"My family travelled to the south of France to stay in a cottage owned by someone my Dad worked with. The owners visited occasionally but that summer it was free and we had 10 days booked in there.

After a long two days on the road we drove down a steep driveway towards a secluded mill cottage, with the water wheel sat static alongside the stone house.

There was a deep cellar with stone stairs down under the wheel next to the house, and a small river circled the place.

We went into the house and chose rooms, but being set down in a small copse, the house was draft and cold from lack of use. We settled in and turned all of the heating on, yet the house remained cold and felt damp.

The first night we had set a fire in the living room and listened to a couple of audio books before my sister and I went to sleep. My parents stayed up a little longer then went to bed.

Around midnight they both woke up at exactly the same time, and the door to their bedroom was opening slowly.

At first they thought it was my sister until they saw a large dark silhouette of a man framed in the doorway, standing stock still, just looking in their direction as if appraising them.

After a short period, the shape turned and started to move, as if satisfied, and disappeared. They looked at each other, but didn't speak, and both went back to sleep.

The next morning the house felt warm and dry, and sunlight was back through the windows, as if something had lifted, and accepted them.

They spoke the next day and both agreed that although they were skeptics, it could not have been anything other than something supernatural in that doorway, deciding their worth." -Dave