Supernatural — Nobody Believes Me

This story happened to my aunt. My aunt never really hid the incident — our whole large extended family knew about it, and over time what had happened turned into a kind of family legend. Back then she was still a young woman of thirty and a mother of two small children, and she went through a terrible tragedy: her husband, with whom she had been married for ten years, died of leukemia at the age of thirty-one. After the funeral, the family was preparing to hold the memorial meal for the deceased. In the largest room they set up a big table for the guests. Once everything was ready, my aunt and her sister lay down to sleep in another room. The memorial itself was scheduled for the following day. In the middle of the night, my aunt suddenly woke up to the sound of water running from a tap. According to her, she could clearly hear someone turn the water on in the bathroom, wash up, come out, and head for the living room. She could distinctly hear the footsteps of someone walking. The door of the room where she was sleeping was slightly ajar, but the apartment was dark and it was impossible to make anything out. Besides, the entrances to the bathroom and the living room weren't visible from where she lay. Instinctively, my aunt glanced sideways at her sister — she was sleeping right beside her. There was no one else in the apartment. She couldn't move from the wave of terror that had swept over her and, barely breathing, she lay there listening to what was happening in the living room. And in the living room someone was making their way along the memorial table — she could hear the chairs that had been pushed up against the wall being moved. My aunt mentally followed the movements of the mysterious guest, and suddenly she went cold with a horrifying realization. She remembered that there in the living room, by the window, they had left the towel that had been used to wipe the body of the deceased. According to folk belief, the towel used to wipe a deceased person must either be placed in the coffin or burned immediately after the funeral — otherwise the spirit of the departed may return. But both at the funeral and afterwards, everyone had forgotten about that towel. The sounds in the living room died down, but my aunt didn't close her eyes until morning, ready at any moment to hear or even see absolutely anything. In the morning it turned out that the chairs in the living room really had been shifted slightly. Her sister confirmed it, too — she remembered exactly how she had arranged them the evening before. With the towel things were a bit trickier: neither my aunt nor her sister could recall exactly how or where they had left it the night before, so they couldn't say with certainty that anyone had touched it. Later on, my aunt — who had grown up in a non-religious working-class family — kept trying to convince herself that the whole thing had been a hallucination or a dream. But then how to explain the sounds she heard that night and the chairs that had been moved? To that, my aunt has no answer.

