Weird Sounds Past Midnight

There was once, when I was a child, laying in bed in the middle of the night, I heard weird sounds. I am convinced I was awake then - one would have to be awake to be trembling in fear - but I accept that I might had been only half-conscious, or completely unconscious and dreaming away. There is no way to determine that now. I was 8, maybe 9 years old, my family members were all fast asleep, and the house was in near-complete darkness. I heard rattling of the iron grill at the main door.

It was loud, it was clear - it was as if someone, or something, was grappling with it. It rattled. Then, silence. Rattling. Silence. Rattling. The pattern repeated for a good while. I heard it all, and was so terrified I couldn't move, couldn't make a sound - not even to wake my little sister sleeping in the next bed. I don't know how long it went on, I never found out what it was. Chances are, I never told anyone about that night.

There was another instance my sister heard crying in the house. She had somehow awoken, in the dead of night, and heard distinct sounds of weeping - heartbreaking cries, she added - from another part of the house. She was in her bedroom and had not dared to venture out to investigate. She told no one of it then, and only related the experience to me several months later.

As I sit here typing these words, I hear sounds coming from downstairs. Like, things being moved, doors or windows being opened or closed, indeterminate slight clickings and clankings. My family is fast asleep. All lights except that of my room are off. To insist that I am past the age of being terrified would be to be untruthful. I am in fear. Who wouldn't be spooked by unexplained noises one would not expect to hear at this unworldly hour?

This is unlike the iron grill rattling from my childhood, which may very well be nothing more than a vivid dream, given that I cannot be sure if I wasn't asleep. I am fully awake now. This is also unlike the mysterious crying my sister told of, for I was quite sure it was me she heard. Staying up all night and crying was something I tended to do as young adult when feeling depressed. (I am not crazy... wuahahahah *Ahem*) But this - now - I cannot explain what I'm hearing.

And so, yes. I am scared...