On my younger cousin sister’s marriage occasion, we all cousin siblings were gathered there to my Mama’s place. He had a huge bungalow—which was embellished by colorful flickering LED strip lights. All work of marriage was given to wedding-planners, so we didn’t have to do anything except enjoy the function.
It was a summer day, so we all cousin siblings gathered at the rooftop around 11:30 PM. At late night wind was breezing wonderfully. We all were grown up and mature. We teased each other, recollected our old day’s memories when we were little, talked about our school-college affairs—and between our talk, my younger cousin brother, Harsh, who was a huge fan of horror movies, so he brought up another topic by saying, “Hey, Have you seen ‘Hereditary’ movie? God! It’s an awesome movie!!”
“Yeah, I’ve seen it. But I didn’t find much intriguing. It was the okay type of horror.” Nidhi gave her view. She was a half year younger than me.
“Do you guys believe in Ghost or Paranormal type of things?” Aisha asked, she was very younger sister of all siblings.
“Nah…! I don’t believe in it, though I enjoy the thrills that horror genre gives…” Nidhi laughed, “Ghost and evil spirit all are just for titillate weak minded people. It’s all fake. I never have seen or experience anything they depict in movies… Never in my life!!”
“Sis, it’s all true Okay?” Harsh defended, “You never experienced that doesn’t prove that it does not exist. I’ve read lots of books on true ghost and paranormal encounters.”
“Whatever!” Nidhi rolled her eyeballs, “By the way, it’s just my opinion.”
“I agree with Nidhi didi,” Aisha said. “In books, they exaggerated the real event to make readers engaged! And if by any chance you ever get an opportunity to see a ghost, so then don’t forget to take a selfie with him or her, and be sure to share on Instagram so we can get updates of what’s new happening in your life. Okay?” all cousins burst out laughing on her sarcastic good sense of humor.
“Haha… It’s not funny.” Harsh said with a chopfallen face.
I had been listening to them all the while, finally I broke my silence by cleared throat and said in a firm tone, “Ghost and evil spirit does exist! If you believe or not…”, I observed their faces, “You have never seen or experienced paranormal things that don’t conclude it all fake. Possibilities are there! It’s just that science hasn’t figured out fully yet.”
“C’mon Parthbhai…! You being a science person and believing in this nonsense?” Nidhi said.
“Yes!” I firmly said, “Science still confused about the mind and brain mystery. You can see and dissect the brain, but you can’t know where the hell mind is! Many people have survived near-death experiences and doctors had reported them dead. A few hours later their body moved and returned in life again. While they were laying dead, they’d heard the conversation of doctors and when they come to life, they said everything doctors had been talked about. Doctors were shocked by hearing their words.” I observed their astonished faces, “Even after physical death some people survive as a molecule body. So, without having any experience if anyone denies something, is an absurd person. I have also experienced paranormal happening when I was in college.”
“What had happened, bhai? Tell us nah…!” Harsh curiously asked, turning toward me.
“I will…. But before that, I want to challenge you all who don’t believe in ghost or evil spirit. Nidhi, if you want to experience something that challenges your belief, then you should come with me to the nearer cemetery around 2 PM. I will show you something on which you wouldn’t believe on ear and eyes.” I noticed everyone was damn curious and staring at me like a baby to her Mommy, “We will go there and record a voice clip by saying ‘Hello, is anyone here who wants to talk with me? I will help you whatever you’ll say… Tell me what do you want?’ – that’s what we will say and keep on recording for 5 minutes.”
“Then..? then what…?” Harsh was biting his nails by overloading curiosity.
“Then we’ll walk out of the place and sit in our car. I will play the recording. Firstly, you’ll hear my voice. After that, you’ll hear something which wasn’t you’d heard while recording. 80% chances are there we might hear strange voices. That’s the experiment we can do it if you have the guts to come with me there…”
“Parth bhai, I will certainly come with you…!!” Harsh got excited.
“We’ll see… Nidhi? What do you thinking? Scared?” I smiled at her.
