A kid had an imaginary friend named Charlie. Every time the kid was alone in his room, he would feel like Charlie was there. But then, things started to get really creepy. The kid would wake up with scratches on his body. His parents thought it was the cat at first, but they soon realized the cat was locked out of the room at night. They suspected that Charlie was not so friendly after all, but perhaps a malevolent ghost.
There's a story where a boy's ghost imaginary friend would make him do dangerous things. The friend would tell him to climb onto the roof or touch the stove when it was hot. His parents were terrified and sought help. Psychologists thought it was just a phase, but the family was sure it was something more sinister related to the 'ghost friend'.
The sense of the unknown. Since the imaginary friend is a ghost, you don't really know what it wants or what it's capable of. It could be friendly one moment and turn scary the next.
The unknown nature of these 'friends' is terrifying. They can be shadowy figures or just voices, and you don't really know where they come from or what they are capable of. In some stories, they seem to have powers that are used to frighten the children, like moving things around or making strange noises that you can't explain.
The fact that the imaginary friend can seem to know your deepest fears and use them against you is quite frightening. They might create situations that play on your phobias, like if you're afraid of the dark, they'll make the room darker or make strange noises in the dark. This makes the victim feel completely helpless as they can't escape from something that exists in their own mind.
When the imaginary friend whispers really dark and menacing things. For example, when the boy was told that the shadows were coming for him. It plays on our fears of the unknown and the things that go bump in the night. These words can create a very spooky atmosphere in a child's mind and in the whole household.
The scariest element is often the unknown. Since the imaginary friend is only visible to the kid, it creates a sense of mystery. For example, in stories where the friend tells the kid to do bad things, we don't know what the motivation is. Another scary part is when the friend seems to have some kind of control over the kid. It makes you wonder if there's something more sinister at play.
One story could be about a little girl who had an imaginary friend named Lily. But at night, she would hear strange whispers that she thought were from Lily. One night, she saw a shadowy figure that looked like Lily in the corner of her room. It was really spooky. She told her parents but they just thought it was her overactive imagination.
A really scary anonymous ghost story involves a bridge. It was said that a young girl had jumped off the bridge to her death many years ago. Since then, drivers at night would sometimes see a girl in a white dress standing on the edge of the bridge. When they stopped to help, she would disappear.
A really scary one is about a hotel room. Guests would wake up in the middle of the night feeling a cold presence. They would see the imprint of a body on the bed next to them, as if someone was lying there. It was said to be an entity that met a tragic end in that room.
A student in a dorm once woke up in the middle of the night to see a white figure floating above his roommate's bed. He was so scared that he couldn't move or make a sound. When he finally managed to turn on the light, the figure was gone and his roommate was still sound asleep.