Firstly, I gotta say that I do not believe in anything supernatural. No gods, no angels and no ghosts. I still don’t believe in them – but I have a set of weird “ghost story” experiences to share.

These incidences happened to me while I was studying in Sydney. I was like, staying in a rented house with a few other people. The house was actually along the main road, but anyone who has stayed in Sydney for any period of time will understand that for all their “Sydney = NYC of Oz” bullshit, the place is dead after 8-9pm. Street lighting reminds you of Malaysia. Alright – so picture this nice, clean white house along the main road – looks really bright and all in the day. Shadowy, uninviting and menacing at night.

The first weird incidences was that I never could find my stuff around that place. Y’know? Staplers, markers, penknife, documents, books – stuff you remembered pretty darned clearly you put at Location X and wtf! They’re at Location Y when you try to look for ’em. I never had this problem my entire life – I’m known for having a pretty decent memory so this just strikes me as odd. But whatever eh? Getting old – bad memory.

Right – so people started moving into the house. The landlord basically lets out up to 6 rooms in that 2 storey house so like, there could be new people moving in every semester once the old people graduate and leave. So this new HK chick moved in and y’know how its like in the first few days – you don’t really remember faces and stuff – hardly talked to her.

This one night, I woke up to relieve myself. Didn’t bother to turn on the lights – navigated by touch. When I went past the kitchen, I saw a smallish figure in white – looks like its clothed in a white nightgown, kneeling down at the fridge, possibly drinking milk or something. Wasn’t wearing my glasses at that time so I couldn’t tell. But I thought it was the HK chick so I said “Hi” as I walked past. No reply. Someone’s stuck-up? Heck, didn’t care. Went to the toilet, relieved myself. The figure was gone when I came out. I went to bed without further incident.

So like, the next couple of days when we warmed up to each other – I said like “lol – you’re stuck-up in the beginning aren’t you? Never did respond to my hellos =p”. She looked puzzled and I started to clarify myself. As it turned out:

1. She didn’t remember that late-night milk drinking incident.
2. She doesn’t drink milk. Lactose intolerant.
3. She doesn’t own a white night gown.

Ok….. whatever. That HK chick didn’t stay long – left after that semester. And some sort of weird trend started to emerge – people just didn’t stay long in that place. They will always leave after a semester or so. Maybe a year max. This Singaporean girl that came in after the HK chick left, we hit it off quite well. Quite strangely, she left mid-term – so it wasn’t even like, something she did to save rent over the vacations or anything. We still kept in contact, MSN, the occasional lunch at Uni, but she never really told me why she left that place. Indonesian chick, Canadian-Chinese chick – same thing. Now before you think I’m some kinda fugly pervo dude who’s scaring off chicks – I’m not I have it on good account that I’m a decent chap with decent looks – not a scary Bian4 Tai4 or anything

Righto – back to ghosty-weird stuff. So like, in the semester breaks, people usually fly back to their homes, or go on road trips or whatever. I was back earlier than the rest for this one semester in the 2nd year. Nobody was in the house except me. Even the landlords are overseas on vacation. And I happened to freaking forget my keys on the first night when I went out for dinner. Nobody could open up for me – at least until the next morning where I could go get a spare set of keys from my uncle who owns a shop down the road (i.e. he was a personal friend of the landlord and the latter gave him a set of spares in case idiots like me forget keys). And it was a cold winter’s night – around 8 degrees – which is nothing for people in UK and Canada but hey – we’re used to SG’s 30 degrees all year round aye? Cursing and swearing, I let myself into the unlocked, empty garage to take shelter. Curled up in a corner and went to sleep.

And….. Shit I can’t believe I’m typing this out now because I don’t believe in the supernatural. But wtf I’m woken up by this unseen force pushing down on my body. I was immobilized and I can’t breathe. Get up! Get up! My mind was screaming – but I can’t move. Like really, really can’t move. The weight on my chest increased. I thought I was gonna die.

Weird how things turned out at the end. Apparently, some part of me doesn’t wanna die – I gathered whatever fortitude I had and shouted out a HUARRRR!!!!! – kinda sounds like a newbie NS recruit bayonet-fighting drill shout. And just like that – the pressure over my body left and I sat up immediately, gasping for air. f*** that shit! I went to the 24hr MacD’s around the corner (the ONLY 24hr joint in the whole of Australia. Wow.) and had coffee till the morning. Over the course of the next day – I rationalized the whole situation as products of my hallucination. Maybe it was a dream? Doesn’t feel like any dream I ever had though. Heck. I have stuff to do. No time for ghosties. So I just sucked it up and went back to the house – its helluva lot trouble to go look for new accommodations.

The strange part about all this is that after that night – I have no further weird incidences. People don’t start leaving after a semester – this bunch of HK boys who came in soon after are still there today, finishing up their final semesters. It was like the weird shit was completely exorcised from that place.

Funny huh? Weird shit. Dunno if it qualifies as a “ghost” story.