I was just a teenager when I attended a church function with my family on Halloween. It was a more PG-13 ‘church-friendly’ version of it with less spooky elements and more activities like carnival games, costume contests and cotton candy for the kids. All of us would get there early so we could help with the set-up of the tables, chairs and game booths.
After I finished helping with the usual booth I would set up, I took a seat on a bench near the garden. It was my favorite place to sit at since I could watch the beautiful sunset. I pulled out my iPhone and was looking for some music I had on it when a man approached me and started a conversation.
I’m quite introverted by nature, so I try to keep conversations short. However, for some strange reason, this man seemed to have an inexplicable familiarity about him and I felt like I knew him from somewhere. As the conversation continued, I asked him if he was new because I had never seen him at our church before. He told me that he had been coming for years but left after an incident happened. When I asked him about it, he stopped, looked at me and said that there's some things people instinctively pick up on that they know aren't exactly normal. He also advised that you should never get curious about things that you know should be left alone.
I must have looked very confused because the man noticed it and said that I would understand once I get older. I looked down at my iPhone that I was still holding and looked back up and the man was gone. I looked around and couldn't see him anywhere in the church courtyard except for a few people still prepping for Halloween. I couldn’t explain it.
The next day, in the late afternoon, I was sitting on that same bench in the garden before leaving to do my usual volunteer work on the second floor of the main building. The second floor was where they had a play-space for children. At the end of service, volunteers would bring the children downstairs and I would go into each room to turn off the lights and make sure no one was left behind.
I was just getting up to do my usual duties when the pastor started talking about an upcoming funeral. I happened to glance up at the big screens on each side of the church hall and there he was, the man I had been talking to just the night before, on Halloween. I couldn't believe my eyes. So many thoughts and questions raced through my head. To this day it still seems unreal. I was beyond shook as I made my way out of the church hall and to the flight of stairs as I went up to the second floor.
Once I made it upstairs, another volunteer had confirmed that all the children had already been taken downstairs. She mentioned that I looked pale and asked me if I was ok. I told her it was nothing and proceeded to turn all the lights off as she made her way downstairs. The second floor was essentially a giant hallway with doors on either side and a door at the end of the hallway with a giant window in it.
As I got to the last room at the end of the hall, I would always leave the blinds on that giant window open since the light illuminated the dark hallway and made me feel less scared. But as I left the room, I remember feeling an overwhelming sense of panic and dread. I noticed it was suddenly freezing cold and I felt like if I left that room, something would jump out from the darkness and attack me. I tried to summon the courage to just run for it when I spotted the small head of a child peek out a couple of doors down.
It stayed there for a few seconds and then popped back into the room. I immediately called out to the child but there was no answer. The fear I had a minute ago was gone as I left the last room to go through the illuminated hallway. I made it to the room in a matter of seconds, quickly turning the lights on and searching for the child I saw. But it was empty. I was perplexed…where did he go? I started getting chills again as I turned the lights off. Then one of the most terrifying things I have ever seen and experienced happened.
I started to leave the room and for some reason I turned back to look at that giant window which illuminated the hallway and out of nowhere, a massive black mass moved in front of it, almost covering the light completely. It was darker than black and its outline seemed to be moving. It was enough to scare me to run for my life. I ran down the rest of the hallway and down the stairs. I was stopped by one of the ushers who told me not to run but when I told him what I saw, he looked at me as if I was crazy.
Once church was over, I told my parents about what happened on the way home and they ended up not believing me. But I know what I saw and it's something that still scares me till today.
Submitted by Andy Teo
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