A Ghostly Encounter

It was late summer in 2011, I was in eighth grade. At that time we were living in an apartment. We were on the second floor and on the third floor was a young couple with their three children, all of them were really young, the oldest was in upper kindergarten. All the rooms on our floor were occupied by us, except for a room in which the landlord kept their belongings. It was a large room, with old almirahs and an assortment of items scattered haphazardly, it gave off an eerie feeling when it was dark. My brother and I used to jokingly scare each other saying that the room was haunted.

One Saturday, I can’t recall the reason but I was alone at home. I woke up from an afternoon nap, it was around 2 PM. I realized that I hadn’t washed my school uniforms yet, so I decided to wash it as I had nothing else to do. I was washing the clothes in the bathroom with the door opened and my back facing the door. A corridor ran between the unoccupied room and the bathroom, the bathroom was at the end of the corridor, so it was relatively dark even in daytime if the lights were off. The building didn’t have separate gates for each floor, so anyone in the building could have walked to the bathroom. I wasn’t paying any attention to the clothes I was washing, my mind was preoccupied with fantasies which I don’t remember now. Then the lights went out, it was completely dark for a moment before my eyes got adjusted to the sudden absence of light. This brought me back to my senses. Now I became aware that I was all alone on this empty floor with no current, and the fact that there was the supposedly haunted room behind me. Eventually, creepy thoughts seeped into my mind. I was trying hard to dissuade my mind from thinking such scenarios. But the more I tried to get rid of them, the thoughts and imaginations got more and more vivid. Then as if to exacerbate my already frayed nerves, a haunting incident which happened to my sister weeks before, popped into my mind. A distinct voice, sounding like my mother called her name, from the room next to the unoccupied room. She rushed to the room, only to find mother hadn’t called her at all. Now with that thought firmly planted into my mind I couldn’t think of anything else other than to wash the clothes as quickly as possible and go outside. Then suddenly, I felt I could sense the presence of someone behind me. I tried to dismiss the thought, thinking it was only my imagination as I was scared shit at the moment. I became hyper aware of my surroundings, I could even see things clearly which were in my peripheral view. I refused to look back, as I did not want to yield to my superstition, convinced that looking back would only confirm the presence of ghost. But now, not only can I surely sense someone but also hear a faint sobbing of a child. At this point I was beyond scared; I was paralyzed with terror, all my hairs raised, my skin crawling, even my asshole tingling. I was desperate to get out of that abominable bathroom, silently praying to God for protection and the return of electricity. But I had no choice, both fear and curiosity gripped me. I have to find out one way or another what was behind me, as it is clear now that there was definitely something behind me. So at last I summoned all my courage and decided to look. I was thinking how to confront this predicament, whether to turn slowly, thinking that it would somehow alleviate my overwhelming fear gradually, or turn quickly and bring a quick resolution. I decided to make it quick and turned my head. I was not prepared for what I saw, my heart skipped for a moment and dropped to my stomach. It was a small figure, about three foot tall, bare naked with bald head and was rubbing its eyes. Turns out it was the middle child of our neighbor upstairs. Apparently he couldn’t find his parents and had come to our floor to look for them. I wanted to laugh at the same time the terror and fear still lingered. I was also slightly embarrassed because all this happened because I brought all these terrifying thoughts on myself and that I got scared by a bald ass looking kid.

This won’t be the only terrifyingly comical situation that I’ll encounter. Another similar situation occurred when I was in college. But that story deserves its own post.