It was the middle of the night when I woke up due to a disturbance I felt. Something felt odd, like something was different in the atmosphere. I was sitting on my bed in my room, my sister sleeping on the room across and my parents on the room downstairs. We have a spare room downstairs which we kept aside for any visitors. I felt like exploring the kitchen for a glass of water, hoping to calm the feeling of the disturbance.

Walking down the stairs, I saw the light coming from kitchen which we always kept ON, as we do not have any other source of light inside our home during night. Walking towards the kitchen, I noticed a shadow behind the open kitchen door which I thought was made by something from the kitchen, until it started to lean forward and walk out. I was shocked, my body frozen, my voice unable to utter a single word. I was not scared, I was fully conscious about the thing right in front of me, but even my mind came to a still.

Having a look at the figure, it was very thin, tall, taller than the entrance to the kitchen, had long arms, but I was not able to have a look at its feet. The shadow slowly lifted its right arm and pointed me towards the room which we kept aside for guests, and in a deep, ghostly voice it said to me, “Go and sleep.”. Me still conscious, but my body and mind under its command, moved on its own towards the room, closed the door and lied down on the bed. There was no pillow or mattress on it, I felt the slam on my head when my head struck the wood. May it was that which triggered my conscious to regain control over my body.

Immediately I got back up and rushed to the door, just to see the shadow waiting outside the room to greet me, making me freeze again. This time, it had more to say, and that too in a angry voice, “I asked you to sleep!”. It waved its hand and this time, I was floating in the air. Like the magician levitating a woman off a table, I was levitating over the bed. I was about a couple of inches off the bed when I got released and my body slammed into the bed. But this time, I couldn’t move. I was just lying there, with no control over my mind or body, I couldn’t even feel fear, just an awareness of what was happening. Sometime later, I got control back of my body, got up and walked slowly towards the door and when I tried to open it, it was locked from outside. One thing which I noticed was, I was still not able make any noises, it was like a mute film running for me. The next best option to do was, go to sleep and wake up knowing this was all just a dream.

When I woke up the next day, I was in the same room but the door was no longer locked. When I asked my mom about the door, she said that she had found the door locked and opened it to see me inside. She also told me that as a prank my sister may have locked the door, but she says otherwise. I asked, why would she think that I would walk down and sleep on the bed without a mattress, and she replied I may have sleepwalked. When I tried to explain what happened, they made fun of me saying that I was dreaming. Am I being played by my own family? Did I really sleepwalk having a nightmare, is that how sleepwalking works? Or was I aware of what really happened that night? I never found an answer to that, but that night always haunted me, as something new is haunting me tonight.