Growing up an only child - even though you're 1 of 4 - means you must be different.
I can't explain this or proclaim to be some gifted thing.
But what I dreamed of that night was surely no dream...
Bedtime was always a scary time for me as a child,
Not because of the dark - but because I knew i'd be alone in the room for another 8 hours.
The house: built in the 1800s. A tall, cold, thin, house - dotted with antiques that embodied distorted faces or creepy gestures.
I never felt scared around the house, just uneasy. Like something was always following me.
The bedroom, however, well... 'my' bedroom, was quite the opposite. It frightened me to the bone.
A child's imagination is a very active one. Mine was no different.
Every night, I had the same nightmare and it always took place next to where I slept.
I would close my eyes and be kissed goodnight, drift off into a gentle slumber - only to be 'awoken'.
A young boy would stand next to my bed and watch. Just watch. I would watch him back.
Surprisingly, this never scared me, because I knew he was there for a reason: To protect me.
From what? I did not know. Until the night the young boy wasn't there.
For 2 yeas of having this boy in my bedroom, he never moved at night. But one fateful night he wasn't there.
An unsettling urge grew in me, propelling me out of my bed and onto my feet. Was I still asleep?
I will never know for sure, but regardless, I had to find this boy.
I 'decided' to creep down the staircase - for what reason I had no idea. It felt like I was being lead to wherever I was going: Like a small cricket being lured to the burrow of a trapdoor spider.
I made it to the bottom of the stairs, and took a sharp U-turn down the hallway and towards to kitchen - where the cellar was located.
This is where my heart began to thump fast. I knew the cellar wasn't a nice place. I knew it wasn't a good place.
The cellar door was already open and all I could see was a black void and the first few steps of a stone set of stairs heading downwards.
I am NOT going down! Yet I did. The compulsion to do so was otherworldly.
I couldn't see a thing as I descended - I only felt an intruding sense of despair.
I knew I had reached the bottom when my heart-rate reached a peak and was absolutely flying - yet had a plunging effect on me at the same time.
It was bitter silence and an extremely faint cold breeze brushed against my cheek and went over my mouth.
This told me I was not alone. But I knew that already.
I stood waiting for something to happen. Nothing did.
Except as each minute passed by, what seemed to be a silhouette of a thin, tall, gangling thing consolidated in the corner of the cellar.
I literally couldn't move a muscle, but with each passing moment I was losing more and more control. To what? I still had no idea.
It didn't matter. As I saw the silhouette of one of the old statues become clearer in the cellar I was struck by orange light.
My mother had switched on the kitchen light from upstairs and was shouting my name.
A warm blush of light swamped into the cellar and I now saw the small statue of an angel in the corner of the cellar.
I was rescued. Ushered out quickly and settled down on a chair, told I had been screaming violently and asked why I was down there.
No answers, I was clearly shaken up.
My mother screamed in terror. She grabbed my wrist and showed me the red mark where someone had been dragging me along with force.
I explained that I must have been sleepwalking.
Then the strangest thing happened next.
I hear my name being called from upstairs - in the voice of my mother.
And the next second she bursts into the kitchen and finds me alone in the pitch black darkness.
