A Demon's Toy

The following accounts of stories that I will be writing down had taken place within a few years. To begin with, it took place about ten years ago or so. Our family had moved back into the country after living overseas for four years, but when we came back, there were still tenants in our house whom we rented to, so we stayed in my grandmother's house until the tenants had gone away. And when they did, we finally moved back in.

I was still a child at the time. And with my still childish-like wonder, our house was big; it was a three floored building, albeit the third floor was more of an attic but it was also where my older brother lived. Things went well, so far, or so, as I thought because I had also been oblivious to many things. There were many small accounts, from all family members, seemingly different but ultimately led to an ending point which we will get there soon.

Let's start with my own few accounts. Despite being a child and the statement of how a child can see ghosts/spirits easily, I've never seen one and quite frankly, I don't think I ever want to see one. But, that doesn't mean I didn't experience things, too. Among a few cases, these ones are in my top three.

The first: it was night, and I was in my room, playing with my little brother and caretaker. I wanted to try scaring my brother, and thought of a brilliant idea: I'm going to do it by knocking on my room's door. So, the couple of times I knocked, I pretended to be shocked, stared at my brother all scared while the caretaker just sat there, letting the events unfold. Eventually, I outed myself and said that it was just me! But then, there was a knock on the door behind me. And, well, I didn't think much about it, because I opened the door right after it knocked and, well... No one was there. I stood, frozen. Right then, I heard my mom calling out for me. I answered, but I also gave a look at my brother and the caretaker but they didn't seem to pay attention to the weird thing that just happened. I'm assuming they think it was just me. But I paid not much mind to it in the end, although I was curious, until this day.

My next account took place during the afternoon. I got back from school, and when I entered the house along with my little brother, I saw my cousin (who's also living with us and is my roommate) sitting on a couch, her back to me, watching the TV. I cheerfully greeted her, but when she didn't answer me back, I thought it was pretty weird. I went upstairs to my room there to get changed, and surprise, my cousin was there, and I just stared at her in shock, and I kept stuttering. "Wait- wh- what? But- weren't you- I saw you downstairs! You were watching TV! My lil bro saw you too!" She just looked at me, all befuddled like, "What? No? I was here the whole time!" and well... It was strange. Very strange. Who was watching the TV downstairs then?

The third account: once again, it took place during the night. We just had a party to celebrate my older sister's wedding, and my cousins along with my aunt decided to have a sleepover together in my room. There were like about 6 or more of us; I don't really remember who all were there at the time. We, the kids, messed around for a little while with my aunt scolding us every now and then, because it was late, and we really needed to sleep. So, when we finally settled down, finally trying to sleep, we all heard the same thing: the floor above us, which is supposedly the attic, there were feet running around then a child's giggling, like a boy's giggling. My aunt proceeded to scold us after that sound, "I told you to go to sleep!" then we all cried out, "But it wasn't us!"

The next day, when my cousins and I asked around our relatives, they said no one else had gone up. Normally when someone is going up or down to the attic, we would also hear creeks and heavy footsteps of the stairs since it's just right next to my room. We heard no one going down the stairs after the giggling.

There's actually much more than these, but these three had been the creepiest. I should add there are a few times when I'd hear my name being called, and we have this rule among our people that if we hear something especially when there should be nothing, don't ever reply. But, what would you do if someone calls for you and it sounded like your mother? Of course, you had to reply, right? So, there's that. Now, let's move on with few other cases coming from my siblings.

Unlike mine, my siblings had a more terrifying experience than mine for some reason. Most of them being adults. One of my sisters once had seen a woman in a long dress heading up the stairs to the attic. This same sister had also gone down during midnight when she heard someone- a woman- crying in the lounge room, and saw them sitting near the kitchen.

Another sister gave her account of suffering mysterious bruises, greenish, and sometimes, she would wake up with mysterious scratches on her body. A brother of mine on another hand, along with my sister's husband, when they went upstairs to the attic to get to my other brother's room, they saw a smiling face from the other corner. And I'm pretty sure there's more, because there had also been stories from our caretakers.

Anyway, my siblings then all gathered and went to my mother to report these strange occurrences. My mother decided to call up a group of people who can recite the prayers and perform certain rites, because, you know, religious family, you know how the supernatural phenomenon is tied with religion.

When these people arrived, they start going all around the house, they recited prayers in every room, poured salt around the house's boundary. When they later tried to find the source, they found a dagger in one of the displayed cabinet cases, and one of the men said that this item is a demon's toy, that this can attract a lot of entities to their place. When they showed it to us, I had goosebumps because I know that dagger very well.

I took out the dagger before, it was gold and it had strange inscriptions, something I've never seen before but looked like Egyptian symbols. You might be wondering why I was even holding the dagger, but truth be told, there was always something about it that drew me in. Once, when there was a costume day for school, I even considered on bringing the dagger with me while I was dressed up as Snow White, lol. Turns out, my mother recognized the dagger too and she said, "The dagger had always been there ever since we moved back in. We assumed the previous tenants had forgotten to bring it with them but now... I can't help but think that they've left it here purposely, knowing what it was."

So, these people then bathed the dagger in some kind of salt (sea salt?) mixed with lemon. They recited a prayer too, and soon, they asked my older brother to bring it to a place far away and throw it. My brother asked me to come with him, and I agreed. It was nighttime as well when this took place. We ended up going not so far away, but it was far enough, far from our home and we threw the dagger into the river. My brother joked about how if we threw it into a place near the mall, people might find it and think of it as an ancient artifact, and the place would turn into a bigger chaotic mess of supernatural incidents.

Our caretaker reported that after the night when the group of people performed the ritual, she said she heard crying the first few nights and when she peeked out of her room, curtains were flying, there were a few banging against windows and doors. (She's the only one whose room is downstairs, the rest of us are on the second floor except for my brother who lived in the attic) My mom said it's the spirit trying to get out of the house because they were hurting.

And that's all for this story. I'm aware it sounds rather anti-climatic but, that's how reality can be sometimes! Until now, I'm still mulling over these incidents: I'm not as religious as my family and I always tend to look for logic before resorting to supernatural (like a tender version of Shane from Buzzfeed) Unfortunately, this isn't the last time we had a big case like this. But, I might not post it all since a very personal familial issue is also involved. Thanks for reading!