Sharing a Hotel Room with a "4th Person"

Confession by Edwina O

When I was about 10 years old,  I took a trip to Taiwan with my mother and two of her girlfriends, R and A. Four of us decided to share a hotel room for our trip. It is one of those family room where they have two queen size beds in the room. So my mother and I would sleep on one of the bed, while R and A would take the other.

I cannot remember how many nights we stayed in this hotel, but it was a short trip so probably about 2 nights or so.  I am a huge fan for baths and enjoy long soaks in a bathtub since most home in Singapore do not have a tub and my house is no exception. Hence, I usually like to take the opportunity during holiday trips like this to soak in the hotel room's bathtub. In order to fully enjoy my time in the tub, I will usually have everyone have their shower first and I will be the last one to use the bathroom. This will ensure I have all the time I want in my beloved tub. On last evening, R and A were lamenting that they would like to spend more time at the night market. However, I did not want to hang out late, but because of me, my mother persuaded them to return to our room early. Hence, eventually we still ended up back in our hotel room. 

I did not think too much of about their lament or why they did not seem keen to return to the hotel room. I was simply  just happy to be reunited with my bathtub. Upon our return to the hotel room, everyone started showering and I was watching TV while waiting for my turn. Meanwhile, I can hear my mother and A whispering at a corner about something. I was just out of my hearing range so I could not make out what they were in deep discussion about. However, I also just assumed that it must be some boring adult stuff that I did not care and did not really want to know about. When R, A and my mother were done showering, they hastily announced that they were going out to get supper. I was a little puzzled as we had just come back from eating so I was like no thanks, all I can think about was having my soak in the tub now.

My mother was a little hesitant (but only oh so little) about leaving me alone in the hotel room. She kept on asking me if I were comfortable being alone in the room. I told her I was very happy that they are going out as that would mean I could then turn up the volume of the TV as loud as I want and watch it from the bathtub as I enjoyed my soak. So having convinced my mother, she, A and R left the room and I was all alone now.

Nothing eventful actually happened while I was alone in the room. They eventually returned, and I had to get out of the tub anyway as I was getting really wrinkly by then. My mother then again kept on asking me if anything happened and is everything alright. I was like feeling strange why is she suddenly asking me such questions. Is something supposed to happen while I was alone or am I supposed not to be alright? 

When I asked her why she keep up with such strange questioning, she just brushed me off and told me, nope all are well and everything is good, then proceeded to distract me with some pork belly and the conversation ended there. The following morning when we were checking out, I could not shake off the feeling that the 3 ladies were being weird and acting a little strange. The whispering continued as if they were hiding something from me. So I asked them and my mother finally told me when we were safely out of the hotel. According to her, on the first night that we were there, A who was sharing a bed with R, had woken up in the middle of the night and thought that she had seen R seated at the coffee table which was near the foot of the bed where my mother and me were sleeping.

She called out R, asking her what was she doing and to return to bed. Having had no response, she then called out to R again, and that was when she turned and saw R was sleeping right next to her. She looked over to our bed and saw we were all also sound asleep in our own bed. She was totally freaked out and had immediately just dove right back under the duvet and chanted herself to sleep.

When my mother told me this story, all I could think of and said to her was, "And yet you still left me there all alone??? By myself???" 

My mother could only explained that she did not want to spook me and freak me out as well. She did not know exactly what happened either until she went out to get supper with A and R and that was when A eventually recounted her entire encounter from the night before to them. At that point, my mother quickly made them return to the room immediately. 

This encounter as such is important in a way because it made me feel kind of invincible? I feel like although there had been other small encounters throughout my growing up years and I was always presence when these happened but while it affected others, it seems to have eluded me. I was always the last one to find out that someone had an encounter as well. I think because of this, it leads me to an encounter a few years later that make me believe of their existence.