 Confession by Sheryl Retold by Ivan Goh, re-written by Eugene Tay Sheryl has a best friend called Lily. The two girls had made plans to travel but kept procrastinating until adult life got in the way. Sheryl got married first followed by Lily. Deciding that they should make that vacation come true before they all get too old to travel, Sheryl and Lily planned a trip to Hong Kong but this time with their respective families in tow. Sheryl brought her husband and son; Lily brought her husband. They stayed in the same hotel for five days and four nights. Sheryl and her family stayed in the room two doors left from the elevator while Lily and her husband stayed at the last room on the other end of the corridor on the right. Sheryl has the tradition of knocking the door before entering the room, as well as another tradition which I hadn't heard before, which is, after knocking, and when you open the door, you have to enter sideways, to show that you are letting whatever entity in there leave before you fully enter the room. Her husband and son however were not aware of such superstitious customs. Sheryl managed to stop her husband in time but was too late from catching her son who excitedly ran into the room. Another of Sheryl's hotel room tradition is that the first thing she does upon entering the room is to flush the toilet bowl, turn on every light, and open the curtains, cupboard and drawers; but this time exhausted from having to manage her young child while traveling, she had lapsed on this tradition. On the first night, after they had gone to bed, Sheryl was awoken by someone crying. It sounded like it came from an adult female. The sound seemed somewhat distant, and at the point of time, she thought to herself maybe it might be from the neighbouring room and the noise was likely to be from a television. She didn’t care too much about it at first until she turned to check on her family and saw her son who was sleeping between her husband and her, sitting up right, holding on to "cho-cho", his small bolster, and swinging it round and round in front of him. He looked to be in a daze. She nudged her son and the boy got startled. Sheryl asked him what happened but the boy had no recollection. It was as if he was having a dream and the memory had faded as soon as he was awake. Her son excused himself to go to the toilet. Sheryl had earlier placed her protective Buddhist pendant on the side table beside her as she had always done when she goes to bed but when she tried to reach for it she realised that it was no longer there. She quickly woke her husband up, and asked for his protective pendant, and he told her that he had placed it on his side of table just as she did, but when Sheryl searched for it, it too wasn't there. Her husband mumbled that maybe it might be in their luggage and turned back to sleep. Sheryl foraged through their luggage for her husband's pendant and found it, she wore it around her neck and clutched it to sleep. Sheryl foraged through their luggage for her husband's pendant and found it, she wore it around her neck and clutched it to sleep. Next morning, she searched the room again but still could not find her amulet. Sheryl was puzzled by the sudden disappearance. The room wasn't very big and she knew exactly where she had placed her amulet. For it to go missing like that was just bizarre. Her son and husband knew better than to be playing pranks with such religious item. She decided to continue wearing her husband's amulet throughout her stay. Fortunately the next few nights were peaceful and Sheryl had proper sleep and enjoyed herself on the holiday, but this was not the end of the story though. After they checked out of the hotel and were waiting for the flight at the airport, Sheryl's husband opened up and said that he heard a girl crying every night. When he went around to check, he couldn't find the source but it seemed to be coming from inside the room. Apparently, how the husband knew the amulet was in the luggage was that he thought he had seen Sheryl came by to his bedside and removed the amulet from the table and tucked it inside the luggage. Sheryl denied ever doing that, of course. Her husband's memory of that incident was rather hazy and he couldn't be sure if he wasn't dreaming. One thing that was undeniable however, was that her husband would wake up in the middle of the each night, during the crying girl episodes, and discover that all the lights were turned off. He knew his wife well enough to know that it was mandatory for her to leave at least some lights on. So who turned off the lights? Everything was beginning to sound weird. Lily and her husband who had been listening in all along broke their silence and said that they too had heard crying sounds every night coming from somewhere inside their room, and on one of the nights, Lily's husband felt something lying on top of him. He didn't have