From the Doorway

Informant: Female/23/Korean ancestry

Location: Kaimuki, Oahu

My apartment was never the same after the shadow man experience. Every now and then, it would feel like someone was standing behind me, looking over my shoulder. Or I would hear a knock at the door, but nobody would be there when I looked out of the peephole. I could deal with those things, but there were some things that I couldn’t deal with in a logical way.

One day my boyfriend (at the time) sister came for the day. She had the key to get into the apartment for that day and was coming back in the afternoon. I decided to take a nap. I fell asleep on my bed in the middle of the afternoon, probably around 2pm. I woke up because I thought I heard the sound of the door open, and keys jingling. I thought, “She’s back, I better get up!” But for some reason, I couldn’t move. But I was able to see the doorway, and it looked like she was peeking through the doorway at me. I could just see a head.

I thought, “Oh my goodness, how embarrassing! I have to get up!” But I couldn’t move. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t move. It felt like all my muscles were dead; like they were suffocating, if that makes any sense. The whole time I struggled to move, someone was looking at me from the doorway.

Finally I decided that I should just stop trying to fight it. The moment I did, I was able to move. I got up, went into the living room expecting her to be there, but she wasn’t. Nobody was there.