I’ve decided to kick off my paranormal story collection with my own first experience. This is a story that I’ve pondered over for many years; was it a hallucination? Did I make it up so long ago that I’ve somehow convinced myself it happened? Was it a dream that just seemed so real that the mind of a five or maybe six year old couldn’t sort it out as fiction from fact? While I maintain my belief that this is 100% fact to this day, I do not dismiss the possibility that my mind and my imagination ran away together. Now, before we begin, I’m going to provide a little background information that is necessary to the story. I am one of five children, although at one point, through adoption, that number grew to six. The order of my siblings is a simple one, the youngest is a boy, with three girls stacked on top, leaving my two oldest brothers (one biological, one adopted) sitting at the top of the totem pole. The difference in age from my oldest brother to my youngest is ten years, and I fall in as second from the bottom, about four years my brothers senior. The only one not born into the house we grew up in is the oldest biological brother of mine, who was instead born in Oklahoma while my father was in school for aviation technician training for the military. When they moved back to Minnesota, where the rest of us were born, they picked a house in Minneapolis that was built in the early 1900’s. While the history of the house is quiet and scarce, the experiences people have had within its walls are anything but. While my parents live in denial of any sort of activity, it has been experienced by nearly all of my siblings, as well as several guests. When my parents first moved into the house, it was large, but not large enough. Soon after the birth of the youngest of their children, my parents decided to ad an addition to the house, creating the six bedroom, five bedroom house that still stands today. My first experience happened shortly after the completion of the upper level of the house, which was converted from a one bedroom, one bathroom floor with sloped ceilings and an attic to a four bedroom, two bathroom floor, which also included the second laundry room in the house. The three rooms at the top of the stairs belonged to me and my two sisters, the oldest to the left of the stairway, mine on the right, with the middle sister’s door at the very top. I spent many nights in the room across the hall from me, inside of my oldest sisters room. We would watch movies until what felt like very late, although I’m sure it was never past 9:00. There was one night, in particular, though, where I had either fallen asleep, or she had, while we watched a movie. It must have been either a Friday or Saturday, because I distinctly remember it being REALLY late (which means past 9:00). When the movie was over, and we were both once again conscious, I asked if I could just stay the rest of the night in her room instead of walking across the landing to mine. I was either five or six at the time, making her either eight or nine, and in proper eight or nine year old fashion, she refused. So with sleepy eyes and a crabby demeanor, I left her room to make the five foot trek to mine. I shut her door and turned around, only to freeze mid-pivot. My heart, I’m pretty sure, literally stopped for a brief second. At first I thought it was my little brother, sleepwalking as he, and I, sometimes did. But this was not my little brother. Yes, he was small, looking to be about two years old,  with blond hair like my brother, but his eyes were not the same dull shade of green that looked back at me. He stood in front of the last pole of the banister, maybe a foot and a half from myself. What startled me most was the green. Yes, the green. No, not like Slimer from Ghostbusters, and not like a martian. There was no gooey residue that covered the child, only a film of green tint, and that is the only way I can describe it. Sort of like a green spotlight was focused only on him, but had no point of origin, as if it radiated from within. I remember reaching back for my sisters doorknob but being unable to open it, then darting into my bedroom and slamming the door shut behind me. The entire experience felt like twenty minutes, but I’m guessing it really lasted about thirty seconds, maybe less. I don’t remember anything else about that night except burrowing underneath the covers and hiding my face in the mane of my oversized stuffed horse (a friend I took on every sleepover and trip with me until I was literally about sixteen, old habits die hard). This was the one and only time I have ever seen the little boy from the hallway, but it’s far from my last experience. While in recent years the activity has died down to a quiet lull, and I have considered the idea of poltergeists causing most the activity I experienced in my later years (there were a lot of very hormonal teenage girls in a small space), I have no explanation for the little boy. Perhaps he was just lost, or again, a figment of my imagination. I can say in all honesty that for me, it was as real as the sun setting in the west, and I will never forget the little boy I met in the hallway that night.