30 Reasons To Read

Episode 5: The Doppelganger

When my mom was pregnant with me, she lived with my paternal grandparents. Over the years, she’s shared many of the paranormal experiences she had during those days, and each time she tells them, it sends a chill down my spine.

The house was old, steeped in history. Many generations ago, during my great-great-grandfather’s time, it housed a large joint family. My mom believed that with so many people having lived and died there, the spirits of some still lingered. It was a thought that always unsettled me. Although we lived abroad, we often visited that house during our vacations in India, and its eerie aura never left me.

Among the countless stories my mom told, there is one that remains etched in my memory.

At the time, my mom was eight months pregnant with me. My siblings were on vacation, so our entire family had come to India and were staying at my paternal grandparents’ home. Despite being heavily pregnant, my mom insisted on helping my grandmother with the household chores.

Our bedroom in the house was upstairs. One afternoon, after finishing up the dishes, my mom climbed the stairs to take a rest. No one else was in the room with her. Exhausted, she quickly fell asleep.

Now, my mom has always been a light sleeper, sensitive to the smallest disturbance. If anyone even approached her, she would wake up immediately. That afternoon, she was startled awake, feeling a presence beside her. She quickly glanced around, but no one was there. Sighing in relief, she was about to drift back to sleep until something caught her eye near the foot of the bed.

There, sitting at the foot of the bed, was a young girl, no older than ten. My mom has described her many times since and I can picture her so clearly. The girl sat on the floor with her arms folded over the edge of the bed, her chin resting on her hands. She was smiling, but it was an odd, unsettling smile that didn’t quite reach her bright, wide eyes. She stared directly at my mom.

My mother had never seen this girl before. Paralyzed with shock, she couldn’t even call for help. Instinctively, she placed one hand over her swollen belly and the other over her heart, whispering prayers under her breath with her eyes tightly shut.

When she finally opened her eyes again, the girl was gone.

Panicked, my mom rushed downstairs to tell my grandmother what had just happened. But to her surprise, my grandmother didn’t react with fear or disbelief. Instead, she simply smiled and said, "It happens."

Later, my grandmother revealed that the girl might have been my late aunt, my father’s younger cousin sister. She had died at the age of ten, years before my parents were even married. The girl had lived a short and tragic life. Her mother, my dad's aunt, had suffered from mental illness, and hence the girl had never received the maternal love she craved. Though surrounded by a large family, she was always a quiet, lonely child, often keeping to herself.

She died when she was just ten years old. Some say it was a severe fever that claimed her, while others say that she fell from a great height. The unsettling truth is, no one really knows how she died. That mystery has always sent a shiver down my spine.

The room upstairs in my grandmother's house, the one where we stayed during visits and the my mom saw the girl, was once the room shared by the girl, her mentally ill mother, and her father, who eventually remarried after the girl's mentally ill mother died too.

When my mom first saw the girl at the foot of the bed, she didn’t recognize her. But as I grew older, she started to notice something eerie, which was I looked exactly like the ten-year-old girl she had seen all those years ago.

From that point on, I was never comfortable being alone in that house. Especially when we stayed in that upstairs room, I was always on edge, hyper-aware of every creak and shadow. Until I turned eleven, I had a strange fear of heights, avoiding the balcony and any high places in that house.

What made it even worse were the comments from elderly visitors. Whenever someone came to see my grandmother, they’d always leave with the same remark, "Your granddaughter is the spitting image of your niece!"

Each time, I’d force a smile, but inside, I was anything but calm. Only I knew the storm of emotions that raced through me in those moments—the confusion, the fear, the unsettling sense of connection to a girl I never met, yet somehow seemed to mirror.

P.S. It's a real story!

Please click the star below to vote if you really liked the story. Thank you!