Sometimes, it's not the shadows, the creaky doors, or the flickering of the lights that really scare us, but our own overactive imagination. Unfortunately, most of us have a potent one, so we end up scaring ourselves silly even though there's really nothing we should be afraid of. In an effort to confront our own imagination, we came up with 13 short tales inspired by our favorite lists from Thought Catalog.

1. She is all alone in the jeep, so she made her way to the front to pay her fare. Imagine her horror when she suddenly saw all the seats taken, and the passengers were all staring vacantly at her.

2. I was in my room last night when I heard my mom calling my name, saying that it's time for us to have dinner. She has been dead for 10 years.

3. When I was a kid, we used to have a creepy lady for our next door neighbor. She always seemed to be watching us, and I was glad when we finally moved out. It was only a couple of years later when I learned that the house has been abandoned for more than a decade.

4. She didn't have any problems being the last one to clock out at work, but when the lights started flickering and the monitors started coming to life on their own, she knew it was going to be her last late night shift.

5. I was alone in a jeep on my way home, when the driver veered off the usual route, passing through back roads and inner streets instead of the highway. When I asked why, he said that he saw a lady in black sitting next to me through his rearview mirror.

6. My husband doesn't understand why I hate going to their house. I don't want to tell him that his mother's ghost would always follow me around.

7. She didn't believe that the apartment she was renting was haunted, but when she kept seeing apparitions writing her name in blood, she knew she had to leave.

8. My grandmother who lives alone in the province called me this morning to ask when will I visit her. Later in the day, my uncle sent me a message, saying that she had passed away in her sleep yesterday.

9. "You're next," the lone text message read. He was clutching his dilapidated mobile phone, its battery drained empty.

10. I have the most peculiar recurring dreams. The weirdest one has to be seeing my reflection in the mirror and seeing only a white mask for a face. One day, while driving, I saw that same white mask sitting behind me.

11. I thought I was alone in the elevator last night. Then I heard a deep male voice whisper "Such a pretty lady" directly into my ear.

12. As a cab driver, I thought I had seen everything--until I had a young woman as my passenger one night. There was something off about the trip, but it was only a few minutes later when I realized what it was--the smell of burning rubber. I pulled over to check my tires; they were okay, but when I looked back up, my passenger was gone and there was a scorch mark on where she had been seated.

13. It was a little past midnight, and I was driving all alone from a party. I nearly crashed into a lamppost when I saw a lady sitting behind me, grinning mischievously at the rearview mirror.

(Photo from ISOtob via Flickr Creative Commons)