Back in 2008, my childhood friend and I went on a camping trip that was organized deep in the forested area of Malaysia. Initially, I was absolutely thrilled for the camp knowing that we would finally be able to share the same tent without our parents but seeing that I was having my ‘time of the month’, I was unquestionably dreading the trip. To me and I’m sure, a few others, being in a forested area while you’re having your time of the month just isn’t a good equation.

We left Singapore in the the late afternoon and reached the camping grounds around midnight that same day. I was exhausted from the drive and having back pain, all I wanted to do was to go to bed. Our camp advisor briefly briefed us for a short while and sent us off to the registration area to collect our items and off to our tents straight after.

Our sleeping quarters was located on top of a hill on the right side of the road so we had to climb an extremely steep flight of stairs to get there while the activity ground, canteen and registration area was towards the left side of the road. We reached our tent and slept peacefully for the first day.

On the second day, that was when things started to get a little weird. I was feeling uneasy for most of the day, especially when I’m alone. Eventually I passed it off as me being overly emotional seeing that I was having the time of the month. Around 7pm, the sky started to get extremely dark and my friend asked me to accompany her back to our tent to take something. Seeing that it was already dark, I wasn’t about to ask her to go alone so I went and accompanied her.

As we were walking across the road and towards the staircase, that was when I felt it again. That uneasiness and it was stronger this time round. I decided not to voice it out as I didn’t want to scare my friend. She was walking in front of me and I was at the back as the staircase only allowed enough for one person on each step. As we were climbing up the step, I felt a presence on my right side. My breathing started to get shallower and I immediately knew that something was definitely wrong and that we were being watched. By who, or what- I didn’t know. I kept my cool and kept my sights on the staircase. Slowly my peripheral vision started to grow dark and the right side of my body felt hot, and the left cold. I could feel someone breathing down on the right side of my face. Like whoever it was is just a few centimeters away from my face.

Out of the blue, my friend stopped and she turned around.

She screamed.

“Ly, there’s something beside you! There is something beside you!”

Right after she said that, immediately the feeling of being watched left me and I turned and saw the plants moving slightly as if someone had just left the scene in a hurry. There was no wind at the moment even to debunk it so I turned towards my friend and asked her to move and make her way inside our tent without saying anything else.

Once we were inside the tent, she kept on repeating that she saw something while we were climbing the stairs. I tried to calm her down but what she said next sent chills down my bones.

“Ly, there was something there. I saw it. It was huge, black and perched on top of a rock. It had red glowing eyes and it was staring right at you.”

I told her that I know. I felt it. But knowing that this is a forested area, I decided not to acknowledge its existence. Thank god our tent mates showed up a few minutes later. We left our tent after taking what’s needed for the next activity and went back to the activity ground. But as we were climbing down the same staircase, I realized one thing, the rock that my friend was talking about wasn’t there.

It wasn’t there at all.