Ariel's Childhood & Nurse Stories

​Confession by Ariel

When I was very young, my mum brought me to my aunt’s house in Bedok. I remember it being a bright and sunny day. I had to walk past a few blocks of flats to reach the playground. At the fitness corner, beside the playground, there was a lady in white “hanging” on the pull up bar. At first she looked like a piece of laundry, but then I saw that the white cloth had a head within it and it was moving side to side.
 
Curious, I asked my mom why the woman was hanging there in the hot sun. My mom looked at the spot, and quickly dragged me away from the playground.
 
I was sick for many days and dreamt of the same lady when I slept. Each time I closed my eyes, about to drift off to sleep, I could see her again. I could also see white sheets of cloth flying outside my window at night. I told my mom about it and got scolded for it. She shut the curtains and told me to keep it close.
 
One morning, my mom brought me to a shop selling joss paper. The elderly lady working there was some sort of a healer or a medium, or a mix of both, and she was about to read aura. She had with her a book which she referred to for calculations. My parents spoke to her in private.
 
When their meeting was done, my parents came out to do prayers and burnt offerings. After that, I got better and didn’t encounter that lady in white anymore, although as I grew older, I had many more of such experiences.
 
*
 
My ability to see spirits is not like most people. Many people with the third eye, when they see spirits, it’s usually in shadow form. For me, when I see spirits, sometimes I can't differentiate them from humans.
 
In one of your previous Friday Night Live episodes, Eugene mentioned that between a graveyard and a temple, he would feel safer sleeping in the graveyard. There is some truth to that. Personally, I can see a lot more entities loitering outside the temple. Which is why it’s important NOT to talk nonsense outside the temple. It’s not just the divine that you might offend. You might unwittingly offend a spirit or attract one to follow you home.
In one of my earliest recollection, where once again I got scolded by my mom for “talking nonsense”, I saw an elderly couple sitting outside my late grandma’s temple. She owned a temple at Upper Thomson road.
 
As we were walking in, I asked my mom if we could invite them into the temple for food, because they look starved and miserable squatting outside.
 
I got an earful from my mom, and the next thing I knew, I was told to kneel and pray. I just did as I was told. The adults were fussing over me as they went about their blessings. Later on, I heard from my cousins that there was no

one outside the temple. I insisted that there was a crowd and they were trying to get in, but when I saw my mom’s face changed color, I just kept all these sightings to myself.
 
*
 
When I came of age to work, I took a career path that you would least expect a person with the third eye to take - Nursing.
 
This story took place in a clinic where I worked. The clinic has a Hearing Test room which is haunted. I always see a gray shadow, human shaped but in 2D, like a piece of paper, hiding behind the test booth. I didn’t feel like the entity was malicious; in fact I felt it was stuck and can’t move on.
 
Whenever I arrived early to set up the room or left later to close the room, the shadow would be there. I, somehow, could feel its desperation, its sadness… So far, I only saw it moved between two rooms: the Hearing Test Room and the Doctor’s Consultation room, which was right beside it, separated by a sliding door.
 
Back then I didn’t know what to do, so I just ignored it.
 
*
 
During my junior nursing days, I worked in a ward. It was a busy ward, be it day or night shift. I knew there were entities around the ward hanging around even in the day. But to be honest, it was just that we were too busy to “give a shit” to their presence.
 
I realized the supernatural encounters “will up the game” to another level if I went on night duty with one particular colleague of mine. We will call her Joanne. Joanne was known to have the “third eye” and for some sort of reason, I am the only one that experience such presence strongly compared to the other colleagues who partnered her on their night shifts.
 
Once, our ward manager scheduled the both of us to work a ‘4-days night’ shift.
 
 
First night was ok, it was just super busy for both of us with very sick patients admitted and stable patients turning sick.
 
Second night, we were not as busy as the first. I was updating the census board (those were the days where the board (whiteboard kind, not electronic) needed to be updated manually - at around 1-2am. While my colleague was updating her notes at her desk, our 2 enrolled nurses were in the isolation room attending to patients.
 
Suddenly I felt someone come very close to me on my left. It was so close that I could almost feel the breath. I did not dare to turn to it. I was very sure that at that time, there were absolutely no patients that would come to me. The main

reason was that they were all bed bound and next to me was an Emergency trolley, thus there wasn’t any space for anyone else to stand.
 
I felt a chilly wind gently blowing on me. It was just on me, because the paper I held on my hand was still. I took a deep breath. As usual, I just pretended that I didn’t feel anything.
 
I just stopped updating the board. I pretended to yawn and turned to my right (refer to dotted line below how I walk to my colleague) then slowly moved my way to my colleague. I wanted to tell her I was tired and would go to the convenience shop for coffee. Who knew that when I approached her, she was trembling. Looking down at her notes, she refused to look at me.
 
So being chicken, I left her there and ran to get my “coffee”.
 
 
When I came back to the ward, the both of us pretended nothing happened. Obviously, if I needed to get to the back of the ward to get urinals or bedpans for patients, I would just clench my teeth to go get my stuff.
 
In the morning, after our shift, we went for breakfast together. She told me she saw a “patient” following me. He seemed quite curious about what I was writing on the board so he stood beside me to kaypoh.
 
Following the third and fourth night, it seemed like the entities had chosen to disturb Joanne. I think they probably knew she could see them.
 
*
 
Same ward setting as the previous confession, but this time it was during my afternoon shift. I was having my dinner at 6pm and one of my colleagues popped into the office staff room to tell me they saw my patient walking out of the isolation room.
 
I knew it couldn’t be, because the patient was bedbound and not doing well (on the dangerous illness list and not for active management). I quickly checked on him and found him in bed. His parameters were at the acceptable range.
 
Fast forward to my medication round at 7pm. While preparing the medications for patients, I saw at the corner of my eye, a black shadow walking out of the isolation room door. It was moving towards me.
 
In the next moment, I heard my enrolled nurse reporting to me that the patient's parameters had dropped. Shortly, he passed on.
 
As the timing of his passing was between the handover of my shift to those on night duty, I stayed behind to complete all the updates for the rest of the patients under my care. It was sometime after 10 to 11 pm when I was seated at the nursing desk updating my notes that I saw a black shadow leaning on the nursing desk. It seemed to be looking at my writing. I looked up and saw nothing. But when I looked down again, the black shadow leaned even further towards

me. As usual, I pretended to not see, hear, smell or feel. I sped up my updating of my notes and left the ward in a hurry. As it was very late, I took a taxi home.
 
On my way home, I could smell the fragrant scent of the soap that I used to wash the patient with before sending him to the mortuary.