This is something that happened back in high school when I went over for a sleepover at a close friend's house.
Her house sat directly behind a renowned shrine that drew worshippers from out of state, and she had always joked with a laugh, 'Things pop up at my place every now and then.' I wasn't sensitive to the supernatural, and having visited her place several times without ever experiencing anything strange, I had zero fear. I just headed over that evening looking forward to our sleepover.
Her parents were out of town on a trip that day, so we ordered pizza, snacked on junk food, and hung out late into the night. When we finally decided it was time to shower and go to bed, she let me use the bathroom first.
I sat on the stool, lathered up my shampoo, and started rinsing the suds under the showerhead, but suddenly, I felt a presence behind me. An uneasy, creeping sensation that someone was standing right behind my back. (Calm down, it's just your imagination. There's no way. Don't think about it.) I desperately tried to reassure myself as I kept rinsing, but the suds refused to wash away. In fact, the more water I ran over my head, the foamier my hair seemed to get. (Why? I just want to finish up and get out!)
Clawing frantically at my scalp in a rush of panic and dread, a horrifying thought crossed my mind.
What if someone is standing behind me, lathering more shampoo onto my head...? The moment that thought hit me, terror almost knocked me unconscious.
Just then, I heard my friend's voice from outside the bathroom: 'I'll leave a towel right here for you.' Hearing her pulled me right back to reality, and the presence behind me vanished. Shaken to my core, I couldn't even manage a reply; I just frantically rinsed the remaining shampoo out of my hair, skipped conditioner entirely, and scrambled out of the bathroom like my life depended on it.
When I stumbled into her room with my hair still dripping wet, she looked startled and asked with concern, 'What's wrong? You're completely pale.' Half in tears, I explained what happened in the shower and told her that her voice had saved me. She listened quietly, nodding along. That helped me calm down, and we slept huddled together for the rest of the night.
The next morning, as she walked me to the front door to see me off, she gave me a troubled look and said, 'I didn't want to bring this up last night, but while you were in the shower, I never went near the bathroom. You brought your own towel in with you, remember? Still, I think it was a good thing you didn't answer when that voice spoke to you. Stuff like that happens around here all the time, and I was always raised never, ever to reply if something calls out to you.'
I still love my friend dearly, but I never set foot in her house again.
