This is a story told to me by a friend of mine, whose sister works in a TV station. Yes, I know that there seems to be a bit too many people involved, but I know the sister personally and she wouldn’t just make up a story like this. Its a long story, so forgive me if I get a bit sidetracked. Here goes:

This sister of my friend was what you would call an amateur actress. Let’s call her Siti. She acted in minor productions for the relatively small TV station. In this case, the production was that of a horror story.

Being a horror story, they of course needed to be in scary locations. This story I will tell you involves a scene they shot in the forest.

They started as soon as it got dark enough. Unfortunately, the scene was a bit tricky. It was fast approaching midnight, but they weren’t even half-way through.

Frustrated, Siti sat down and leaned against a tree, closing her eyes, while listening to the crew bickering back and forth about who knows what. She heard a couple of her friends sitting down with her.

“Hey, pass me a bottle of water will you?” Siti asked her friends, gesturing in the general direction where the refreshments for the crew were kept. Someone passed her a bottle. “Thanks!” Siti said. Without bothering to open her eyes, she opened the bottle and took a long drink from it.

‘This is boring!” Siti announced to her two friends. “Let’s go over to the rest.” The other two agreed. She passed by her bag to drop off her bottle, before going over. While hading over to her friends, she asked her friends who was the one who passed her the bottle of water. She was met with a blank silence.

Finally, one of the two of her friends who were sitting beside her just now spoke up. “Um, Katrina, wasn’t it you who passed the bottle of water?”

“Uh…I thought it was you who did it, Nurul!” Katrina replied. They all stared at each other. Siti was getting impatient. “Come on, guys!” she complained. “This isn’t funny!”

“Siti, I swear, I didn’t pass you a bottle!” Nurul said.

“Me either!” Katrina chimed in. “I saw from the corner of my eye some one passing you a bottle, so I thought it was Nurul. It definitely wasn’t me.”

“Well, who else can it be?” Siti asked, getting annoyed. “There wasn’t anyone else near us, right?”

Nurul and Katrina both agreed. There hasn’t been anyone else near them at that time. “But I GOT a bottle from someone!” Siti said, getting frustrated. “I dropped it off at my bag just now! Look, I’ll show you!” She stormed over to where she left her bag, only to suddenly stop and stare in surprise. She distinctly remembered dropping off her bottle at her bag, but it wasn’t there now! “Wh-What’s going on? I definitely remember leaving my bottle here!”

“Is this yours maybe?” Katrina asked, handing her a bottle of water. “I found it near the tree we were sitting by.”

Siti examined the bottle. “I’m not sure, I mean, a bottle is just a bott-wait! This IS my bottle! How did it get there?”

“How do you know?” asked Katrina.

“Look at this.” Siti showed them the bottle. “I remember thinking how weird this was. It looks like someone wrote their signature on the bottle. But I KNOW I put it near my bag!”

At that moment, the director called them over to work on their scene some more. Siti once again dropped the bottle near her bag. The scene proceeded as usual, but suddenly, the cameraman was yelling ‘Cut, Cut!’

The director was furious. “Just who is the director here?” he practically screamed. “You ruined that scene!” And on and in it went. Through it all, the cameraman just stayed silent. At the end of it, he said, “I think we should stop filming now.”

“Are you crazy?” exclaimed the director. “We need this scene! I want it done tonight! Just do what you’re supposed to do!”

The cameraman was about to argue when he changed his mind. He just shrugged and got back behind the camera. The director ordered them to start at the beginning of the scene again. At the exact same moment as before, Siti saw the cameraman tense up. He backed away from the camera. Of course, the director noticed this and started screaming at him again, asking him what the hell is his problem.

The cameraman told him to have a look at the camera. The director refused, telling him that it was his job to look after the camera, and proceeded to order the actors involved to act out the scene around yet once again, telling them exactly what he wanted them to do.

Curious, Siti approached the cameraman and asked him what was wrong. In response, he just pointed to the camera. What Siti saw when she looked through it made her blood run cold. There was a woman dressed in white, staring straight at the camera, holding what seemed to be a bottle! She was standing by the tree where Siti was sitting earlier, where the scene was being shot now. When Siti didn’t look through the camera however, there was nothing abnormal to be seen.

On a hunch, she glanced at her bag, which was close by. Sure enough, the bottle she was drinking from just now was gone! She looked back at the pale cameraman, who was gamely trying to do his job while being petrified out of his wits. “Tell the boss!” Siti whispered in his ear, referring to the director.

“I tried” he muttered back. “He didn’t want to, remember?”

Just then, the director signaled that the scene will begin. The cameraman again began to film the scene. And again, at the exact same part as before, Siti saw him tense up. This time, however, he called out to the director, “I think there’s something wrong with the camera Boss! Can you have a look?”

Muttering furiously, the unsuspecting director stalked over to the camera and began to berate the cameraman for ‘not doing your job properly!’ Nonetheless, he still looked through the camera. Siti saw him frown, then raise his eyes to ‘The Tree’ and look through the camera again. It was then he began to look afraid – very very afraid.

“Right!” the director said crisply, turning to the rest of the crew. Siti and the cameraman looked at each other in disbelief. Surely he wasn’t planning on continuing after what he had seen!

“It appears that,” the director continued, “there’s some kind of a problem with the camera. We cannot continue tonight. We will resume tomorrow. I will tell you where we will meet, for I now feel that this area is not very suitable for this scene. Please pack up your belongings and leave. You’ll have a busy day tomorrow. Have a good night!”

Siti said that they never did go back there. The director never mentioned what he saw that night, but Siti knew exactly what he saw…

And the bottle? Funny thing, Siti was positive that she didn’t bring it back with her, but when she got home and looked in her bag, there it was! Sitting innocently in there. She threw it away immediately.