Dear Creepypasta [#Wattys2016]

Top hat man

This is something I'm actually terrified to talk about to this day, yet here I am talking about it on the internet. Perhaps someone else has met this man in their dreams, or knows something about it. Now, I'm not afraid of nightmares. I actually love my nightmares sometimes because it gives me great ideas for stories to write. Yet, when this one first came around and stayed with me for almost 10 years, I was absolutely scared shitless. I'm only going to tell you the important dreams out of the many, the ones where things changed. Now, I'm not talking about some Nightmare on Elm Street type deal, because if that was the case, I wouldn't have been able to survive that, I'd die the first dream I had with him. This is different. Without further ado, after my blabbing, I give you the story of The Top Hat Man.

I was only seven years old when I first dreamt about him. I was in my old bedroom in a house we moved from many years ago, which I'm convinced is actually a hangout for spirits because my family and I saw some weird shit. Anyways, I was in the old bedroom when I heard someone knocking on the door. I knew not to go open it because I was just a kid and strangers scare me. Yet, it felt as if my body was forced to go to the door, and when I reached it, I saw a man standing there looking through the glass. He had a wide smile and a top hat on, with a cane that had, I think, a lion head on it. I was about to back away from the door when it slammed open and the top hat man entered, observing everything in my house. He made a tsk noise and kept observing, then he turned towards me flashing that wide smile again. "What's got you so afraid?" He asked in a whimsical voice, almost like Rumple from Once Upon A Time. He clicked his cane three times on the floor and I heard growling from behind me. When I turned to look what it was, the man interrupted me. "Now now, don't wanna look back there, do we?" He screamed this at me, as if I did look, he would have skinned me alive. That's when I heard other children crying from outside my house and the top hat man promised he would be back. I woke up and couldn't sleep after that.

The second time was around the age of thirteen or fourteen? The first dream kept occurring every now and then, but this time I actually saw what was growling. I was older, in our apartment this time. He observed everything again, and when the growling started, I turned to see a thin, long haired man crouched on the floor, his fingers long and thin and his eyes black and red. He crawled around me, still growling. Then the sound of children came from outside again, this time they were laughing. The man creature crawled into the FUCKING floor and I watched as a lump moved through the floors and walls to the outside. "He doesn't hurt anyone unless I tell him so." The top hat man explained, and left.

The next night after this, I had a dream I was eating a bowl of macaroni and cheese while watching tv, and out of the corner of my eyes I saw that man creature staring through my kitchen window. I woke up and covered that window.

Now, this is where it gets weirder. It's another house. All of that same stuff happens, the man creature lumps through the walls and floor towards the children laughing. But this time the top hat man didn't leave. His face was wrinkly as well, and he didn't smile so much anymore. Instead, he got violent. He shoved me to the ground and began to charge after me. I ran away and hid into my mother's bedroom. I heard the clicking of his cane as he walked throughout the house. I ran to the closet, slammed it open, and saw two other kids my age sitting there huddling, covered in dirt and what looked like soot. I hid in there with them. The cane clicking grew closer and through the crack of the closet door, I saw a lump in the wall moving quickly. "He's out there." I spoke and the kids just huddled closer to the dark corners. The children noises outside began to scream as the closet door was ripped open, and the top hat man and his servant stood there. The servant grabbed one of the other children in the closet and dragged him off into the other room. The top hat man smiled at me, nodded, and took the other child, who was screaming for me to help her. I woke up.

That's the last time it happened, the dreams about the top hat man. They were so real, and I was always afraid if I talked about him he would come back and do god knows what to me this time. Sometimes though, during a dream, I'll see him in the distance or see the man creature staring at me from certain locations. That was the last full dream just about them though. It feels nice to actually write about it though. I don't know who he is, what he is, and why. Why to any of it.

But I know now when I looked at kids from the distance sleeping peacefully.