, Don't get scared being all alone in that house.

It can get pretty spooky at night when you're by yourself.

I gave him a single LOL text back and told him to shut up.

As I said before, I'm a very skeptical person.

I don't get scared of empty houses or being alone in the middle of nowhere.

I'm well aware that anything can happen, so I just don't get scared easily.

I slept in the spare bedroom and Steve's dog came with me.

We went to bed around 1am.

At 3.21 in the morning, I woke up to the sound of the dog barking downstairs.

It was that loud and vicious barking.

I won't lie, that actually did scare me.

But more of the surprise scare, not that scared out of my skin kind of scare.

I made my way downstairs and the entire time, the dog never stopped barking.

I finally found the dog in the kitchen barking at the door that led to the basement.

All the hair on his back was standing straight up and the dog looked incredibly spooked by something.

I was calling his name and trying to calm him down, but he just wouldn't stop barking.

I grabbed the doorknob and this sent the dog into a spiral.

He was now running back and forth barking and just going insane.

Of course, my first thought was maybe some kind of intruder in the basement.

Possible, but unlikely.

Steve has all that super fancy security equipment, so breaking in is not something that's easy.

I grabbed a big knife from the kitchen and opened the door.

The dog ran to the doorway, but didn't go down into the basement.

He just stood at the frame and growled, his hair still sticking straight up.

I turned the light on and descended the stairs.

I started yelling a bunch of stuff, pretending to be a lot tougher than I am, but I heard or saw nothing down there.

I tried calling the dog down into the basement, but he wasn't moving.

I even went as far as to look all around the basement to give my mind some peace.

It's a finished basement, so I looked in closets in every corner, behind furniture, and even in the bathroom that's down there.

No intruder and no evil ghosts.

The only thing I did notice was how unreasonably cold it was down there.

I know it's a basement, but I've been down there a million times and it's not that cold.

Even in the dead of winter, it's never that cold.

At the end of the day, a cold basement is no reason to freak out and run away.

I spent the rest of the night in the living room.

It took a while, but the dog finally calmed down and we both fell asleep again.

The next day, the dog was completely fine.

We played outside for a while and I just spent most of the day listening to music and watching movies.

I went down in the basement at one point during the day and the temperature was completely normal.

It felt like the rest of the house.

I didn't really spend much time giving it thought and just went about the rest of the day.

That night I decided to stay on the couch just in case the dog had another basement door incident.

I wanted to stay up later but I ended up falling asleep while watching a movie.

Once again at almost the exact same time I woke up to the dog throwing a fit

and barking like the house was on fire or something.

I stormed into the kitchen and again I tried getting the dog to stop barking

but he wouldn't listen for the second night in a row.

But this night was different.

I didn't think it was possible but the dog was even more erratic that night than he was on the previous night.

I knew nothing was down there so I told him repeatedly that it was okay.

It was like I wasn't even there.

When I grabbed the doorknob this time.

Instead of continuing to bark, he started to cry and whimper.

It was the strangest thing.

I let go of the knob, and when I tried to console the dog, he started barking again.

I was annoyed and confused.

One last time, I grabbed the knob and went downstairs.

Again, the dog started to cry and still wouldn't follow me into the basement.

This time was different.

It was still cold down there, just like the previous night, but this time, it stunk so badly.

I don't know how to describe the smell other than just bad, but perhaps the weirdest thing was

that some of the pictures he had on the wall of his family were knocked over

and the bar stools down there were also knocked to the ground.

Other than that, nothing else was misplaced or destroyed.

I picked up the bar stools and also the pictures and just set them on the bar.

The smell was so overbearing that I didn't even want to be down there anymore.

I went back upstairs and for the first 30 minutes or so, the dog continued to bark and I tried to figure out what could be the reason for the smell.

When the dog finally calmed down, I gave him a treat and we both fell asleep.

When I woke up in the morning, I went into the basement to try to get to the bottom of the smell, but the smell was gone.

Not even a lingering odor.

Also the dog followed me down and he was happy as can be.

For two nights that dog refused to come into the basement with me, but today he went down there without a care in the world.

I was completely stumped.

100

I had no clue what had happened the previous two nights.

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Steve got home around 1 in the morning and as you may expect, his dog was jumping for joy.

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His wife took the dog outside and I started catching up with Steve for a bit.

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He asked how everything was and I told him that, for the most part, everything was great.

