I know this may sound unbelievable but I had to let myself cope with things for a while in my mind before I would even decide to write it.
Source
When I was about 13, I went to a relative house as my parents were not around so they ( My aunt and her husband) was my guardian. After having so much fun with my cousins during the day, I was placed in the visitor's room to sleep.
I woke up to ease myself within the early hours of the morning (Say about 2 o'clock). It was still dark and there was no light. The lamp in my room has dimmed off. I figured out the door to the room I was staying could not close properly and it opened into the passageway so that light from the passage peeks through the four corners of the door.
So I rolled out of bed to the floor. My bed didn't have a wooden support then. Still on the floor, I sleepily tried to stand up by first assuming a crawly position.
Still about to stand and in the crawly position, I looked up, and there I saw a huge, dark figure standing before me.
It looked like the figure wore a large, black gown (the same kind in the grim reaper pictures) that probably wasn't his size and had a hood attached. The hood was triangular 🔺 with rather unsharp lower edges so it looked like an inverted love symbol. It held a rod (I could tell somehow that it was wooden). This thing was faceless. It looked like a dark endless space was its face.
I was shocked and tried to clear my head. Told myself it was only my imagination and looked again.
My grandfather had just died after some months of being bedridden after he was unable to overcome the cancer he was diagnosed with. Before this time he was my friend and companion. Saying I love and admire him is an understatement, he was both a mentor and a role model. He used to tell me horror stories when I was young which I love listening to. One of the things he would talk about is the grim reaper (Messenger of death), giving a perfect description of what they look like saying anyone that could see them is bound to die soon. I listened to all he says and believe it was true.
During his time of illness, whenever I go to visit him, he would hold my hand and point in the direction of his window that I should see the grim reaper he do tell me about. I would feel sad knowing he was going to die based on what he told me and tell him there was nothing there and he would say I was not looking well.
Now, back to the story about my door. This figure was closer to the door than it was to me. I tried to look at my door and saw that at the vertical border of the door(closer to the handle), it was dark below the shoulder of this figure, while the part above its shoulder still had light peeking through. Somewhat opaque? This figure was there. I couldn't see the light from the lower part of that side of my door any longer. It's real? Oh no!
I face the scary figure again and this time, stared into its empty face. Somehow, I could tell it was staring at me too. I couldn't smell fear around me but still didn't move should anything happen. It just happened that I had the boldness to hold it in and not scream. I felt I communicated with it in a way and in another 10-15 seconds, the figure vanished.
Then, I could see the light peeking through the corners of my door again.
As at this period, I already knew somethinging about the grim reaper... Who he was, what he does and all. I added to my knowledge after watching a movie where it appeared to accompany a child to the gates of heaven, but I still remember what I saw till now. It came and didn't take me.
I later started losing my believe in the existence of the grim reaper but what I saw was almost the exact description of one, except without the scythe(was a rod in this case).
Sometimes after, my brother and I had this same grim experience. We were staying in my litttle after our family moved into a new apartment before my first year of being an undergraduate in the university and the two of us were sleeping in the same bed there.
One night we had literally just laid down to go to bed when we both started hearing some random heavy breathing. There was also a perceived drop in the room mperature and just a strange feeling in the air, somehow hard to describe. I looked over my shoulder since I was sleeping on my side and I saw a tall dark figure standing next to the bathroom door but this time I'm not so sure he was holding the rod/scythe.
While all this was going on, we were both calling to my uncle who was sleeping on the pullout couch in the living room, because we thought it was him messing around with us. But he kept saying it wasn’t him and then the figure disappeared and the breathing stopped and the room was normal again. And then he came in the room so we KNEW it had been a ghost. It was really freaky, especially since we were both totally awake and couldn’t have been dreaming.
Told my family about it later in the morning but no-one took me serious. They concluded it wasn't real or that I probably dreamt about it since I was a clueless teenager still troubled with the death of my grandfather.
It's been over 8 years now. I'm hale, hearty and definitely not sending this from the underworld.