“Do you believe ghosts are real?”
Many people ask this question trivially, thinking whoever answers “yes” is just paranoid or fearful for no reason.
But for me, I do know they are real.
Since we first moved to our home in the Loyang area in 2006, my family and I have experienced paranormal activity that made me fully believe in the supernatural.
My second brother in particular, who’s now in his 30s, has had the “third eye” since a young age and encountered many things out of the ordinary.
On multiple occasions, he has woken up with long, red scratches on his back.
Some of these paranormal encounters have taken place right in the heart of our home.
One incident, in particular, terrified me.
It happened about 12 years ago, in 2012. A few of my relatives were over at our house to visit my ailing grandmother.
My brother was in his room, engrossed in his computer game of Dota.
As I was talking to my older cousin in a separate room, we heard a loud shriek.
It came from my aunt, who was shaking in fear as she watched her five-year-old daughter experiencing a fit.
White foam was pouring out of her mouth. She was at the doorstep of my brother’s room.
My young cousin was sent to the hospital, which left us questioning my brother about what happened. I’ll never forget what he said next.
My brother explained that throughout the day and the previous night, there had been a demon boy living in his room.
Source: GeekTyrant
The demon boy, a short figure about less than a metre tall, had dark skin and a “ghastly” face.
He was constantly thrashing about my brother’s room, scratching and tugging my brother’s limbs all through the night.
As it turns out, the hauntings all stemmed from an amulet that my brother’s friend had mistakenly left behind.
The amulet, which he had procured from Thailand, traps a spirit that protect its owner from danger or bad luck.
According to my brother’s friend, this entity had become violent as it was separated from him — its owner.
Source: Canva, for illutstration purposes only
This angry spirit was what my little cousin saw when she went into my brother’s room. It also began a 12-year battle she had with epilepsy, which she still suffers from today.
My brother’s friend retrieved the amulet from our house that very night and had to return to Thailand with his mother to tame the spirit of the demon boy.
As one would expect, the friend was never invited to our house ever again.
The encounters, of course, did not stop there.
A few years later, we would have a run-in with our next-door neighbour, an elderly woman in her 80s, and her “pet” spirit.
In rural Indonesian tradition, keeping a spirit for protection is a common practice. The spirits are called Jinn — the word for ‘spirit’ in Arabic.
Jinns are said to come in two forms, good or evil. The possession of a Jinn is also against Islamic teachings, and is believed to cause harm to humankind.
Source: The Horror Syndicate
Our family never thought we’d encounter such creepy customs here in urban Singapore.
On an ordinary day circa 2016, my eldest brother was walking towards the grocery store when he saw our petite, old, and frail neighbour walking towards our block.
He noticed that she was carrying multiple plastic bags loaded with groceries, about five in each hand.
Even for the average healthy adult, carrying the weight of those groceries would have been a difficult task.
Although she appeared unfazed, my brother approached her anyway and asked in Malay: “Nenek [grandma], do you need any help?”
What happened next was something that none of us expected.
The old woman turned to look my brother in the eye, and in that moment, her eyes turned blood red. She replied:
Tak pe dek… [It’s okay, child].
From that moment onwards, we knew that something was amiss.
Following the incident, disturbances in our home continued and there was a general sense of unease.
My mother engaged an Ustaz (a Muslim priest) to check our home, who gathered that there is a spirit that frequently roams around at night.
He also deduced that the owner of the spirit is someone living nearby.
At that moment, it clicked. Our elderly next-door neighbour was probably keeping a Jinn.
Things came to a climax one fateful night a few weeks after my brother’s encounter with our neighbour and the Ustaz’s discovery.
My brother had just come home past midnight when he saw a tall, large, feminine figure in the kitchen.
Though he did not see her face clearly, he recalls that her eyes were blood red.
The figure only appeared before him for a few seconds before flying out of our kitchen window.
Those few seconds sent my brother, a 26-year-old adult then, to his knees, and he remained shaken by the encounter for the next few days.
When our elderly neighbour died a few months later, we often heard thrashing in her house. According to her son who lived with her, the spirit still lived on in the house even after she passed.
The spirit, agitated without an owner, harassed the members of the house consistently at night.
The disturbance grew to the point that they had to consult multiple priests from different religions to solve their predicament.
Finally, they found a Hindu priest who located a kris hidden in the house. A kris is a weapon or a spiritual object hailing from Indonesia, often linked to the possession of jinns and other evil spirits.
Source: Canva, for illustration purposes only
They buried it at one of Singapore’s offshore islands and the house has been relatively peaceful since.
My family has employed multiple domestic helpers since the 1990s.
However, it was not until we moved into our current house that we developed a terrible track record with helpers.
Many times helpers leave within a month of being employed, making up all sorts of excuses to leave the house. We never really knew why, until one of my past helpers spoke out about it.
“Sir, can I ask you something?” one of my helpers, Nur, asked my second eldest brother.
My brother nodded, waiting for her to continue. She suddenly had a very uneasy and hesitant look on her face. She asked:
Do you see it?
“It?” My brother answered her, knowing instantaneously what she meant but wanting her to explain further.
“Well, the thing… the entity living at your window sill,” she continued.
My brother explained that he knows of its presence, as it frequently harassed him. However, no one else in the house has been directly disturbed by the entity.
He also said that it often makes its presence known to helpers as it does not like outsiders residing in the house. My brother likened the entity to one of a pontianak, a female spirit.
To date, although it’s been quiet in my house, we do have the same uneasy feeling at two spots in our flat — the window of my brother’s room and the kitchen.
The two favourite locations of the entity in our Loyang home.
Also read: 5% Of S’poreans Have Claimed To See A Pontianak, Hotspots Include Yishun & Pasir Ris
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Featured image adapted from Canva, for illustration purposes only.
The authorities have investigated and closed the incident with no follow-ups required, MFA said.
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His church has urged parishioners to refrain from visiting him as he heals.
The kitten will be put up for adoption after its injuries are cured.
The toasts were barely a few centimetres thick.