Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night and got the feeling that your are being watched?

When I was a boy I travelled with my parents to visit family quite often and we always used to stop over night at this hotel on the way. One time when visiting family aged about eight, the hotel we normally stayed at was all booked up so instead we stayed at a place called The Stag Inn. There were no family rooms available so I got a single next to my parents room.

The Stag Inn, like most inns was just your average old English pub with a few rooms to stay in. It was friendly, cosy and quite old fashioned. The evening we spent in the Inn was perfectly normal but the night I spent there traumatised me as a child.

The room I stayed in had a painting on the wall opposite from the bed. It was a Georgian painting of a serious looking man wearing a waistcoat and a cravat. There was nothing special about the painting and I lost interest in it only seconds after I noticed it.

Once I had finished my meal in the bar I went to bed. I drifted off to sleep quickly and I abruptly woke up later, I’m not sure what time it was. Something felt off. The moon illuminated through the window lighting up the room slightly and I sat up and stared at the wall for a while until my eyes locked with the eyes of the painting, except they weren’t painted.

The moon gave enough light for me see. The eyes didn’t match with the rest of the painting, they were so lifelike. I kept contact with the eyes, terrified and confused, and eventually I started to think that it was just my imagination. Until they blinked. I threw the duvet over me and buried my head in the pillows, almost crying. I fell asleep not long after.

The next morning I was awoke by my parents for breakfast. I told them what happened the night before and they told me that it was just my imagination. When I went back to my room to pack and leave, I built up enough courage to inspect the painting. There were no real human eyes peering through and no eye holes left behind, the painting was perfectly intact. Despite all this I was sure that what I saw that night was real and it scared me shitless. For a while I had these horrific nightmares about my experience. I became paranoid and checked my room every night before I went to bed and I was terrified of paintings but then at some point as a teenager, I forgot.

Fast forward several years, I had just finished university and was back at home. One evening, while eating dinner with my parents, the Stag Inn was brought up in conversation. This reminded me of my experience there, except now it didn’t scare me, it intrigued me.

I found the location of the Inn and booked the same room as before for one night. It was time to know the truth. I drove up and arrived at the Inn. I checked in and was handed the keys to the room. The room hadn’t changed at all with the painting still hanging in the same place as before and again there was nothing wrong with it. I hadn’t given up though. I searched for a passage way in the wall and then I noticed the cupboard. It was only a couple of feet away from the painting. I’d never thought about it before but it just seemed odd in that place. There was so much more space in the room so why would they put it there? I Looked into the cupboard, it was completely empty, no shelves or coat hangers. I pushed on the back of the cupboard with a feeling of dread creeping over me. It opened.

I walked into a dimly lit box room. It was completely empty. All there was, was a gap in the wall and the back of the painting covering it. I removed the back of the frame carefully and slid out the painting, which revealed another painting, except it had two holes cut out where the eyes were. The frame was at my height and my eyes matched with the holes, it was as if I was meant to look through it.

I peered through, it was night on the other side. The moon light was gleaming through the window. I observed the room until my eyes locked with the eyes of a little boy sitting up on the bed staring back at me in terror. It was me. We kept eye contact for a good few seconds. Then I blinked. My eight year old self hid under the covers and I kept watching, bewildered, trying to process what I was seeing. Then I noticed something. There was a man hiding under the bed. Trembling in fear as he stared back up at me. I widened my eyes at him and he crawled out from under the bed and ran out the room.

I slid the painting back into the frame and entered into the room, it was day time again. The owner came to check the room out, apparently he never knew the room existed. We looked through the painting again and found ourselves staring back into present day.

So much makes sense to me now that didn’t before, but I still have so many questions which will most probably be left unanswered. How could I see into the past and most of all, who was the man hiding under the bed?

Author: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/9ays0z/one_night_someone_watched_me_through_a_painting/
Image: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/758926974676541829/?lp=true