Knock, Knock, Knock

Confession by Cara

Locals who have been around long enough would probably know, before the existence of the now bustling Harbourfront Centre and VivoCity, the buildings before were called World Trade Centre and World Trade Centre 2.
I worked at WTC some 20 years ago and always rather enjoyed the fact that we had the sea so close to us. The luxury of being able to head outdoors during breaktime was a privilege my colleagues and I never took for granted.
We would park ourselves at the edge of the breakwaters and depending on where we were sitting, we could either see the cruise ships docking and awaiting their next onboarding, or the twinkling lights of Sentosa in the distance. It felt peaceful and magnificent. 
The place I worked at was located on the ground floor and when we wanted to use the washroom, we had to head out to the shared restrooms. 
I worked there for several months before realizing the third cubicle door seemed to be permanently closed. I put it down to the fact that it was either out of order, or that the cleaner chose that spot as her designated rest area.
One of those nights I was assigned the closing shift, which meant I had to be at work till  2 or 3am. It was probably past 1am when I had a nature call. For safety reasons when we did the graveyard shift, we would usually go in pairs but since I was the only female team member on shift that night, I had no choice but to answer the call alone.  
As all the shops were closed at that time, it certainly felt eerie to walk to the toilet on my own. Our of fear and also because I urgently needed to go, I made a run for it. When I got there, nothing seemed untoward and as usual the 3rd cubicle was shut, which reaffirmed what I had thought, that that toilet must be out of order. I chose the second cubicle, right next to the one that was shut and went about my business.
As I was zipping my pants, I heard a distinct "thud, thud, thud" in the cubicle next to me. I assumed it was the pipes filling with water or something so I ignored it, but again, the sound "thud, thud, thud" came from the closed cubicle to my left. 
This happened a few times, always in a rhythmic succession of three and I began to feel fear washing over me. Call me crazy but it sounded like someone was knocking on the walls of the cubicle - but wasn't it permanently locked? In all the months I was there, I had never once seen the cubicle opened for use.

I wasn't about to investigate so I quickly exited the cubicle and made a dash for the exit, but not before glancing surreptitiously at the mirrors that laid opposite the cubicles but noticing nothing out of the ordinary. The 3rd cubicle was still firmly closed.

Nothing else eventful happened that night so I put it down to me being tired and having an overworked imagination.

The next day when I got to work, I nonchalantly mentioned to one of my colleagues who had been with the company for at least a decade, about what I heard in the toilet. I tried to be casual about it, putting the cause out to be something else and said "Aiyo I think that the toilet needs to be quickly repaired, it’s been closed for so long that I think there's rats or something. I heard some knocking sound last night so maybe something got stuck in the pipes ah..."

My colleague stopped what she was doing, abruptly turning to me and said "You heard the knocking sound ah?"

It didn't go unnoticed to me that she said THE KNOCKING SOUND, as though it was something that someone had experienced before, and I went "Ya I did, like tok tok tok 3 times, then stop and then tok tok tok again. Why leh?"

I could visibly see my poor 50-year-old colleague go pale before blurting out “Aiya, next time so late if can, you don't go to that toilet la. Last time I heard this Indo girl come to Singapore. Got one Singaporean married man made her pregnant, then he don't want to take care of her and she cannot go home cos the family angry with her, so she go hang herself in that toilet lor. After that the management lock that toilet. Sometimes open only when need to do maintenance la. Hearsay that the tok tok tok sound is her feet hitting the door when she was swinging from the ceiling la. Very long already la this story.Don't want to say la suay one."

I wasn't quite sure how to handle that piece of news but I did verify the story with a couple of colleagues and tenants in other units that I was on good terms with. True enough, they all heard the same story/ experienced the same thing in their time working there.

I do wonder till this day what happened to the poor girl now that the building has been revamped to the Harbourfront/VivoCity that we know of. May she rest in peace.

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