I had a very rough childhood to begin with. I moved a lot, but one thing remained the same when I moved in with my mom for the second time at 16 years old. I remember waking up freezing cold in this old, rickety, trashed trailer. That was the normal. Let me give you a little perspective on my room. I had two mirrors. One was a half mirror I used to do my makeup; it sat on the floor. The other was a body mirror I had hung on my door. When I got out of bed, my dresser was directly in front of me, beside the makeup mirror on the floor. There was a built-in closet on one wall and a toilet with a sink in the other corner.

I climbed out of bed for my pajamas and stood in front of my half mirror. When I bent down to grab them, I happened to glance up into the mirror. There was a silhouette of a man with a trench coat and a fedora, but he was directly behind me. Not standing in front of the mirror or inside it, but the perspective made it seem like he was directly behind me. I was frozen in that hunched over state for what felt like the longest five minutes of my life. I stared at this man who just stayed still for a minute or two before disappearing into my closet. I laid down and covered my head with my blanket, absolutely mortified.

Things would get moved around a lot, especially my hairbrush. I was terrified of mirrors for months after this and covered every mirror I had or encountered with whatever I could! To this day, I still don’t look long in mirrors.

A few years after this incident, he was still with me when I moved to my best friend’s house. The day I moved in, I was with her and my nephew. She told me she felt like something was following me. As she said this, my nephew looked down a flight of stairs and yelled, “Uh oh!” Then the door shuts. They heard footsteps and many other things as well. But I truly believe my hat man was protecting us from something evil. One occasion, I had been babysitting my nephew. We were on the first floor when I began to hear angry and very loud footsteps upstairs. Mind you, it was just me and a one-year-old alone. Then, I heard the oven beep and flash a warning of “no power” on the front of it. I walked over to see what was happening, and then the bread bag flies off the counter at me. I saw my hat man standing in the corner of the kitchen, but this time I wasn’t frozen in fear. I felt the urge to leave, now! I ran to my nephew and we went outside to their cabin, which they thankfully had. I believe my hat man distracted me from whatever was upstairs, because I was going to go look when the oven beeped.

This house had bones found in the garden and a blood stain found inside the bathroom. I think something evil was upstairs that day, and my hat man protected us.