The Night

"Can you keep a secret?" the whispering sounds persistently ranging on my ear said, which woke me up from my deep sleep.

The frosty air outside that fills my room with its unfriendly chill pass through my open window, which I realized I had forgotten to close earlier. The sky that night is kinda spooky. It reminded me of the same night during Halloween. The starless purplish sky. The big yellow moon that gives me the spine chilling gaze. 

It took me a couple of minutes before I picked myself up from the moment I woke up. I just need a time to retrieve my mind and soul as it leaves my body during my sleep.

As soon as I conditioned myself I headed toward the window. The curtain dance in calmness, but as I was about to close it, my heart gave a loud pound. There was someone standing in front of our house making him almost seem like a silhouette or a shadow because of the fog and the moonlight hitting him from his back.

I rubbed my eyes a couple of times in hope to make a clear look but suddenly, the person disappear into thin air leaving the fog and the moonlight inhabit the place. Maybe its just my imagination.

Its normal. Its normal because our mind is more creative at night.

As I securely closed the window trapping my room in a darker state, I decided to head to the bathroom.

Everything began to felt strange. The night. The moon. The room. And even the eerie sound all over the place which I don’t have an idea if its just in my head. The whole thing is Strange. I feel like everything is so dark and harmonically organized.

So as I head to my bathroom with me knowingly unconscious why I need to go in there. I splash my face with the water from the sink, and the mirror was facing me as I scan every droplet of water on my face. Everyone might have this common idea that someone, a ghost perhaps, might just pop out behind my reflection but before i could take a good look at it, it will disappear quickly. But me? No! That’s cliché and really, I’m not scared of ghost. 

I may not be scared of ghost, but being alive is scarier. I exited the bathroom while shoving my face with a white towel.

Just then, the eerie sound in my head disappeared. I dropped the towel and my heart stopped for a second making my body freeze itself in trepidation .Someone is standing in front of me. A ghost.

My mind went shut at that moment but instantly, as I recover my consciousness, the first thing that came to my mind is how had he managed to scare me in surprise? It’s not about the dark rose blood in his face, not even the dried fiery red eyes, and not even the slit on his throat showing some of his corrupted muscle and rotten tissues. But... what is it, then?

Maybe he just planned it too well. 

It’s been a long time since I experienced a heart stopping shock, with a terrified face and a freezing, petrified body. I was just 8 years old when I start seeing a ghost, my first encounter wasn’t that pleasant to hear, nor to see. It was the moment I screamed with my veins popping out of my neck and passed out as I hyperventilate. Judge me, but what kind of person doesn’t scream when he saw a ghost with a ruptured, disfigured face and makes a sound like its gurgling its own diesel like blood? It really took me a while to move on from that happening or trauma. But then I realized as I grew up, that they may exist but they don’t really cause harm, and I really needed to accept that they are now part of my life. Even though some of them really tried so hard to get an attention by making a lot of jump scares, but I got used to it.

The ghost standing in front of me successfully scared me, I admit. He gave me a smirk with the boast of the success he just gained, but as I manage to relieve myself, I pass through his non-solidify existent making my way to my bed. But he said an unexpected, atypical question for a ghost to ask, making me stun in my position.

“Can you keep a secret?”

The next thing happened, I found myself walking down in our dark crowded basement with a flashlight in my hand hitting the dust in the air as the light pass through it. Caught up in the situation, looking for a thing I don’t have an idea what. I convinced myself to think that I’m just bored, I just lost my sense to sleep and that’s the reasons why I am here. But the truth is, I am also curious to find out.

So as I pass through some boxes making the tiny particle in the air shift in every move I make, while making a great effort to fill my interest. I accidentally stumbled on something that caused me to fall on my butt and dropped the flash light somewhere as its light turned off.

It took me a while to recover from the stingy pain in my buttocks. But as I carry on, I tried to scan the floor with both of my hand and my eyes were trying to adjust in the darkness, looking for the flashlight I dropped somewhere.

Then suddenly, I stopped-dead. I gulped a pile of my own saliva with my tempus exerting cold sweat. I felt like I touched something so soft and cold. I knew it was something alive making me pray for salvation in that moment.

I tried to make a wild guess about what it is to calm myself, until I screamed as I freak out when it grabbed my hand in return. It was a hand. I crawled away hurriedly in panic, and tried to find the flashlight which I found by accident. I turned its light on quickly and point it towards the place and at the same time, I was hoping that it wasn’t really a hand. From that experience. I regret believing every word that ghost has said to me.

“Can you keep a secret? I know someone in your family tried to hide something in the basement. Do you want to know what it is?" I remember him saying in a barely audible whisper. "Find it.”

I was about to exit the basement quite annoyed that maybe the ghost was just making fun of me, when suddenly a loud slam knock out my earhole making me curse in outrage. The door shut itself.

As I was trying to contain my anger, I tried knocking the door in hope that someone might hear me, even though I know that I am alone at our house that day. The knocking become like I was punching the door. I was screaming and shouting at that moment as my emotions start to consume my nature.

Abruptly, the light emitted by the flashlight start was gone. I tap and shake it in agitation multiple times until I realized that the battery has met its ending. I tried to calm myself as I sat in the stairs with my eyes now adjusted upon the place slightly. Just like having a semi night vision. Truly our body is full of wonder

An hour passed. This basement is killing me. I catch my breath when the place start to felt like its suffocating me, choking me with those dust in the air and making my throat dry as I cough. My body starts to weaken though I still managed to continuously knock the door above me and scream for help with my now limited breathe. I almost passed out.

My eyes start to get blurry. My lungs on fire like its burning the alveoli inside it. But everything wiped away. My suffering diminished into the unknown. My salvation is here. My hope lifted when I heard something unhooking the lock outside. The door opened itself revealing a place. A bright, clean and an all-white place. Where am I?

“Welcome” said the man who, I hadn't realized, was already standing behind me.

“Where am I?” I asked as I still examined the place in wonder. But his answer wasn’t quite what I was expecting.

“Welcome, to the place of the living dead!” he said calmly, and gave me a bizarre smile.

“The what?!” I said, in shocked. “I am dead?” I furiously added.

“Not entirely. In essence Dead but not gone.” He exclaimed, while brushing his white beard with his finger.

“Enlighten me” I said in a confused tone of voice, asking for explanations.

“Your soul and your mind are now dead. But not your body," he answered. "Your body doesn’t belong to you anymore” he added, with his smile now starting to become offensive to me.

“How is that even possible?” I yelled at him with rage asking for more answers. “But...” It took me a while before my mind sink in realization.

I remembered. I remember everything now. I remember the night.

I was sleeping. I was having an astral projection. That’s why something is weird that night. My mind leaves me, my soul leaves me. Both of them left my earthly body. I never woke up from the bed. Everything is planned.

He knows I am having the projection. Someone took my body. And it was him. It was the ghost. He led me into a trap. He’s the one who locked me in the basement to die.

“Now you’re my little secret,” the ghost said with my body now being possessed by him as he locked me up in the basement.