My name is Rahmat, I'm 34, I'm from Yogyakarta. This happened 3 years ago. I had a small coffee shop near Gadjah Mada University. Things were going well. Students came in every day, I hired two girls for the register — the second one honestly more because she was my mom's neighbor's kid, the neighbor asked. I was even starting to think about a second location. Mom was happy. For the first time in my life I felt like things were actually working out. And then in one week everything fell apart. First the coffee machine broke. I bought a new one. Next day the new one broke too. Just wouldn't turn on, the technician said he had no idea what was wrong. Then a pipe burst inside the wall, flooded the whole place. While I was drying everything out, one of my employees fainted right at the register. Fell and smashed the display case. You can imagine the costs — doctor, repairs. And the next morning I found a dark spot by the front door. Something oily, foul-smelling, like a mix of incense and something rotten. I'm not a superstitious person, really. But when I saw that spot, the hair on my arms stood up. I just stood there staring at it, and I had this feeling inside that I can't explain. A bad one. Mom called that same day. I hadn't told her anything about the spot, but she said: "Rahmat, go see Ki Lurah Semo." Just like that, no reason. She said she had a bad dream. When she has a bad dream, she won't let it go anyway, so I went. Ki Lurah Semo is a dukun who lives in a village south of Yogyakarta. He's about seventy, maybe older. My grandmother used to go to him when I was little. I remember his house — simple, dirt floor, a huge banyan tree in the yard. He doesn't charge a set fee, you just leave whatever you can. I went. I didn't know what else to do anyway. Ki Lurah Semo was sitting on a mat drinking tea. He looked at me and said: "Do you have a partner? Someone you were going to start a business with?" And I went cold. Because yes… there was one. Adi. We planned to open the coffee shop together, but we had a falling out over money before we even opened. He put in a small amount, I paid him back every last cent, and we went our separate ways. I thought it ended fine. Ki Lurah Semo said it briefly, something like: "He went to someone. Not to me. And he paid to have your business killed. He believes you cheated him." I felt embarrassed sitting in front of a dukun listening to this. And at the same time… I felt he was telling the truth. Because Adi really was hurt. He believed the coffee shop idea was his, and that I stole it and made money off it. That's not true, but that's what he believed. Ki Lurah Semo asked me to bring three things: water from the well near my coffee shop, a handful of dirt from the threshold, and a white jasmine flower. I brought everything the next day. He placed a bowl of water on the floor, dropped in the dirt and the flower. He started reciting something… not in Indonesian, in Old Javanese. The water in the bowl turned cloudy, then almost black. Then he leaned over the bowl and blew, and the water became clear again. Clean. The jasmine flower floated on the surface like nothing had happened. He gave me the water and told me to pour it on the threshold of the coffee shop. And then he said that when a person pays for their anger to enter someone else's home, it doesn't pass without a trace for them. "Don't be angry at him. Just close the door," that's what he said. I poured the water on the threshold that same evening. The spot I couldn't scrub off for three days was gone the next morning. Just gone. The concrete was clean, like nothing had ever been there. A week later the coffee machine worked. It just turned on when I pressed the button that morning. The employee who'd been sick came back to work. The students came back. By the end of the month the revenue was higher than before all the problems started. And six months later I ran into Adi at the market by accident. He looked bad. Thin, dark circles under his eyes. He looked away and left. I felt sorry for him. Ki Lurah Semo had warned that it would come back to him. That's how it works. I didn't take revenge. I even wanted to call him, but Mom said don't. Don't open that door again. Now I have two coffee shops. Things are going well, alhamdulillah. At the threshold of each one I keep a small pot of jasmine. Ki Lurah Semo recommended it.

Something dead strange happened to me once in my life. But ever since, I've believed in spirits and all that stuff you just can't explain. It happened in 2004. I was on holiday in Thailand with my kid. December 2004 — everyone knows that one now. We were in Phuket, loving the swimming, going on day trips. Everything was great, until we went on an excursion to Khao Sok. I've always been a bit of a thrill-seeker — I especially love swimming way out, feeling at one with the ocean. My family are always having a go at me about it. But splashing around on the beach with a mob of people — that's just not my thing. So on this trip, we rocked up to Cheow Lan Lake. As usual, I wanted to get in the water. Nobody else from the group was keen — they reckoned it might be dodgy. But the guide said it was a man-made lake and it was fine. So I figured there couldn't possibly be any underwater monsters or crocs in there. Off I went. At first I was just enjoying myself. ThenI started getting a bit anxious — what if thre were snakes? But turning back felt embarassing at that point, so I kept going until I was halfway across the lake. And that's when things got strange. This absolute terror just washed over me. I felt like I was still on the lake, but like waves were crashing over me. I had this overwhelming fear for my kid, who was back on the shore. At one point I actually went under. Then everything went still. I came back up and saw the calm water again, our group on the bank. I was so shaken and frozen with fear that I couldn't even swim back straight away. That sick feeling of dread stayed with me the entire day. After we got back to the hotel, I thought I'd sleep it off and be right by morning. But that night I saw the exact same thing, only in a dream. Woke up absolutely wrecked — the anxiety was even worse after the nightmare. I went down to the hotel lobby to use their computer to check if there were any earlier flights home. Turned out there were seats on a flight back to Melbourne through Bangkok the very next day. I decided to get us home as quick as I could so I could see a doctor and get on some antidepressants. We flew out the next day. Six days later, I saw the tsunami on the news — including Phuket. I couldn't believe my eyes. We were supposed to still be there. What scared me like that? Was it trying to warn me? I'd have thought it was some local spirit, but it's a man-made lake. Still can't figure it out.