the strength to sit up or called for Lily. Lily on her part did not encounter anything too drastic and attributed her peaceful sleep to having followed superstitious customs while her non-asian husband scoffed at her practice and must have angered the spirits. When Sheryl pressed her husband for more answers and wondered why he never once mentioned any of this during their stay, her husband just shrugged and said that since the ghost didn't really disturb them, he was happy to just cohabit in the same place and go back to sleep. "The last time I went to New York in winter and stayed in a cheapo hotel, I thought I could hear a baby crying every thirty minutes interval, but it turned out to be the old pipes heating up and contracting. I wonder if the crying sound could be explained away the same way. As for the disappearing amulet, that's something that I have experienced personally and have no explanation for." - Eugene Tay
 An illustration of the creature that Cara saw in the hotel room. Confession by Cara Wong On a trip to Hong Kong in 2004 with a girlfriend of mine, we stayed in a pretty international hotel in the Tsim Tsa Tsui district.(starts with the letter "M"). It was our first time in HK so we did a 5D4N trip to explore the country. Everything seemed fairly normal when we arrived and checked in, with the exception that the room was cold. Like REALLY cold. We figured it was because the weather in Hong Kong was 18 deg and dropping, so we probably weren't used to the climate and the room felt colder than usual. (AC was at 21 deg). The layout of the room was such that when you entered, the bathroom is on your right and just a few steps ahead was the "pantry" area (with all the coffee, tea, fridge etc) and it was completely mirrored. It also reflected the bathroom that was opposite it. We had 2 separate twin beds but because one of it was facing the mirrored pantry area (superstitious beliefs lead us to think that sleeping opposite a mirror is not a good idea) we decided to shift the beds a little closer to each other since the room was very big anyway. The problem was the bathroom. During the first few nights of showering, I always felt uneasy. As though there was a pair of eyes just boring into me but i put it down to being in a foreign country so I brushed it off but my showers did become super quick. At nights, the room became cold, unbearably so. It got to the point that after the 1st night, my friend and I decided to join the beds together to keep warm. We tried to request for a room change but the receptionist informed us that they were full. To their credit, they did try to send up people to help with the thermostat but after 2-3 futile attempts, we gave up complaining. My friend also request that we keep the lights on at all times. On our last night in the hotel, my friend said that she could not take the cold anymore and asked if we could have some tea. Since my bed was closest to the pantry area, i got up to fill the flask to boil the water. I was right about to take the teabags when a movement from the mirror distracted me and I looked up. As I mentioned, the pantry is completely mirrored and reflected the bathroom and when i looked up to see what was moving, I was horrified to see a grotesque female head with long hair and what looked like intestines, hovering near the ceiling light of the bathroom and the damn thing was looking straight at me. I was horrified to see a grotesque female head with long hair and what looked like intestines, hovering near the ceiling light of the bathroom and the damn thing was looking straight at me. Needless to say I FREAKED, abandoned the cups, rushed to our beds and jumped in. I lied to my friend that the flask was not working and that we should just go to bed. She didn't reply so I assumed she had fallen asleep. I might also mention that back then, I was a really staunch Catholic and I wore a cross for years that was blessed by a priest and that night i clutched it the whole night trying my best to fall asleep under the covers and praying to God the "thing" wouldn't do anything to us. By some miracle, we made it thru till the morning. I didn't mention anything to my friend so as not to scare her but for some reason she was unnaturally silent and just told me to pack up and check out (even though check out was noon and it was barely 8am when we woke.) Whilst packing, I noticed the cross I wore was gone. I thought perhaps I might have accidentally pulled it off in my sleep so we shifted the beds around, pulling up all the beddings and carpet but it was just gone. We quickly left the room with our bags and informed the receptionist about my cross and to give me a call if they found it. Finally on the bus back to the airport, I asked my friend if she found anything strange about the room we stayed in and she said for the 4 nights we were there, even when her eyes were closed, she felt like someone was repeatedly "floating" past our beds every night but she didn't say anything since we couldn't change rooms anyway. P.S: Just did a google search and that hotel still exists, except the name has been changed over the years.  The photo above shows the layout of the room. This is exactly how the room looked like except that the bathroom were real walls back then and not glass like in this pic, and the "pantry" area was covered with cabinetry and the mirrors wrapped around it