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He gave me a confused look when I said for the most part, so I explained in detail what happened over the weekend.

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I totally expected him to laugh and assume I was playing a joke on him, but he didn't laugh.

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He didn't even smile.

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He just stood there.

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He finally looked down and told me that, occasionally, when the dog was a puppy, he would have these barking fits and just go crazy barking at that door.

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Apparently he hadn't done it in years, so Steve forgot about it.

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They never knew the reason, but then one night he just stopped doing it.

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I could tell Steve was freaked out, a lot more freaked out than I was.

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We talked about it for a little longer, but ultimately I kept telling Steve not to worry and it's probably nothing.

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It's been two weeks and I have not been able to stop thinking about it.

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Steve told me that since they've been home, the dog has been completely normal and has had no basement door episodes I've tried looking into it myself,

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but I haven't found anything that could logically explain what happened Just

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when I think I may have found something that sort of explains what happened, once I add everything up, it doesn't make sense So what's the deal?

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Can someone out there explain to me why that dog was acting this way?

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What was the smell and where did it come from?

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I need help people.

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I'm losing sleep and I don't even live in that house.

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I just want some sort of answer I don't know if this is considered your typical scary story,

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but it's definitely freaky and very unnerving The more time that's gone by the scarier it becomes for me.

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I'd love to share it and see what people think It was a few years ago now.

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I had just broken up with my boyfriend and moved into this cute little apartment.

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It was an entire apartment complex.

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The complex itself was beautiful, quiet, and elegant.

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I quickly made friends with neighbors and several of the other tenants.

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It was just a nice and friendly little community.

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A few months into my lease, I thought I heard the sound of running coming from the hallway one night when I was getting ready for bed.

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I looked out the peephole of the door, but didn't see anything.

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There weren't any kids in my building so I couldn't imagine who would be running at that hour, but strange things happen so I didn't question.

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The next few nights I heard the sound again.

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I didn't get up and look because it just didn't seem that important to me at the time.

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It's worth noting that my apartment is on the ground level and my windows face a beautiful courtyard.

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The door to the apartment is still inside the building and you need a key to get into the building.

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It took a little while to get used to the windows being at ground level at first because if you wanted to, you could come right up to my bedroom window.

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I will say that I wasn't worried about anybody in this community doing that, I'm just stating that it was something on my mind when I first moved in.

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However, that information is about to become relevant, because one night, I woke up to what sounded like giggling outside my bedroom window.

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It was weird for sure, but I just figured some kids were acting stupid and hanging out too close to my window.

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I tapped the window glass and made a loud shushing noise.

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The giggling stopped for just a second, and then a faint tapping sound could be heard on the other side of the glass.

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It freaked me out, but I wasn't about to let some kids have that satisfaction over me.

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Once I composed myself, I grabbed the curtain and whipped it open.

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There was nobody there.

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I was looking at the quiet night courtyard and nothing more.

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Even if some kids were out there, I have no idea where they would have gone that fast.

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I closed the curtain and shrugged it off.

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I wasn't about to let some kids ruin my sleep This

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weird giggling outside my window continued for a few nights I just learned to ignore it I have young nieces

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and nephews and usually when I ignore their stupid pranks They stop doing whatever they're doing

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That was my plan with these giggling kids I assumed that

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if I just stopped acknowledging them They would stop trying to mess with me

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And unless they gave me a reason to report them I wasn't going to bother the apartment complex manager with this

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I think it was two days later while I was at work

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that I received an email from the complex manager She seemed short in the email.

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She asked if I could stop at the main office

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when I got home from work She had to show me something and she claimed it was urgent.

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I told her I could stop by after work I remember

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all day long being stressed about it I was worried my rent money didn't clear

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or something like that When I showed up she told me to lock the door

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She started talking quietly almost in a whisper

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This one guy who works in the security office came in and sat next to me.

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The manager told me that while the security guard was monitoring some footage, he came across this.

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She showed me security camera footage of the hallway where my apartment is located.

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Around 2 in the morning, two small hooded figures approached my door.

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They looked about the size of children who were maybe around 10 or 12.

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They were just standing there in the grainy footage.

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It looked like they were standing about an inch away from the door.

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The scariest part of this was that when she fast-forwarded the footage they didn't move at all

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It was nearly ten minutes of them just standing extremely close to my apartment door

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Before they finally walked away one of the small figures reached for the doorknob and tried opening the door.