I was like 15 or 16. Just a normal night, nothing special. Me, my friend Ethan, and Sarah were hanging out at her place. Everything was pretty standard - pizza, soda, messing around, trying to find something creepy to watch before going to sleep. At some point Sarah goes, "Hey, what if we try a Ouija board?" She said she found it in a closet - like some old one that was probably left behind by the previous owners or something. We all started laughing, like, "Oh yeah, sure, let's summon a TikTok demon." But we were bored, so we were like, whatever, let's do it. We turned off the main lights, sat down the three of us, and put our fingers on the pointer. At first, nothing. Like, literally nothing. We just sat there for five minutes asking dumb questions into the void. And then it moved. Not suddenly. Super slow. Like… just barely sliding. The kind of movement where it feels like one of you is pushing it, but no one wants to admit it. I immediately go, "Okay, who's moving it?" Ethan says it's me. Sarah says it's Ethan. So yeah, we all just blamed each other. We decided to test it. Asked something really simple, like, "How many people are in the room right now?" The pointer stopped. Then it started moving again. Slowly, with pauses. 3 We all kinda looked at each other and laughed, because that didn't prove anything. Then Ethan goes, "Alright, let's ask something none of us know." Sarah asks, "What was the name of the previous owner of this house?" I definitely didn't know. Ethan didn't either. The pointer starts moving again. Super slow, letter by letter. We could literally follow it with our eyes. M A R I A And that's when it got… weird. Sarah didn't say anything at first. She just stared at the board. Then she suddenly pulled her hands back and went pale. At first we thought she was messing with us, like doing the classic "make it dramatic" thing. But she looked genuinely freaked out. I asked, "Wait… are you serious?" She nodded. And honestly, that's when I started feeling uneasy. Not like horror-movie scared, just… that weird feeling when something doesn't make sense and your brain is trying to come up with a normal explanation. We kept going. Not laughing anymore. We asked, "Who are you?" The pointer didn't move for like twenty seconds. Then slowly started going again. L I V E H E R E Ethan immediately goes, "Okay, this is dumb. One of us is just messing around." And honestly, that sounded pretty reasonable. I was almost sure it was him. So we decided to stop. Said "goodbye," took our hands off. And then the weirdest part of the whole night happened. The second we weren't touching it anymore, the pointer twitched. Not like it slid across the board or anything. Just a tiny movement, toward "GOODBYE." Like the tiniest bit. That's it. But all of us saw it. And none of us were touching it. And that part was actually scary. We shut everything down real fast. Turned the lights back on, put the board away in the box. The next day Sarah texted us saying she checked - and the previous owner's name actually was Maria. And she swears she never told us that before. I'm not saying it was anything supernatural. Maybe one of us really was moving it, or maybe Sarah mentioned the name at some point and we just forgot. But that tiny movement, when no one was touching it… that's the part that still sticks with me. Because it was just… too weird. And yeah, nobody really believes me. But I wasn't the only one who saw it.

So this is a story my mom told me. She was a school teacher — she's retired now. And she had this coworker around the same age, I actually remember her, she taught CTE at our school. Anyway, this coworker's husband left her for another woman. I don't know what made her do this, but she decided she was getting him back. She went to some curandera — like this old woman someone recommended to her — and asked her to do something to bring him back. The woman warned her straight up: she could do it, but nothing good would come of it. She said it would come at a cost. And not just for the person casting it — for the one it was cast on too. Maybe the coworker didn't believe her. Maybe she just couldn't picture her life without him. Who knows. But they went through with it. And guess what? He came back. Literally within a couple months. I still remember my mom being like, "Can you believe it?? It actually worked!" But then she started telling me how they both got sick. The coworker — okay, she wasn't doing great, but it was manageable. Her husband though? He got seriously ill. Like, you could literally see him getting worse. Three years later he was gone. She still has health problems, but she's alive — and it's been like 20 years now. Look, I'm a woman. I get it. Being cheated on and abandoned is devastating. But what terrifies me even more is that these spells are apparently real. And what's even MORE terrifying is that the worst of it doesn't even hit the person who did it — it hits the person it was done to. How is that fair?? You don't even know it's happening to you, and YOU'RE the one who pays for it with your health. That's just so messed up.