This is quite a mystery Still to this day. I do not know what exactly happened. This took place about 15 years ago. I still remember every detail as if I was still living in the moment. At the time, I was the second oldest of five, with a wonderful dog named Princess Leia. Rest in peace, my sister being 12 and I being 10. My parents left to go meet up with their friends. My other brothers and sisters were gone, staying at different places. My sister and I were the only ones at the house.

We lived in a small safe town. At least when we were younger, we believed that my sister's name was Brooke. We always had a lot of fun when it was just the two of us. We were in dance classes and enjoyed them so much. We'd practice or come up with new dances while blaring music throughout the house. We must have been doing this for an hour when our dog started to bark at the back door. We couldn't see Leia and we couldn't see the back door. My sister started feeling creeped out, trying to get our dog to stop. I finally paused the music. We both yelled at Leia to stop and to come to us, and we moved so we could see her. She was still locked at the back door, barking so viciously. We never heard her bark that way before my sister convinced me to go get her.

As I turned the corner, I froze. I looked at Brooke, still in her eyesight, and started to cry. The back door was open. She screamed, oh my god. She grabbed her phone that was sitting next to the computer. I tried to get Leia and head to the bathroom, but she wouldn't stop barking. I couldn't get her to budge, so we left her. We ran in the bathroom, this tiny half bath. We locked the door, crying at each other, thinking what are we going to do? I told her we should climb on the built-in sink where, if someone would shoot through the door, we wouldn't get it.

Our mother watches a lot of crime TV, so we had climbed on the counter and she called my mom, had to have called at least 10 times with no answer. She finally stopped and called our grandmother. She lived in the next town over. We told her someone was in the house and that she needed to come get us right away. And we couldn't get a hold of our mother. My grandmother's response I still can't believe today. This is ridiculous. You guys are fine. Call your mom and then hangs up on us. We were terrified. We had no one that could save us.

Then my dog, leia, stops. She comes to the bathroom door and starts whimpering. I wanted to open the door to make sure she was okay and let her in, but my sister didn't let me, probably for the best. Then, as Leia was in front of the door, you could see a shadow go around her from under the door and slowly walk up the stairs which shared the wall to the bathroom. We heard someone walk up about five steps, one creak in the floorboard at a time. We got super quiet and tried calling our mom again. Leah then stopped whimpering, the creaks were gone and there was silence.

I then told Brooke we have to get out of here. She was terrified that there might have been more than one person and that we just had to wait. I picked up a hairdryer. I gave her a metal bar that hangs towels in the bathroom. I looked at her and said we at least need to try. She swung open the bathroom door and I came out waving the hairdryer.

I went straight realizing I didn't see anyone and turning around to see if anyone was on the stairs. No one. She stayed in the bathroom until I turned the corner to see that the back door was initially left open, was now closed. I got scared again. We knew we heard someone go upstairs. Brooke somehow convinced me to go upstairs and check.

I took Leah. She waited by the front door for my cue to run out. We didn't know where they were. They couldn't have went back outside. She didn't want to go alone. She sat by the door One hand on the lock, and I called for Leah to follow me. There's a flat part at the top when you turn around and there's a few more stairs until you get to the second floor.

When we got to the top part, leah ran ahead of me. She ran to my brother's room, which was right on the right side, just a few feet from me. She started barking again, zeroing in on whatever was in the room. My stomach dropped. We found them. I yelled for Leah, once again, crying. I got her to stop and we ran down the stairs together while yelling Brooke, open the door now. As soon as she saw me coming, she swung the door open and ran out the front door.

As we were running, we saw my mother's car. We followed it back to the house. We didn't use the garage, but they parked in front of it all the way in the back of the house. We followed it all the way back there. By the time we were caught up to it, they were out. We were crying and trying to tell them what had happened. Our dad reassured us that it was all in our head and we refused to go inside until he checked it out. He said we would all check it out together. We walked in the back door that we knew had already been closed.

Again, we walked through the kitchen, through the dining room, into the living room where the front door was, and seen that the front door was also shut, we looked at each other puzzled, knowing neither of us shut the door behind us. We told them when you pulled in, the door was open, didn't you see? They shook it off, saying they didn't pay attention. I told my dad to look in my brother's room just in case. Not all of them were gone. He said he looked in every room, under everything, in everything. There was nothing.

Mark and I knew someone was in our home. What would have happened if I went to the kitchen to shut the door or if I had opened the bathroom door to let Leia in, like I wanted, or if I even went into my brother's room to see who Leia had cornered and couldn't stop barking at. I will never know. Some days I wish I would have just to see who it was or what it was Other days. I'm thankful that I never did. We don't know what could have happened to us. I know we were lucky to make it out that night.