 Illus. by Bird, an art teacher from Thailand. Confession by Kai-Tak The following incidents took place in the North of Thailand. Bird is an art teacher who shared these stories, knows the guide from his trips. He illustrated the scenes from the two stories above. GERMAN TOURISTS A group of German tourists reached one hotel after a long flight from Germany. The guide told bus driver to drop her at the lobby and then park the bus in the parking lot behind the hotel. She ran to reception, checked in and ran to the bus. It took a long time at the reception for checking 50 tourists in, she was worried that her clients would be mad because they just had a long flight from home. She found no one when she reached the bus, all 50 tourists disappeared. She looked around and had no clue where those tourists went, she found a staff near the parking lot so she asked if he saw a group of tourists around the area. He said they walked towards the back of the hotel. She wondered to herself why the tourists would go there. It seems like an odd place to be walking to. While she was walking to the back of the hotel, the tourists walked back with a smile on their faces. They patted her shoulders and said thank you, some of them even gave her tips. She was confused but she didn't ask. She gave out the room key cards to those tourists and left it as that. In the morning during breakfast, she checked on the tourists if their rooms were ok. One of the tourists greeted her happily and said, "thank you so much about yesterday, we didn't expect such a good welcoming show." "What show?" she asked. One of the tourists greeted her happily and said, "thank you so much about yesterday, we didn't expect such a good welcoming show." "We were bored and tired yesterday. One kid in Thai traditional costume came on the bus, while we were waiting for you. She told us to follow her, when we got off the bus, there were so many kids waiting for us. They led us to the back of the hotel, they performed something like folk dance. It was fun and amazing!" The guide was confused, so she asked the hotel staff what show it was. The staff told her that they don't have show for tourists. "You can watch video from my phone" one tourist said and handed his phone to her. ".....errr, that's strange...why did it only record an empty courtyard?..." "Oh mine as well, there's only an empty courtyard in my pictures too… wait, ask that guy he has good camera maybe he got something" After going through all the phones and cameras, all 50 tourists claimed that they watched the show yesterday, but no one captured anything but the empty courtyard. Who said all ghosts are scary? In Thailand, even ghosts work hard to entertain their guests - Eugene Tay SPANISH TOURISTS There was a honeymoon trip for a Spanish couple. The guide took them to museums and local areas. After spending the entire day out sightseeing, the couple had dinner and retired to their room early. While they were cuddling, the woman turned off the light but turned it back on right away. "Why!?" Her husband asked. "I saw a log in the middle of the room…. It's really long, it reaches the ceiling…" She turned the light off, then turned it on again. "Where did you see? I see nothing now" "Right there, in the middle. I only see it when I turn off the light" she turned the light off again, this time her husband saw it as well but it was not a log, it was a man. He looked big, tough and tall but when they turned the light on, he disappeared. He looked big, tough and tall but when they turned the light on, he disappeared. "Who are you!? What do you want?" The husband asked. Silent…. No one was there, just only them. "Alright, turn all the lights on" When they turned all the lights on then they saw a man in traditional costume like they saw at the museum, looking at them angrily. The husband threw a bottle of water at the entity, grabbed his wife and ran to the guide's room. They told her what happened and together they went back to the couple's room but there was no one inside. They only saw the bottle on the floor. The couple ended up sharing the room with their guide because it was too late to get new hotel. Skeptics would claim that their tired minds must be replaying the things that they saw in the day, but for both of them to have the same exact vision? Hmm... I say this must be the hantu. - Eugene Tay
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