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Hungry Ghost Festival is upon us once again, during which many believe that the gates of hell are open and spirits are free to roam.
This year, the seventh lunar months lasts from Aug. 19 - Sep. 16, with the 15th day, or the peak, on Sep. 2.
If spirits roaming our tiny island isn't spooky enough for you, here are some true ghost stories experienced by our team members that might just make your hair stand.
1. The camp mate
Screengrab via Kimberlee Suarez on Daily Motion
During my university orientation camp at NUS, four of us shared a room.
Two of us slept on the study table, while the other two took up the single beds.
On the last night of camp, one of our roommates — let's call her 'G' — went home early, leaving only three of us. As usual, I slept on the study table while the other two slept on the beds.
I woke up in the middle of the night and reached under the table to grab my phone that was charging. As I glanced up, I saw a girl sleeping with my friend.
I didn't manage to see her face, as her back was facing me. However, she was wearing a white shirt which looked like our orientation camp shirt, and a pair of shorts.
I was too sleepy to think much of it and soon fell back asleep. I assumed that G had returned to camp.
The next day, I woke up and asked my friend if G had indeed returned and had slept on the same bed as her.
She seemed shocked and chose to brush the question off. I didn't pursue the matter after that because I realised that it might not have been G after all...
Thankfully it was already the last day of camp.
2. Unknown
Photo via matteo fusco on Unsplash
Halloween Horror Nights has always been a family event for us.
Four of us — me, my brother, my sister, and her husband — looked forward to it.
On one particular year, we reached the park at close to 10pm.
My sister and her husband were walking ahead of us, deep in conversation, while my brother and I lagged behind.
As we were nearing the park's castle, I experienced a sudden stomach ache. It was bad enough that I had to sit down on one of the chairs near the fountain area. Meanwhile, my sister and brother-in-law had walked ahead and were nowhere in sight.
My brother paced around while I sat and waited for the stomach ache to pass. That was when I received a call from my sister and told her where we were.
Somewhere in the middle of my conversation, my brother who was also on the phone with someone walked up to me and urgently asked who I was speaking to.
I explained that I was on the phone with our sister. That was when his face visibly paled and I sensed that something was wrong.
He asked me, "If you're talking to kakak (older sister), who am I talking to?"
He said that he was on the phone with someone who sounded just like my sister. The person had asked "Is adik (younger sister) okay?" and "Should we call mummy and tell her?"
When we finally reunited with our sister, she said that she did not speak to my brother on the phone that night.
He never went back to Halloween Horror Nights after that year.
3. The girls' toilet
I was in primary three when the incident happened.
It was during recess that I went back to our third floor classroom with two friends.
We were walking along the empty corridor when a man in his 40s, dressed in a cleaner's uniform, started following us and calling out after us.
Being young, we were spooked and walked quickly into the girls toilet to hide. Weirdly, he followed us into the toilet and so we locked ourselves in a cubicle together.
He was persistent and stood outside our cubicle, repeatedly asking us to come out. We were terrified.
Awhile later, we realised that he had left when we could no longer hear him call out.
We left the toilet, looked for our form teacher and informed her of what had happened. The teachers gathered all the cleaning staff and had us identify the man who had followed us.
We were shocked and confused when we realised that he was not among the cleaning staff. In fact, we had never seen him around school prior to that day.
Since it was a serious allegation, the staff also checked the CCTV footage, but apparently, no one was following us in the corridor.
In the end, I don't think anyone believed us. Needless to say, I never went up to the third floor alone.
4. The hospital
Photo via Google Maps
I was headed to a chalet at the Changi area for my friend's 21st birthday party.
Since I live in the East, I could take a bus down from where I live. Or at least that’s what Google Maps said.
However, the bus stop that I was instructed to get down at was actually all the way at the other side, closer to where I believe the Orange Valley Nursing Home is.
Since I was relatively unfamiliar with the area, I simply followed the directions on Google Maps.
For some reason, there were several cats and tiny kittens along the upslope. I love cats, so I naturally started talking and playing with them, walking with them.
As we found ourselves walking towards an open air carpark, they stopped following me at a certain point. I thought they were just simply tired of me, since I didn't have any food or treats, and I expected most strays to go off on their own way after a while anyway.
But I realised that they stopped following me right at the same point, like there was an invisible line they refused to cross.
I turned away from them and I looked up, realising that I was approaching the Old Changi Hospital. I hadn’t even realised I was going in that direction until I had noticed the unusual behaviour of the cats.
The air immediately felt very tense and weird.
I quickly backtracked, and I eventually managed to find my way to my friend’s chalet before night fell.
5. The purple tent
Photo via Adrian Infernus on Unsplash (for illustration purposes only)
During my Outward Bound Singapore (OBS) camp in Secondary 2, three of us friends planned to "chope" a tent for the night.
All the tents were set up in a huge circular field surrounded by a cluster of trees, and the tent we had taken a liking to was purple in colour.
Thus, we gobbled down our dinner and at around 8pm, we left the eating area to rush off to the field where the tents were.
As we approached the field, all three of us spotted someone entering the tent we had wanted to sleep in.
We were quite a distance away and it was dark outside, thus, we only caught a glimpse of a shadow/ blurred figure of the person.
Feeling disappointed, we approached the purple tent to find out who had gotten to it first.
However, we realised that there was actually no one in the purple tent. What was creepier was that we were the only ones on the field.
We couldn't figure out who we had seen earlier, but being young and dumb, we didn't think much of it and slept in that purple tent that night anyway.
Thankfully, nothing strange happened during the night.
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Top photo via Kimberlee Suarez on Daily Motion and Google Maps