7. The First 3 Nights
It was 2008, I rented a room in a boarding house in Depok, West Java, about an hour from Jakarta. I chose the place because it was only 10 minutes away from the Commuter train station. I work in Jakarta and Commuter train or KRL is my main transportation to reach office. The dorm house was behind Gramedia Book Store, right next to an elementary school. That year, a new mall opened nearby. A very posh Mall but there's something weird about it. There's an old house right in front of the Mall, old colonial house with big old banyan tree right in the courtyard, the tree is said to be as old as the house.
I came from another city so I was practically new in that city. Neighbour told me about the urban legend of a female ghost and several other ghosts who used to reside in the banyan tree outside the Old house right in front of the Mall. But after the Mall construction started, those ghosts were scattered, some said that the construction worker called a shaman to get rid of the ghosts because they often caused trouble with the construction.
Long story short, one of my housemates work as a maintenance worker in that Mall. And he said he saw the female ghost one night when he was on night shift, checking the generator in the back building behind the Mall. He got spooked and ran away from the building. Unfortunately, that female ghost followed him home and happened to reside in the room I rented, and her disturbance began right on the first night after I moved in.
That night I was so tired so I decided to sleep early. I haven't even unpack my stuff as yet. My housemates were still in the living room, watching football match. I was in between sleeping and awake when I felt someone lifted the end part of my bed. I couldn't wake up, I couldn't even talk, my eyes were opened and I saw my feet and the end of my bed was like 35 degrees up. In my mind I keep on saying and begging to whoever it was disturbing my sleep to stop what he or she is doing, I have to work the next morning, to make a living. In my mind I kept on saying prayer, any prayer I could remember that time. And then my bed was violently dropped back to the floor and then I got up. I got off my bed and checked the end of my bed, thinking that I must be dreaming. But no, it wasn't a dream. The screw that hold on the foot of that part of my bed were loosened and the foot of the bed were shaky and cracked.
Back then, I didn't have a time to find another place to stay and I wasn't quite sure of what was disturbing my sleep last night. So I tried to hide it from my housemates, I didn't want them to worry or go to the landlady and told her about this. So I began to read Quran after morning prayer, hoping that whatever that has been disturbing me in the night, won't come again.
I unpacked my stuff, took out my desktop computer and small speakers that came with it. It was 2008 and that's all that I could afford to buy. I worked as a translator so I often brought work home. That night, I decided to sleep with the music from my computer on. I tried not to think about what happened to me the other night and hoping that whatever it was that disturbing my sleep last night, wouldn't come back. But, God I was wrong.
Just before I slept, my computer suddenly switched off and on on its own. Not just once, but several times. The result was, the power in the CPU was busted and I couldn't do my work because I have to replace the power and I had to wait until the pay day. Then, the next morning, I was down with strange fever. I was so weak that I couldn't even go out to tell my housemates that I was ill. I sent message to my colleague in the office that I couldn't come to work that day. Being feverish, I started seeing someone hovering around my bed, a woman in a white long dress, as if checking on me, moving back and forth. I couldn't do much so I forced myself to sleep and ignored her.
Miraculously, my fever was gone in the afternoon. But the strange thing was, when I finally able to left my room, one my housemates was taken aback to see me coming out of the room, he said he saw me leaving in the morning, shouldn't I be at the office in that hour? I was shocked, I was down with fever the whole day, in my room and here he said he saw me leaving the house in the morning. I tried to brace myself, kept on praying that I wouldn't be disturbed again tonight.
That evening, my boyfriend came over after he heard that I didn't come to work. He bought me a DVD player and some connector so I could watch movies using my computer monitor. He helped connecting the DVD with my computer and... It wasn't working. I couldn't even turn the DVD on. Luckily, my boyfriend bought the DVD in the Mall nearby. So he went to the mall and told the store that the DVD was busted. He got it replaced with a new one, we connected it again to the monitor and again it wasn't working. The same problem happened, it wasn't turned on. It happened for 3 times and I told my boyfriend to take the DVD player home with him. He was confused on what was going on.
My boyfriend noticed that I was distraught so he took me out to the nearby food stall. One of my housemates - the one working for the Mall's maintenance, joined us. I told my boyfriend what happened to me in the first and second night and the last time with the DVD player. And it's then, my housemate told me about what he saw in the Generator building of the Mall. He said "She must have been following me back home..." I was shocked, my boyfriend was shocked. I didn't want to spend another night in that room but I had no option back then.
So my boyfriend left and returned with an Ustadz (Muslim clergy). That Ustadz stood in front of my room, right in front of the door and he said that the ghost was sitting on top of my cupboard and she wanted me to be quiet. I didn't know what to say, I was both upset and scared at the same time. The Ustadz then mutters a prayer and told the ghost to leave the room, she didn't belong there, she shouldn't be amongst the living. And then, after a while, the ustadz turned and looked at me, he told me that the ghost is gone. I wasn't really sure back then, but when I walked into the room, I could feel that the air was lighter while it was so stuffed before. I was so relieved, the Ustadz then told me to read Qur'an every morning and evening before I went to sleep, so that ghost won't come back to disturb me or anyone in that boarding house ever again.
I moved out from that boarding house after 3 months, not because of another ghost but because of the landlady raising the rent price of the room.
nb :
thx to my friend who told me ths story