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You can clearly see them jostling the door a few times, but it doesn't open.

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After the 10 minutes in the video, they skip away from the sight of the camera.

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I was finally freaked out.

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Whoever these kids were, they were targeting me for some reason.

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I told the security officer and the manager about the window incident, but when they looked back at the footage, they found nothing.

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We still called the police and gave them a statement.

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They said if anything else happens, give them a call, but at that point, there really was nothing they could do.

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The security officer attempted to see

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if they could find out where the kids skipped off to when they left my apartment door, but it's almost like they vanished.

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They couldn't find them on any other camera on the entire complex.

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The next night, I decided to stay awake.

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I was going to catch these kids one way or another, but that night there was nothing.

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No giggles and no sounds from the hall.

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It was about a week later and I heard something coming from the hall.

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It was about 1.30 in the morning.

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I muted the TV and listened intently.

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I heard the sound of my doorknob rattling around.

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It was happening.

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The kids were back at my door.

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I ran over nervously and yelled for them to get away.

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I could hear a child laughing and then another soft child voice whisper, Mom, we're home.

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Just open the door and let us in.

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I didn't say anything.

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I looked through the peephole and just saw two small figures with their heads down.

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The voice whispered again, Please let us in.

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We're home now.

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Please.

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That last please that the child said almost sounded desperate.

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I didn't care.

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I yelled that their mother doesn't live here anymore and that I was going to call the cops.

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Both kids started to giggle.

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Then the doorknob started to shake again.

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One of the kids started throwing their body into the door, but it wouldn't budge.

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I stood there holding the door for a minute.

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I didn't hear laughing anymore, and the doorknob wasn't shaking.

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When I looked one last time, nobody was out there.

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I was still too afraid to open the door, just in case they were just outside of my view.

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I called the police, and the cops were quick to assume it was just the local kids playing a prank on me.

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I didn't argue with that because it seemed like the most logical explanation.

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I finished with my statement and that was that.

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A few days later I ran into the apartment manager in the parking lot.

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She pulled me aside and asked if I had experienced anything since that last time.

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I told her no and that I was sure it was just some local kids.

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She made a weird face and told me she wasn't so sure.

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She told me that the woman who lived in the apartment before me was strange.

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She didn't give me a whole bunch of information for privacy reasons, but she was fairly confident that something horrible happened with that woman's children.

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She didn't elaborate or give any details, she didn't even give me the name.

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She just implied that something horrible happened and left it at that.

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She said that she had already said too much and she didn't want to get into trouble for sharing personal information.

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She told me to be careful and just keep locking my doors.

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I'll never forget her walking away saying, this wasn't a prank.

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To my knowledge, I don't think those kids ever visited my apartment again while I was there.

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I've spent some time trying to figure out exactly what happened, like who these kids were, and what the apartment manager meant.

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Was she implying that these kids were like ghosts or something?

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I know that seems insane, and I'm sure that's not what it is, but you have to admit, it is strange.

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It's weird to me that the police and the security officer couldn't find where these kids went after they left my apartment.

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Something that dawned on me after I had already moved out was something I had overlooked.

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There should have been no way for the kids to get inside the apartment building without a key.

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As I said before, there were no kids that lived in my specific building.

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So how did they get in?

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Where did they go?

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As time goes on and I reflect on this story, I get more freaked out.

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It's amazing to me that I wasn't more scared in the moment.

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I'm years removed and don't even live there anymore, and I'm more scared today writing this than I was when I experienced it.

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I still don't believe in ghosts or anything paranormal, but I can't explain exactly what it was.

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Neighborhood kids are the easy solution, but the more I replay the memories in my head, the more impossible that seems.

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I know how this story sounds, but I think it's worth sharing.

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Maybe I really did have an experience with something not from this world.

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This story I'm about to share happened to me around 10 years ago.

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It's without a doubt one of the most terrifying things that's ever happened to me.

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I recently stopped telling people this story because most of the time people tell me I'm lying or making it up.

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It was my wife who pushed me to write this down and share it.

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She said maybe somebody out there has gone through a similar experience, so here it is.

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Back then I worked at a dead-end job.

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Just like most of us, it was a way to make ends meet.

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The mundane drag of retail work was beginning to drain the life from me.

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One afternoon when I was leaving work, I noticed something neon pink hanging from my car door handle.

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It was a sticky note with a friendly message written.

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It simply said, you're special and I hope you have an amazing day.

