I am a 17 year old girl who experienced something truly terrifying. I was an average teenage girl, with a completely normal life. Nothing strange or out of the ordinary has ever happened to me before this event.

Recently, I got a new job at a local cinema, where many other teens worked. Normally, I would work from 10am-5pm but my manager thought I should start working later hours like the other employees, to make it fair. This is when things started to go horribly wrong…

One night, I was working from 5pm-midnight. I was nervous because I have nyctophobia (fear of the dark), however it was time for me to grow up so I just dealt with it. The cinema closes at 11:30, giving us half an hour to do the last little bit of tidying and locking up. Once the last few customers had left, me and two of the boys, who worked the same hours, swept the floors then turned off the lights ready to go home.

The two boys got out their car keys and one of them offered me a lift home, but my mum was on her way so I thanked him for asking but rejected the offer. The cinema was located on a country road which was long and narrow. There were only a couple of street lights which were randomly dotted along the road, barely lighting the path. I waited for my mum in the doorway of the cinema, she usually buys me food on the way to picking me up so it wasn’t surprising that she was not here yet. 7 minutes had passed and I was starting to creep myself out by imagining scary situations like men running out me from the darkness of the woods or a murderer grabbing me as their next victim.

Then my phone went off and I heard the little tune coming from my pocket. I pulled it out expecting it to be my mum calling. I looked at the screen and saw that it was an unknown number, I suddenly felt a need to answer it (even though I never answer unknown numbers). I swiped across the bottom of my screen and held the phone to my ear. “Hello?” I said, my voice slightly husky from sitting in the cold. There was no reply. As I went to hang up, a high pitched scream came out of the phone. I pressed the red button as quick as I could, my heart racing.

I called my mum, wondering where she is because she’s never been this late before. No answer. I assumed she was driving and I hoped she was close. I wanted to get out of the cold and dark. I looked down the road, searching for any sign of car lights. The streetlight at the end of the road was flickering and had been broken for weeks now. It reminded me of a horror movie so I turned away because I didn’t want to frighten myself anymore than I already had. My phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out to see a text message from another unknown number.

The message read “I see you”. My heart sank as I looked around me, preparing to see someone in the trees opposite the cinema. It was pitch black, I couldn’t see anything or anyone. I deleted the message and rang Martin, the boy who offered me the lift home. He answered almost immediately and I told him everything that had happened. He told me he was on his way and I called my mum a second time. She answered but she didn’t say anything.

All I heard was car alarms. “Mum? MUM?” I shouted waiting for some sort of reply. The call ended and my breathing started to become heavy. I saw car lights coming towards me, I ran to the car relieved that Martin had arrived. I opened the car door and hopped inside. I sighed and turned to give Martin a hug. But it wasn’t Martin next to me… A man with a large, creepy smile was staring at me. His eyes were black and his arms were abnormally long, he started to hum the tune of my ringtone. He started to giggle before saying the dreaded words… “I see you”

–END–