Being born and grewn up in a kampung, I find myself attached to nature and loves exploring the greens.

When I was around 7, my mum happened to know a friend living in a small village of Johor. As a result, we are often brought to this small village. Usually we goes there by train and the journey takes around 4 hours.

On one of these trips, we were going in to the village again. As usually, we are greeted by lots of smiling faces of the children staying in the same house. I treated them like my own siblings. And there are almost 20 kids in all!!

Coincidentally, my aunt decided to tag along with us to our so called hide-out. Before going, she handed us presents that she brought from Tibet. It was a braclet said to be blessed by one of the Living Buddha. Being brought up with Buddhism, it was a habit to put it onto my wrist.

At the house, a handful of us, being the elder ones, were discussing on places to explore along with the malaysian kids. They suggested a waterfall which was found deep in the forest. Of cos we agreeed readily. And went preparing our extra clothes and towels for the trip and took off in our bicycles.

After cycling for like an hour, we reached the waterfall hidden away in the midst of towering trees. Strangely, despite the burning sun, the air around us was cooling. We wasted no time and dived into the water. It was icy cold and we shiver from head to toes. But after several mins, we adapted to the icy water and was running up and down the falls and diving down from the top.

Soon it was my turn to dive off.. i struggled my way to the middle where the currents are the strongest as 3 rivers combines into 1. Steadying myself and taking small steps at a time, I reached the mid of the river. When I was preparing to dive off, I heard someone speak to me from behind, I turned around and saw a little in school uniform coming face to face with me. I felt her pushed me over the falls and there was nothing for me to grab.. i fell down head first. Plunging into the pool, i was trying to get my feets onto a ground so that I am able to kick myself to the surface.. however the ground seems so far away and I was choking on the water and my vision blurred. All of sudden, I remembered the braclet given to me. I held on to it tightly and there was a warm force pushing me from below the the surface.

When i re-surfaced,everyone was looking at me in shock. They said I went under water for more than a minute or so, yet they swam around and couldn’t seems to find me. Coughing and shivering, I told them what had happened. About the little girl and how I was being pushed out of water.

One of the kids looked at me and said, the girl you described, she was killed by a falling tree last week. Her family had came to the waterfall for a picnic and all of sudden came a thunder storm. They were running for shelter when she realised she had left her bag on the bridge. She ran back to retrieve her bag but was crushed under the fallen tree. The bridge is right over there. He pointed to a bridge. I looked over and nearly screamed out as I saw her standing there looking at us.

Without another word, I ran for my bicycle and cycled all the way home. Who or what had saved me under the water, I really don’t know. The braclet had gone missing when I re-surfaced.

[Posted at: Waterfall]