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It also had a smiley face sticker attached to the note.

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I thought it was nice and it made me smile.

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Other than that, I didn't give it another thought at that moment.

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The next few days, when I left work, I would have a message attached to a note in the same spot.

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I know some people have told me that it's creepy and weird, but I liked the attention.

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At that point in my life, I wasn't getting attention very often, so it was nice to be seen.

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After three or four friendly messages, I decided I was going to leave a message on my door this time.

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When I parked for work that morning, I grabbed my own sticky notes and wrote a message.

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I kept things friendly while also walking that line of being a little flirtatious.

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When I left work that afternoon, I was happy to find another note.

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The flirt worked because this person started flirting right back.

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I didn't know if this was a joke or if it was serious, but either way, I kept the charade going for a few days.

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The shift before I had a day off, I left a note saying something along the lines of, don't miss me too much on my day off.

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When I left work, I had a sticky note that just had a sad face drawn on it.

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This is where I thought the game would end for good.

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Somebody was having fun with me, I gave in, and now that I was going to be off, I figured it would just fizzle out.

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I couldn't have been more wrong.

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When I woke up the next day.

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I did some stuff around the house.

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It was late morning when I went outside for the first time.

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I noticed something neon pink on the car door again.

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I couldn't believe my eyes.

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I tentatively approached the note.

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It said, you look cute when you're sleeping.

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This scared me.

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After a little while, I concluded that someone was messing with me.

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It clearly was someone I worked with who knew where I lived.

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It was the only thing that made sense to me.

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I crumpled the note up and threw it away.

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When I returned to work, the notes continued for a few days.

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They started friendly, but by the third day of my not responding anymore, they started to get mean.

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The friendly messages were now saying things like, you better answer me, and remember, I know where you live.

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I thought about calling the police, but I was still so sure that it was somebody I knew messing with me.

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I decided to leave a note the next morning.

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I wrote a message saying to leave me alone or I would call the police.

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I didn't really have plans to call the police, but if it were really somebody I knew, I thought that this would be when they finally came forward or at least stopped with the notes.

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When I left work that afternoon, I noticed that my note was gone and for the first time in a while, I had no new notes on my door.

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I felt relieved.

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I still wanted to know who it was, but if the notes stopped I was happy.

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That night I woke up at some point in the middle of the night because I thought I heard something.

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Ever since the note outside I was on edge.

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I sat in bed for a minute just sitting silently trying to listen then I heard something again.

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It sounded a little like shuffling but it was hard to tell

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if it was just the house making noises or if it was something more alarming.

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I assumed I was just hearing things but I wasn't taking any chances.

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I grabbed a baseball bat and made my way down the long hallway from my bedroom to the open living room.

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Every step I took, I started thinking the worst.

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If a person were standing in my house, I don't think I would have been able to hit them with the bat I was holding.

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I just am not that type of person.

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I made it to the end of the hallway and just stopped.

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Whatever bravery I had when I left my room was gone.

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If you're standing at the end of the hall, you can see my living room, dining room, and kitchen.

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I turned on the dimmable lights and scanned the room from where I was standing.

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I was too scared to move any further.

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I kept imagining somebody hiding behind the couch or something.

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I stood in silence for a minute or so, and I heard nothing.

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I turned the lights off and briskly walked back to the bedroom.

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At any point, I expected somebody to charge after me, but thankfully that didn't happen.

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I locked my bedroom door and turned on the TV.

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I wanted to drown out the noise of nothingness.

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I ended up falling asleep eventually.

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When I woke up that morning, I almost forgot about how scared I was.

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I walked to the fridge to grab some juice, and that's when I saw it.

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A bright pink sticky note was stuck to the fridge that said, You can't keep me away, with another smiley face attached after that statement.

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After being frozen for about 30 seconds, I ran to check every door and window in my house, and they all were still locked.

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I know for a fact that nobody had a key to my house.

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My family lives in another state and I'm not close enough with anyone here to trust them with a key

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Somehow this person got inside my house and left a message on the fridge.

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I Wasn't playing around anymore.

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I called the police and gave them the info They claimed to have done an investigation, but they weren't able to get any useful information

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Unfortunately random notes were not a lot for them to go

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off of at least that's what they said They did try to check the cameras in the parking lot where I work, but where I park the cameras don't reach

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The employee parking spaces are on the side of the store and there are no cameras there.

