I have a fascination with genealogy, which is what started all the trouble. My next door neighbour and I were fellow hobbyists, and we often supported each other’s search for long lost ancestors. We would spend hours going over stacks of dusty country records, wandering through old houses and getting lost on back lanes, trying to find the homes of retired folks who remembered what our forefathers were like way back then.

On this particular day, we were travelling to the neighbourhood where my grandfather’s mother spent her childhood. I remember grandfather telling me about how much of a wonderful and graceful lady she was and how much I resembled her.

Every time he told me a story about her, his eyes sparkled and gleamed with joy. Particularly that time on a New Year’s Eve when he told me about the street bullies beating him up as a child and leaving him covered in bruises and bloodstains. I remember him speaking about how his mother took care of him the whole night, smothering him with kisses, comforting him with his favourite fairy tales until he fell asleep on that cold night.

It seemed like she was loved by many, considering how I would always hear good things about her here and there from the family. I truly wished to see and meet this elegant lady. But sadly, grandfather told that one day she went on a hiking trip with her friends and on their way back, she took a wrong way and never returned. People searched for her everywhere, but there were no traces of her. For many years they continued their search, but then assumed she was dead, and my grandfather and grandmother moved to this city.

My grandfather also showed me her picture, we were exactly identical. From the way her dark curls fell over her face, masking her amber eyes to the way her face was intricately drawn.

Fast forward, we were here on an abandoned jungle going round and round in circles. We were hopelessly lost. The situation was getting dire. The GPS had stopped working a while ago. There seemed to be a force preventing us to reach our destination.

I could see the sun slipping away through the trees and the sensational sky filling with the pinks and purples of the setting sun. The weather got gradually colder. As I walked through the impenetrable jungle, I could hear the petrifying yelping of a furious animal nearby. My heartbeat increased as I intently listened to the heart-pounding noise, which appeared to be getting louder by the second. Shivers ran down my spine as the hair on my neck stood up in fear of the danger lurking in the shadows.

“Somebody help me,” a screeching voice echoed into the abyss.

On instinct, we turned our heads to where the horrified voice was coming from. What we could make out from the shadows coming towards us was a person badly hurt, and yelling and signalling us to run away too. In spite of my body’s warnings and alarming signals, my eyes were glued on the enormous, immense and hazardous monster chasing after the man. It was a big wild bear, hungry for fresh flesh! The person running went in another direction while we were still looking at this wild beast.

My body went numb and I became immobilised in fear, not being able to hear the voice of my pal nagging and ushering me to escape. It was until she tugged and dragged my hand that I was pulled out of my trance, making me run along with her, in the same direction that man ran.

Running away from the fierce creature I could feel the sweat trickling down my spine. As we struggled through the quagmire creeping through the thick foliage, I could hear the thick leaves rustling together.

In realisation that we had been running for quite a while and that the monster’s howling had stopped, I glanced behind me to notice that we had outrun the monster. As I no longer had the strength and power to go, I stopped and lay down. My body’s fight and flight response had come to a stop. My throat hurt as I struggled to breath in air.

I looked around me to notice that the man whom we had been following had passed out and that my pal was beside him to save him, using the first aid kit that we brought here. Looking around, it seemed that we had unknowingly entered a sketchy and spooky area, or what some people may infer to be as ‘haunted’.

The gates through which we had entered had now been shut. Upon further inspection, I noticed that we were in front of an old, dilapidated building in desperate need for a new paint job. I could see a faint shadow of towering, tall tress side by side to it. The building gave a menacing and eerie aura. Like it was warning the people not to enter.

As I approach the house, I smelt the old musty smell of it. When I stepped on the front steps of the house, I heard a crack from underneath the floorboards. With every step, it seemed like the creaking got louder. I hold around the dusty door handle and slowly pulled it. The door was locked. I then knocked on the door.

The knocking sound reverberated through the air. What was I thinking, who could still live in such a dusty, uninhabitable place? Anxious to get out of this place, I started to walk back from the door, but stop dead in my tracks when I heard the faint sound of the door unlocking.

Fighting a rising panic, I looked back, and what I saw shook me to the core. In front of me, healthy and alive was my grandfather’s mother whom we had presumed dead for years…

Published in Dawn, Young World, April 29th, 2023