A Nostalgic Horror Trip Ver.1.0 BY -D-

among the 4 houses i ever lived, my most favorite has to be the second one i moved into from 87' to 92'.

located in Berakas Garrison (Papa was a soldier), it was one of those houses, like the houses in some Government Residential areas (not sure if it's considered a "stilt" house), where the actual house is on the first floor whereas the ground floor is where you park the car, and a single room, meant as a storage space but used as my brother's room back then. nearby, there's a small separate building, made up of 3 rooms: one was the maid's, another was a store room, while the other was a washing area. then, there's my all time favourite: the huge, wide, grass lawn. i'm not exaggerating (sp?), it could fit in 7-9 tents there.

*sigh* oh, i still remember how cool and comfy the wooden floors were as i slept on it whenever it rains, endlessly running through the HUGE lawn as i try to get my kite to fly up or just running around chasing the cats, or riding on my bike on the road as i try to catch up with my older sis, or when i messed up the store room as i rummaged through one of the boxes to play with some old toys... oh, yeah, the ghost story... forgive the nostalgia trip there...

anyway, the main entrance to the house was a large sliding window, with only a thin, transparent curtain to block the view inside. outside was a veranda, used usually to just lounge around, and the stairs leading down. around 50 metres at the bottom of the stairs, just right in front of the main entrance in plain view, was a broken fence followed with an "entrance", a "gate" if you will, leading into a forest.

theres just no other way to describe this forest entrance other than like a gate; to the sides were rows of tall, sturdy trees. between them, a wide gap in the middle, with a lone tree stump, dead centre, with a log lying next to it. the area around and ahead of the tree stump were littered with tall shrubs, bushes, small trees and vines. i guess, kinda like a cave mouth, instead it's made of flora, and it leads into a forest, rather than a cave.

one day, my mother heard a disturbing rumour at her work place about how there's been some break-in's in our area. naturally, that night at 1 AM (she's a late sleeper, but an early riser), after everyone has already gone to bed, she decided to check all the windows and the backdoor before she calls it a day. she made one last check at the main entrance, when she saw, through the curtains, what seems like a figure on the mouth of the forest entrance.

curiousity got the best of her, so she peeked through the gap between the curtains. there, near the tree stump at the forests "gate", stood a woman clad in white, with her back to my mother. my mother quickly ran back into her room, resisting as hard as she could from screaming and grabbing "her" attention (not that it matters seeing how the loud footsteps she made as she ran on the wooden floor woke everyone but me, my brother and the maid up). my sisters tried to calm my mother, a crying mess at the time, while my dad went to take a look at the "figure".

as you'd would expect, it wasn't there....