I was around 5 years old when I began to experience the unusual and terrifying visits from this figure. I would be asleep in my bed that faced my bedroom window. He would open the window and creep inside. The curtain around the window would whoosh around in the night air that drifted in around him.
He was black in a way that was void of any color, like a black hole of nothingness. He had long stringy greasy-looking hair with a top hat positioned downward over what would have been his forehead. I could see no facial features, only the deepest black where his figure stood, but somehow sensed that he was peering into my soul.
He had a long black trench coat that blew in with the night air. The air around him seemed to come bursting through unnaturally like he was controlling the wind. As he crouched down to come through the window, I could tell that he was overjoyed at my distress. Once he was completely through the window, he would just stand there and stare me down. I was too afraid to speak, run, or even hide under the covers. I was scared that if I took my eyes off of him, he would take it as an opportunity to grab me and take me back to whatever hell he came from.
After he stood there for a moment, he would swoosh his trench coat around and exit in the same manner he entered. Once I saw my window shut, I would run to my parent’s room across the hall to get in bed with my mother. I told her all about it, and she thought it was just a night terror or a bad dream. But after this happened many times, she knew something was unusual about this situation. I slept in her room for a year after that because I could not handle another night of waking up with this creature slipping into my room.
Once I stopped sleeping with my mom, I changed into a different bedroom in my house than the one I previously had. We also put up dreamcatchers and prayed heavily. This was more than a dream. I still remember vividly, to this day, every night that the man with the top hat and trench coat came into my bedroom through the window.