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The original was posted on /r/highstrangeness by /u/greenwitchandsabbat on 2026-08-19 02:01:27+00:00.

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Hello, and good evening folks (for it is the evening where I am writing this)!

I want to start this retelling of my experience off by stating that I am an indigenous woman and have always been a very spiritual person who believes in many things. There was also no alcohol, drugs, or any mind-altering substances present or used during this experience.

I have never retold this story online, but I want to tonight.

When I was about 14 years old (in 2014), I was staying the night with a couple of friends. If I recall correctly, this was on a Sunday and it was in the summer.

We lived in a populated city in NB, Canada, and the neighborhood we lived in was relatively quiet and "normal". There was not much woods around where this experience occurred, but there was a beach nearby and small wooded areas surrounding the beach.

Around 11 o'clock at night, one of my friends (female) and I decided that we wanted snacks and the two of us ventured out to the convenience store a couple blocks away (about a 5-7 minute walk) while the rest of our friends stayed home and waited for us to return.

My friend and I chit-chatted on our walk to the convenience store that we had visited many times before. When we arrived there, we went up the few steps and realized it was closed, so we stepped down and stood on the sidewalk for a second, trying to figure out where we could get our snacks from.

While we were standing there, an old, rickety car (maybe an old Toyota—I really don't know) with an odd-looking driver pulled onto the street in front of us. Come to think of it, I don't even know where this car came from. Maybe I just don't recall, or maybe this car and "man" came out of thin air.

The driver had his driver's window down and was alone in the vehicle. My friend and I stood there and looked at him for a moment as he drove by us slowly. He stared at us and we stared at him. He was a skinny, pale-faced "man" who looked like someone who was on drugs. I don't recall him having any hair, so he was bald.

Side-by-side, we watched his face as he continued to slowly drive his car further away from us, down the street. He didn't take his eyes off of us, and we didn't take ours off of him. Our conversation had halted as soon as this event started, and we just stood in silence, watching.

Even as he drove further away, he was still looking back at us—and he had a weird grin on his sunken face. The grin wasn't the horrifying part, though. The horrifying part was that his neck seemed to stretch out of the car window and wrap around to look behind him at us as he continued to drive off, slowly, while keeping his gaze fixated on us, as if we were prey.

At that moment, I didn't know what my friend was thinking, but something inside of me (or maybe outside of me) shoved me into the street and told me to RUN. I grabbed my friends arm and dragged her across the street with me as my gut filled with a horrific feeling and my adrenaline spiked. As soon as we booked it across the street, the driver halted his car to a stop, and screeched his tires as he quickly backed up to be in direct eyeline of our new position across the street. We were hiding in a bush, fumbling our cell phones, trying to dial 911. Something was not right and both of us were absolutely petrified.

The light on our phone screens was bright, and we heard the car door slam. He has gotten out of his car and was coming towards our position. We immediately darted from our "hiding" spot and ran as fast as we could through people's backyards. I lost one of my shoes during this sprint.

We banged on someone's door. An older lady answered and scolded us, shooing us away because of how late it was. She didn't seem to care that we were frantic and afraid and in danger—she was angry that she was disturbed. We weren't going to stand there on her steps and wait for this "man" to catch up to us, so I grabbed my friend and we booked it down the lady's steps and into another neighbor's yard, where their garage was open.

Inside the garage was a car. Don't ask me what that car looked like, because that was not what was on my mind.

My friend and I hid behind the car—between the car and the back of the garage—and we waited.

My friend was crying and whimpering and I covered her mouth and held her. I was petrified and shaking, but I was quiet because I knew I had to be, and I knew I had to make her be quiet. I had never had a feeling of being "prey" or being in the sights of being killed, but this was the one time in my life (and still is) that I had these feelings. I am grateful about how I reacted and how I was able to protect both myself, and my friend.

We stayed behind that car for a while. It felt like eternity. We didn't know when to leave. We crouched and stayed still and quiet. When time went by and we didn't hear anything, we dialled 911 and told them what happened.

When we got off the phone and thought the coast was clear, we snuck out of the garage, looked around to see if anyone or anything was near, and ran as fast as we could back to our friends house. We were winded when we arrived back and we were eager to get in. We banged on her door because she had locked it behind us and didn't think we would need an emergent entrance on our return.

The police searched the area and found nothing. They said they found no one that matched our description and no vehicles that matched our description, either.

The entire night, the two of us were shaken up.

We both cried hysterically when we were safe inside and able to decompress.

I couldn't sleep for weeks because I could not get that "man's" face out of my head.

Whenever I've told this story to someone, I get jittery and teary-eyed out of adrenaline and fear. It still haunts me to this day.

Years after that, in maybe 2021, or around that year, I dated a native man in my area and told him about the experience. He listened intently and when I finished, he coldly said to me, "You know what that was, right?". I told him, "No.".

He told me it was a skinwalker.

I had heard of the legends and the history of them, and I was baffled that the thought had never occurred to me. It *NEVER* occured to me.

When he told me that, I sank into my seat and felt shook in the knowing of what "that" was.

I am 26 now, and haven't had any experience like that since, nor have I seen anyone who resembles that "man". I also haven't spoken to the friend who was with me for years, but I do wonder if she still thinks about that night.

I feel lucky to have survived that and I truly believe that experience to have been my only "near-death experience".

There is a feeling you get when you know you're about to die or your life is being threatened, and that is what I felt that night.

I will most likely be cross-posting this.

Thank you for reading. I'd love to discuss this with some of you, and am open to answering any questions.