The Haunted Room

Here I am again. I am staying up tonight to prepare for another scary ghost story. Hmm... maybe for those who have been following my story from the very beginning had been thinking. Why did I tell about the mystery of the Hummock all of a sudden? Well... my uncle just dropped by last weekend and told me the story. I just couldn't be patient enough not to marvel it to you guys. So... what do you think about the mystery of the hummock? Eerie, huh?

Lol... ok enough about the hummock. I am continuing with another episode of true scary ghost stories. Well... this is not one of my own experience, though. However, this eerie experience was whispered to my ears by my own cousin.

Let me just call her Hajar. Hajar was studying in a university further to the east coast of my country. The hostels are beautifully designed, and it was built facing the ocean. Sunset was always beautiful there, and it was the attraction of tourists from all over the world.

She was taking Secretarial too, just like me. She stayed in one of the oldest hostels, where each room was occupied with only two beds.

The hostel was neat, and it was taken care of by an old lady who had been working there since the first batch of students registered. I will just call this old lady Mrs. Sweeps.

One evening, Hajar was back late from revision. It was already 10:30 p.m. She was too tired to ask her roommate to accompany her to the toilet. So she decided to go alone. On her way, she saw Mrs. Sweeps holding her broom, putting a grim face and somewhat concerned.

"What's wrong?" Hajar was friendly, and she always greeted Mrs. Sweeps whenever they met. On that particular night, Hajar sensed something was bothering Mrs. Sweeps.

"Go to the toilet, quick! I'll wait for you here. I have something to tell you," Mrs. Sweeps kept her grim face unchanged, and it doubled the curiousity in Hajar's mind.

"Okay, auntie. Just give me 5 minutes," Hajar sighed, but she didn't have the heart to reject Mrs. Sweeps's invitation to chat, even though she was damn tired and wanted to sleep real badly.

Soon afterwards, both of them were sprawled on the hard, cemented corridor, ignoring the cold air that began to creep under their garments. Hajar looked straight into Mrs. Sweeps's eyes. Mrs. Sweeps didn't even blink.

"Have you ever noticed a girl who occupied the cube next to yours?" asked Mrs. Sweeps.

"The one with the hijab?" Hajar asked, trying to confirm which girl that was referred to by Mrs. Sweeps. Out of nowhere, Hajar thought it was natural to pick up to that particular girl, because she was the weird one. Nobody knew her, not even her name. She came and went like an anonymous person. Not like the other girl who also occupied the same room. The girls's name is Katrina.

"Yeah. She's the one. She's no longer here. It was terrible. Scary. Unbelievable, but it's true." Mrs. Sweeps shook her head several times, as if trying to deny her own story.

"What happened to her?" Hajar was getting excited, and she had forgotten how tired she was. She could still remember the time when she accidentally bumped into the weird girl. The girl didn't even look at her. Hajar leaned against the cold slab of wall at the corridor, provoking Mrs. Sweeps to blurt out the whole thing faster.

"Yesterday, Katrina came to me crying. She said something happened inside the cube the night before. She said she didn't want to stay with the weird girl anymore."

"Why?" Hajar didn't have the patient to wait.

"That night, Katrina was already on her bed when the weird girl came back from God knows where. However, Katrina didn't have the mood to try initiating a little pillow chat with the girl. So she pretended to be asleep. But she kept one of her eyes open just a little, because she had began to feel suspicious about the girl. They hadn't even talked sinced the first day they occupied the room."

"Then?" asked Hajar, prompting Mrs. Sweeps further.

"Katrina saw the girl lighted at least seven pieces of candles, and she didn't even take off her hijab. Katrina peeped from under the blanket, and she saw the most terrifying incident soon afterwards."

"What?" Hajar gulped, feeling uncomfortable all of a sudden. Chill wind really made an effect to her skin then. All hair on her arms stood on ends.

"She saw the girl turned and twisted her hand, reaching for the light switch that was situated at the far end of the room. Her hands stretched just like rubber-bands. Katrina was totally scared but she didn't dare do anything until the next day."

"Tell me more." Hajar was now gasping a bit, starting to feel awkward talking about it at the exact place where it really happened. The cube was just over there, and she had to pass it in order to be in her own cube.

"The next day, Katrina went to the warden to report about the incident. She brought along an objection letter refusing to share a room with that weird girl. And the funny thing was, when the warden checked, only confusion surfaced. The girl was never there. Katrina had been living all alone all this while." Mrs. Sweeps nodded, as if she knew Hajar would ask her whether it was a joke.

"Until now, the weird girl just vanished. Whoop! She's gone, for good I hope. And now Katrina has been moved to a new block. Poor girl. She must be very shocked." Mrs. Sweeps twisted her face a little, and gave out a small sigh.

That was what Hajar told me, based on what Mrs. Sweeps told her. Even though I wouldn't want to believe it, I knew it was real. I hope it won't happen to me, nor to you...

So I wish you all good luck and be brave. Just remember this:

"Ghosts are everywhere."

"Carpe Diem." "Make Your Lives Extraordinary."

Mystery of the Hummock

Hello. It's me again. This time I am going to tell you about a story my uncle related to me while he was young. It happened in the village where my uncle used to live in around 1950's.

There was a middle-aged couple lived at the end of the village. They didn't have any children, so their lives were quite lonely. Let me just call the husband as John and the wife as Mary.

Life in the village were quite boring, with so limited occupations. Everyday, both of them would just do ordinary village jobs and mostly involved farming. John had quite a talent in farming and he decided to expand his land by purchasing one of the neighbour's land.

Fortunately, he managed to buy a cheap land from one of his relatives. He started clearing it but decided to leave a hummock which lumped at the middle section of the land. John thought the hummock would enable mushrooms to grow.

His thought turned out to be true. After a month, button mushroom grew at the top of the hummock and John told Mary to sell them off to the market. It was a huge collect, and they got enormous profit from the sale.

Later that afternoon, Mary stewed the mushroom and served it to John. John was a great fan to mushrooms, especially button mushrooms. So he ate them without even offering to Mary, and coincidently at that time Mary didn't feel like eating. She wanted to visit her next door neighbour to pass some of the stew. So, John was left eating alone.

After consuming three bowls of mushrooms, suddenly John saw the gravy of the mushroom turned into dark red - the exact colour of blood. He was shocked, and he brought the bowl to his nostrils to identify the substance. With horror and disbelief, indeed it was blood!

All of a sudden, John fell sick and was brought to the hospital. The weird thing was, the doctors didn't find any toxin or poison in the mushroom stew. It was not only that weird. All other people who bought the mushroom at the market didn't fall sick neither.

My uncle told me later that John was not ailed until the day of his death. He was hospitalized for more than a month, and his body looked like an empty sack on the day of his death. He was merely skin and bone, with no flesh at all. His face was scary, with both eyes bulged out from their socket.

Nobody knew what caused John to die. It was only John's rumble about the stew being red like blood made the villagers shudder for a moment. People rumoured that some entity from the hummock was angry with John because he had interrupted their place.

That's all for now, friends. I'll be back with another ghost story soon. Have a great reading!