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The police concluded that it had to be someone who knew me.

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I would have agreed if it were not for the note inside my house.

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I'm a freak when it comes to locking my door, so I know that nobody had access to getting inside the house.

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I stayed at a friend's house for a couple nights just because I wasn't ready to sleep at my place yet.

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We ended up going to the hardware store and bought all new locks for the doors.

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That first night back at my place, my friends stayed over with me and nothing happened that night.

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A few months had gone by and nothing happened.

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No new notes at work and nothing at my house.

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It was over two months later when I left for work one morning

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and I noticed one of the horrible pink notes on my front door.

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I grabbed the note and it said, I guess you don't want to play anymore.

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I called the police right away but they didn't do much.

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I invested in cameras after that, but nothing ever happened again.

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Changing the locks in my house might have saved my life.

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Somehow this person had to have had a key to my house.

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It's the only thing that makes sense to me.

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What I can't figure out is why me, and who was that person.

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Whenever I think back about that entire situation, I almost get sick.

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I think back to the night I heard something inside the house.

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There had to have been a person hiding somewhere, just inches or feet from where I was standing.

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Why didn't they harm me then?

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I wonder if messing around with me was all this person wanted.

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A friend once told me that when I went back to the room and locked the door, it's possible that this person tried to get into the room, but locking the door may have saved my life.

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It's been 10 years and nothing has happened since that last note.

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I have since moved and I'm married now.

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Every time I see those stupid pink sticky notes, I always think back to that horrible experience.

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Whatever the case may be, I'm just happy I'm still here to tell the story.

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193 sentences

Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “3 Disturbing TRUE Unexplainable Horror Stories”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: door, dog, note. This video has 350 sentences and 4928 words to shadow. The speech runs for 24:36. The speaker talks fast, about 200 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 83% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.

Key vocabulary in this video

The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
basement noun	/ˈbeɪsmənt/	A floor of a building below ground level.
bark noun	/bɑɹk/	The exterior covering of the trunk and branches of a tree or of various other woody plants.
giggle verb	/ˈɡɪɡl̩/	To laugh gently in a playful, nervous, or affected manner.
sticky adjective	/ˈstɪki/	Tending to stick; able to adhere via the drying of a viscous substance.
hallway noun	/ˈhɔlˌweɪ/	A corridor in a building that connects rooms.
prank noun	/pɹæŋk/	A practical joke or mischievous trick.
downstairs adverb	/daʊnˈstɛɹz/	Down the stairs.
yell verb	/jɛl/	To shout; holler; make a loud sound with the voice, especially to express intense emotions such as anger or excitement.
scare verb	/skɛɚ/	To frighten, terrify, startle, especially in a minor way.
intruder noun	/ənˈtɹudɚ/	Someone who intrudes.
paranormal adjective		Of events, experiences, or phenomenona, that cannot be explained by current scientific understanding or natural laws.
peephole noun	/ˈpiːphoʊl/	A small hole, opening, or piece of glass, especially in a door, through which one can look without being seen.
smiley noun	/ˈsmaɪli/	A simplified representation of a smiling face.
terrify verb	/ˈtɛɹɪfaɪ/	To frighten greatly; to fill with terror.
stool noun	/stuːl/	A seat for one person without a back or armrests.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
end up verb		To bring to a conclusion.
figure out verb		To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce.
calm down verb		To become less excited, intense, or angry.
wake up verb	/ˌweɪk ˈʌp/	To stop sleeping; to awake.
come across verb		To change sides; to cross over to work for the opposition.
come forward verb		To offer help or information, especially about a crime.
find out verb		To discover, as by asking or investigating.
get away verb		To move away (from).

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

As I said before, I'm a very skeptical person.
I won't lie, that actually did scare me.
It was like I wasn't even there.
I couldn't have been more wrong.
Why didn't they harm me then?

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	was set · was annoyed · were knocked
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	I've been · have not been · they've been
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	guy who works · children who were · woman who lived

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 114 contractions and reduced forms, such as didn't, I'm, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: charade /ʃəˈɹeɪd/, flirtatious /flɚˈteɪʃəs/, vanish /ˈvænɪʃ/, vicious /ˈvɪʃəs/, satisfaction /sætɪsˈfækʃən/
Long words — get the stress right: elaborate /ɪˈlæb.ə.ɹeɪt/, satisfaction /sætɪsˈfækʃən/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like basement, bark, giggle.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

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