Paranormal Phenomenon?

When I was younger me and my brothers would spend the summers at my grandparents cottage. It was a very beautiful place that was no less then 5 miles from town and was surrounded by trees. We weren’t in a secluded area by any means, but traffic was very limited which made it that much more relaxing and peaceful. The cottage was located on a rather large 5 bay lake which was ideal for fishing, swimming, boating and my all time favourite snorkeling. Due to the fact that the cottage was built on a fairly steep hill and no place to put a shed near the water to hold our life jackets, tubes and other water related items we stored everything in the basement.

On the side of the cottage that faced the water was the only full sized door way into the basement of the cottage but was not the only entrance. On the other side of the cottage there was a crawl space entrance near the main entrance to the cottage where my grandmothers cat would leave us presents such as bats or mice when she would hunt at night. It was too small for an adult to slide in even if they made it through once they got into the basement they would have to crawl on their stomach as that part of the basement was very small and was never used for anything not even storage.

I had always found the basement to be a little creepy so if I had to go into the basement I would get in and get out quick making sure I had every light on so that nothing would jump out and scare me half to death. I would usually only go down to the basement with someone else as I was still a child and easily scared with a wild imagination but one warm sunny day everyone was already in the water by the time I got back from a sleepover at the neighbours cottage. Since I had wanted to join them I had to go into the basement to get my life jacket and my snorkel along with anything else I had wanted to play with while in the water. I made my way to the outside door of the basement and took a deep breath and started to make my way in. Right beside the door were 3 light switches one for the furnace room to my right, one for the storage room to my left and one for the next room in front of me. I turned on all 3 lights and started walking into the room right in front of me, which is the original basement which was mostly just a rather large rock. We kept our life jackets, tubes, water skies and everything else of a bigger size on the rock which also allowed for them to dry before the next use. I was sure that my life jacket must be sitting on the rock where I left it the day before so I took a deep breathe and walked towards the door. I wasn’t even half way to the door when I saw a shadow coming from the right of the door and it looked as if it was moving towards the doorway. I said hello and asked who was there and got no response. With my heart pounding in my chest I help my breathe waited a second and then turned around and ran out of the basement but stopped to look back at the door when I reached the corner of the basement. I stood there only able to hear the sound of my heart pounding watching the door to see who it was that had scared me half to death but no one ever came out of the basement. I ran up the steps into the cottage to find everyone sitting at the table eating lunch which only added to my confusion and my terror. Who or what did I see in the basement? I have yet to come up with an answer some 15 years later.