Red Eye

It has been a while since I have posted on this site as ghostly encounters do not exactly happen often. However I have an encounter worth sharing. This encounter happened not to me, but to my twin brother during his junior year in college. I have received his permission to share this story and asked him to recount every detail, as it is likely one that he will never forget.

First, some background on my brother. When we were growing up, he was always the athletic one. Even though we are twins, his personality is quite contrast to mine; he is nonchalant, and does not take things too seriously. He is a natural tough guy. He spends a great deal of time at gym and when he is not at the gym he is at football practice. Being in college, he was always a partier, however he almost never drank and was always self-composed. He has never experimented with drugs and always kept himself out of trouble. Like everyone else, he was skeptical about the paranormal and told me I was full of it when I told him my encounter (see my other story "Waiting for the Bus"). It was not until he had an experience of his own that he began to believe. Unfortunately, his experience was not pleasant. Not at all.

My brother went to college in Rhode Island. He went to a smaller university that resided near a quaint downtown area with older homes and rustic shops, classic New England. At the time, there were too many students and not enough dorms. While new dorms were being constructed, some students of the university dormed at a nearby high rise which was just across a bridge stretching over the Providence River. The structure was once a hotel which for some reason went under. At which point the university converted the hotel rooms into dorms. Each cookie-cutter room was the same as the others: they were L-shaped with a bathroom and a main living space. My brother lived there for about seven months with his roommate, Kyle, who he conveniently went to high school with.

One night in autumn, my brother and Kyle were watching TV late at night. They stayed up until about midnight until they both went to bed. My brother is a light sleeper and frequently wakes up throughout the night.

My brother woke up around three to four in the morning. It was dark, but there was light coming in through the window from a bright full moon. He rolled over in bed and was facing the doorway to his dorm room. It was then when he saw Kyle crouched down on the floor in the middle of the room. My brother watched him for a second. It was as if he was looking for something. My brother then said, "Kyle, what are you doing?" Kyle then stood up, paused, then walked over to a mirror on the wall. My brother sat up in bed. Even though he saw him move across the room, Kyle didn't make any noise at all. My brother then repeated himself, "Kyle, what the F*** are you doing?" Kyle stared at himself in the mirror. My brother saw him push his hair back as if he was fixing his appearance. It was then when my brother gave up and rolled back over to face Kyle's bed. My brother panicked. There, in Kyle's bed, was Kyle. Sound asleep.

My brother shot back out of bed to see the dark figure staring at him. He froze. After a few seconds the figure turned around and walked away, rounding the corner into the bathroom. Minutes passed until he finally got up and turned the lights on. He peered around the corner to see an empty bathroom, no one was there.

From that night on my brother could not sleep. He tried sleeping with the lights on until Kyle, who didn't believe him, told him to turn them off as it was affecting his sleep. About a month passed and my brother was starting to forget about the strange figure, until he awoke again around the same time one night. My brother looked over toward the corner to the bathroom when he saw the figure again watching him from behind the wall. He could only see half of the figure, as he was concealed by the corner, but what my brother did see was one red eye that "blinked" on the figures face like a human eye should. The dark figure then slowly withdrew behind the corner and my brother never saw it again. He moved out a few days later.

After a few months, my brother and Kyle went home for the summer. Upon catching up, Kyle then told my brother that he saw a man in his bathroom mirror in his house, but he couldn't tell if it was real. Since then, neither one has had any experiences.