This incident happened to my relatives in their Tampines flat. It happened about 10 years ago while my cousin was still a pri school boy.Their flat was the old 4 rm flat model. (Huge, I must say.) When it was first bought, my uncle’s family lived there. As time goes by, most got married and moved out.As a result, one of the room was never occupied for several years as my cousin’s family is relatively small.

When my cousin was about 10, he experienced disturbances at night. Whatever the thing was, it must have been fond of him. My cousin would wake up in the middle of the night semi-conscious and ‘followed’ the voice to places around the house. Sometimes, my aunt would hear her son’s footstep and got him back to his room.My aunt got her last straw when she woke up to see my cousin about to get out of the front gates. If she had woken up late, he might have just gone out of the house and god knows what would happen to him.

Because of that incident, his mum decided it was best my cousin stayed over my house for the week as it was getting out of hand. My cousin,his sister and their mum stayed over at mine leaving the house alone to the dad. My cousin managed to get back his good night sleep over here. However, the thing found the new target: my uncle. While alone at home, he slept on his bed with this feet slightly dangling at the edge of the bed. ( He must have been very tired to adjust his sleeping position). Halfway in dream land, he was woken up by a light scratch at the sole of his feet.The light scratch got deeper and that ticklish feeling really woke him up..In the dark, he peered over at his feet and true enough, there was someone’s hands there. He did not see ‘the thing’as it was under the bed but he saw the hand and the long fingernails. He muttered some prayers, got a blanket to cover his feet and tried very hard to sleep.The thing went off soon after.

After that incident, my uncle called up a pious man to rectify the problem. The man explained to my uncle that the unoccupied room was already heavily occupied by ‘them’ and they have proliferated over the years. I believe they were called ‘djin’ (in english.err..genie/spirits/ghouls??)It was almost impossible to get all of them out of the house. It was a daunting task for the pious man to get them to leave. After the so called negotiations, they went away, but apparently not all of them.

My uncle on the other hand was thankful enough as the family were no longer disturbed and that unoccupied room has since been occupied by my other cousin. However, till this day when I sleep over at their place I would feel weird. Like just last year, while sleeping there I woke up out of a sudden to find myself ‘paralysed’…I could move my eyes to look at my cousin but could not bring my hands to wake him up nor could I call him. After that incident, whenever I want to sleep at his place I would wait till 5am before switching off the lights to sleep.

And, it’s my habit now to sleep with my legs curled up making sure none of them went over the edge of the bed. And,as much as possible I would use a blanket to cover my feet even though it’s warm..I think u should too.