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Real Ghost Stories

Since this is my first story on here I want to give a little info about myself for better understanding of my state of mind during any events I describe: I've always been interested in the supernatural/paranormal for as long as I can remember. It's always been a fascinating subject for me and I constantly read ghost stories and watch videos on YouTube with a hope of some definitive proof that there are such things as ghosts/aliens/etc. However, there is a large part of me that is incredibly skeptical and despite multiple occurrences I still cannot fully embrace the idea of the supernatural being a real thing. This is because I have a very overactive imagination. Even at the age of 35 I can easily psych myself out by thinking too much on certain topics, so I have to be careful in determining if my reaction is one of an imagination run rampant or if I am truly experiencing a phenomenon. Any feelings I have that may be caused by the paranormal starts with my arms tingling, then my scalp/back of neck will tingle and sometimes there's a hollow sensation in the pit of my stomach, however, most of these feelings (arms/scalp tingling) can happen too when I get excited by something, so again I have to be aware of what I was doing/thinking at the time and not write it off as paranormal every time it happens. That being said: I WANT to believe.

These are the most recent events that have happened. I figured I'd start with these and work my way back to earlier ones.

I work 3rd shift at a relatively small hospital doing floor maintenance (stripping, waxing, scrubbing and buffing). I have one coworker 'Wade' and we essentially do the floors for the entire hospital. Normally we work together but our days off are alternating so there's at least one of us working on any given night. Usually our solo nights are the times we designate to scrub and buff all the main halls and lobbies and when we're together we do the waxing, so this night I was scrubbing (as I am when all these occurrences happen) and always in the area of the Gastrointestinal (G.I.) Lab and Recovery. I'll try my best to describe the layout for better understanding. (I apologize in advance for spelling out each area, but usually whenever I talk to someone who doesn't work in a hospital they always ask what something means when I refer to an area using shorthand terminology which has become rote habit, so I figured it'd save me some potential questioning later.)

I always start on the second floor where the G.I. Lab and Recovery units are and work my way down to the ground floor where we put the machines when I'm done. When you step off the employee elevators onto the second floor to the right is the single set of doors to the Medical/Surgical (Med/Surg) unit and to the left there are three sets of doors: on the left leads to the second floor sitting area and visitor elevators, to the right is Sterile Processing for surgical equipment and straight ahead leads to the outer G.I. Lab hall. Going through those doors into the hall there's two G.I. Operating Suites on the right, on the left is the doors to the G.I. Observation unit and straight is a set of doors that leads to a long hall with the Operating Rooms (O.R.) to the right, Recovery to the left and Labor and Delivery (L&D) at the end. The G.I. Observation unit is like a sideways "U" with doors at each end that enter into Recovery and the rooms around the edges with the nurses station in the middle area. There's a small door that leads out to the sitting area on the opposite side of the unit from the double doors of the outer G.I. Hall. All the doors are electronic and require a badge to open going into the units and a button when exiting except the doors that lead back out to the elevator landing, it opens automatically when you approach from the G.I. Side.

Whenever I'm in the G.I./Recovery area while scrubbing I usually have feelings of being watched (which I usually just chalk up to the aforementioned imagination) and occasionally will hear fixtures rattling. My coworker believes there is the ghost of a little boy in that area and that he likes to play with the bathroom light and room fixtures. I've had the bathroom light come on randomly while I'm working (it has a motion sensor switch, so I'm not certain it isn't just my shadow or reflection in the mirror setting it off).

There have only been three experiences so far that I can't easily explain: the first happened the middle of last year when I was scrubbing the outer G.I. Hall and with every pass the automatic doors to the elevator landing opened and then closed when I was on the far end. Except when I was done. I finished up and was heading for the doors when they suddenly wouldn't open. Thinking that I had tripped the sensor that keeps the doors from opening if someone is too close, I backed up to try again. No luck. I even hit the button used for such an occasion and still nothing. Getting a little frustrated I muttered "seriously?!" and immediately the doors opened.

The second time was around October last year and I had just gotten started sweeping in the G.I. Observation area before I could scrub when I started feeling very uncomfortable and uneasy and my arms/scalp started tingling with the hollow pit in the stomach coming on. This is usually when I have to evaluate what I was thinking about beforehand to determine if I was just hyping myself up. I realized that I wasn't thinking about anything in general, just wanting to get done with work. The feeling kept getting stronger and I felt like I really didn't want to be in there so I went out the outer hall to get the scrubber. When I turned to start scrubbing I heard the small door to the sitting area start rattling pretty hard. At first I thought it was security messing with me, because we prank each other all the time, when I realized that the sound was moving around the unit to all the outer doors. Then all the sensors above them started clicking rapidly for a few seconds before stopping and silence. I was more than a little freaked and I didn't scrub that area, but decided that I at least needed to do the outer hall.

I was still feeling the tingling feelings, but the uneasy, hollow feeling was fading. I started scrubbing and after the first pass of the automatic doors (they opened normally this time) I made my way to the other end and as I was rounding that end I looked in the direction of the closing doors and saw a flash of a yellow/white light go past the small windows in the doors going in the direction of the sitting area. I tried to reason that it was a reflection in the window, but the doors were closing to slow for how fast the light went by and there wasn't a bright enough light in that area to reflect something that clearly. Add to that the fact that the tingly feeling intensified almost tenfold. My scalp tingled so hard I thought my hair was going to spontaneously combust. Again I tried to rationalize that I was just getting overly excited after what had happened earlier, but that didn't explain why the feeling almost immediately faded after I got on the elevator and went down to the first floor.

The last event happened just the other day. One of our other duties is to gather all the trash from the cans around the outside of the hospital and in the lobby/waiting areas. I was in the second floor sitting area outside G.I./Recovery emptying the can right beside the small door to G.I. Observation, I had my back to the visitor elevators, when it felt like someone was coming up behind me. It was the feeling you get when there's someone standing directly next to you, but it started off like it was at a distance and was moving closer/getting stronger. I turned around and no-one was there. Generally I tend to keep my back turned towards a wall at all times (due to an incident at my last job that I plan on posting about sometime), but figured I wasn't going to be there long and I guess I dropped my guard. There was no tingling feeling, but a little bit of the hollow stomach feeling.

Sorry for the long post and if this is an indecipherable mess, I have trouble articulating my thoughts into text on a large scale like this.