make-believe

I used to believe…

When I was about 10 years old, I had an imaginary friend. His name was Eleven while my (nick)name was Nineteen (my favorite number back then). We often made bets like "I bet [insert name] will be at school today". When it was true, I scored, but when it was false, Eleven scored instead. I think I was even keeping track of our scores.
Later, we (me and Eleven) found two more friends: Fifteen, and Ten.Fifteen scored when the bet was half true and half false (since 15 is half-way between 11 and 19).Ten scored when the bet was neither true or false or completely unclear.

I used to believe…

Because I believed that my childhood home was haunted, I would never sleep alone... So I slept in my mom's bed until we moved out.

I used to believe…

Ok, when I was seven I started to see "Alex". First I say his dog. Then when I was eight I saw him. He had a black hat on and dark brown trousers with a black jacket. When I was eleven I was in tescos and my mum was in the video Isle when I saw a film called the Martian. The guy on the box looked like Alex. That's weird I though. I said to mum, hey mum, that film looks good, she ended up buying it and we watched it that night with my siblings. When I was nearly thirteen I saw him standind in my bedroom door at midnight, only he had taken his hat off. Please talk to me. He said. Who are you I said. I want you to leave me alone! I said as I got up and sat on my bed. He walked in to my room and pushed me back down on to my bed and wouldn't let me get up. He held me down and I shouted at him loudly. Then he got in to the bed and I was just about to slap him round the face when I heard my mum get up. I stayed still and he still held me tight. I was getting very angry. When mum was back in bed he got on top of me and I tried to kick him. I don't remember any more than that. I dont see him often anymore, but I hear his voice in my head.

I used to believe…

A friend of mine told his niece about "Sister". A girl who shows up in your bedroom at night. He told his niece that if she sees her to throw a blanket over her and run to her parent bedroom and tell them. Needless to say his sister and brother-in-law were awakened several times in the middle of the night.

I used to believe…

When I believed that if I sleep with my feet out of my bed a bad ghost would take me away.

I used to believe that there was a broccoli monster that was going to eat me if i didn't eat my broccoli. So i ate as much as i could to prevent the monster from eating me.

I used to think that the vacuum cleaner was a monster and that it was going to suck me up if i got too close. Everytime i saw it, i would scream and try attacking it with a baseball bat but i would run away after that!

I live in Costa Rica. Every December they used to throw a celebration for Virgin Mary with all kinds of religious activities, but there were also carnivals, attractions, cotton candy, the like.

They made "mascadaras" (people dressed like ugly people or monsters like the Devil or Death - I don't really get why there were monsters in a celebration for the Virgin, I think I was about not letting the Devil to capture you and make you sin?). The whole street would be filled with masked people running around with a pig's bladder, hitting everyone in the ass and you have to avoid them (little children were not included in the game, of course - being hit with a pig's bladder hurts like hell). By the way, they only hit people willing to play (in the middle of the street, saying "try to catch me"); if you were on the sidewalk doing noting, they wouldn't do anything to you.

But parents would take their little kids, to the sidewalk, or to their yards, to just watch the game. Kids who WEREN'T told it was a game. It was like a ritual of passage of 2-4 year olds in my town.
A bunch of little kids crying their eyes out because they believed the street was filed with ugly giant people and monsters spanking everyone.

I would locked myself up on my room and cry and shriek when someone tried to take me to see the masked people. I only realized it was fake when I was taken by force and a "Devil" got too near me and I saw a guy inside of the costume.

I used to believe that there was a monster under my bed and that monster spray was real and that it would really get rid of monsters in my room. Years later i found out it was just soap and water...

I had this thing with shadows and dark places (probably from a certain Doctor Who episode I was terrified of) well whenever I walked down the street I felt that the moment I left the light from the lampposts I was unsafe and monsters could get me. The same if I was in the bathroom (we had a light on a string which u pull) I would drag it out as far as it went ready to run away before 'the dark monsters caught me' I had to be out of the dark in a certain amount of time

I used to have an imaginary friend named Mopsy who was a mop. It was a real mop but it only talks and interacts with me in my imagination and dreams. When I couldn't sleep or had problems at night, I would go to mopsy and tell problems to it. It would give me good advice and play with me in my imagination. I kept it a secret from everyone until my mom caught me talking to mopsy at night and she asked me why i was talking to a mop. I stopped believing in imaginary friends 3 days after that.

I used to believe…

My mom told me that if i didn't brush my teeth, the toothbrush monster would sneak into my room and eat me. I started brushing my teeth a lot more after that.

I used to believe vampires were real and that there was one in my closet at night that would suck my blood.

I used to believe…

Me and my sister used to believe that there was a scary ghost thing called Darkrai that would eat us in our sleep if we didn't want to brush our teeth, eat our vegetables, or anything else that my parents wanted us to do. We would wake up our parents in the middle of the night because we were afraid that Darkrai was in our room and going to eat us.

But when my parents were so frustrated that they had to get up every night to our room to make sure there's no Darkrai in our closet, they told us that the whole Darkrai thing was all fake and they made it up just to get us to do stuff we didn't want to do. That's when we learned that Darkrai was fake and my parents were lying all along!

I used to believe that if I checked out books from the library and never returned them, the librarian will get really mad at me and take my library card away from me so I can never check out books again.

I used to believe that the Great Pumpkin was real and I missed out on a lot of trick or treating because of that. Me and my sister sat outside in the backyard waiting for the great pumpkin, all we got was scared by our neighbor's little brother and bitten by a raccoon. After our mom noticed the raccoon bites, we stopped believing in the great pumpkin and we realized how stupid we were waiting for something that doesn't even exist.