 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
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