“No way…!” She twitched her face, “I don’t scare of something which doesn’t even exist to me? I will come to say hello to Ghost!”
I sensed she was a little furious on me, so I smiled, “Well, Great then! We’ll plan after the marriage… Is that Okay?”
“Yeah…” She said with an expressionless face.
“Cool…!! Yay…!!” Harsh got super happy, “…Now Parth bhai, tell us about that Ghost story happened in your college… please…please…” Harsh slipped near to me to have tantalizing scary experience.
“Well, it’s not a Ghost story, but it was kind of strange paranormal incident.” I cleared my throat and started saying the true story:
“In 2011, I was in Vadodara, in my hostel. It was 12:30 AM, which was basically a gathering time for boys, so, many of us gathered in the common balcony of that floor which was adjacent to my room. Three senior guys bought in an Ouija Board. You guys know how Ouija Board works, right?”
“Yes…” Harsh spoke and others nodded.
“So those senior guys name was Jatin, Yogesh, and Zac. They’d decided to play Ouija at 1:00 AM, which was already terrifying to hear it. However, to play Ouija there have to be 4 people playing it. So they asked other guys to play, some got intrigued as they didn't know what it was. However, I warned them and explained to them what it is and how it has to be played.” I stopped and said a little history about the hostel, “We had heard that behind the hostel, there was a mentally disabled girl, who used to wander around the area and hums the songs. One unfortunate night, the girl got brutally gang-raped by men and choked her throat to death. They threw her dead body in a trash truck. So… I’ll not talk about what’d happened further, but after that incident, many hostel students and watchman have seen her wandering around the hostel area and humming the songs she used to sing. Those three senior guys were mocking about this rumor and wanted to experience the presence of her. Now back to the story. One of courageous guy decided to participate in the game, and his name was Pranav…”
“Now all four guys were playing Ouija Board with over 10-12 Guys being an audience to them. I being a close friend of Pranav and having subtle knowledge in horror stuff, so decided to explain the game rules.”
I explained rules for Ouija Board game:
1. None of the participants can remove their fingers from the planchett or they might get possessed.
2. No one can leave the game while it is under progress.
3. If a demon/ghosts starts communication one can't just say goodbye (if scared) and has to hover the planchett to goodbye along with others by their finger.
Now the game started, initially, there wasn't any contact with a ghost or evil spirit. And the players fooled to others by moving the planchett deliberately. Around 1 hour spent and many of the guys, who were watching, decided to leave and go to sleep. Around 2:30 AM, only 7 guys were there 4 players and 3 of other guys, including me. Suddenly the planchett started moving by itself, everyone around got scared one was about to jump but others had to hold him as he can't leave.”
Jatin said, “Is there Ghost a nearby?”
“We all started laughing. Suddenly the Planchett came across ‘Yes’. Now the random Q&A started. All four of them asked the Ghost many different questions. After several questions, we were able to conclude that the girl’s spirit is friendly”
“We all felt sorry for her and stated our sympathy to her. Now while doing so, all of us were already scared, one of the guys who was watching had to piss, so I let him use my toilet as my room was adjacent. After 15 minutes we decided to say goodbye, however, the girl’s spirit wasn't ready to do so. The thing is if the spirit too wanted to say goodbye the Planchett would gradually hover to goodbye, but it didn't, and the planchett hovered randomly on the board making a Horizontal 8 or infinity sign.”
“Now I had a lot of Ouija Knowledge and realized that, when the Ouija creates an Infinity sign, then it is the most deadly ghost or demon spirit communicating, commonly known or called as ‘ZoZo’. I advised all the guys to stop the game at once by hovering the planchett to goodbye. My tune was too harsh that the guys hovered the Planchett deliberately to the goodbye. However, while Jatin, Yogesh, and Zac removed their fingers from Planchett after stating goodbye, Pranav was the one who was the last on to do so. And he felt a shock through his hand while doing it.”
“Suddenly the wind started to blew faster, and we were terrified. I run fast to my room and got under my blanket—chatting continuously Hanuman Chalisa until I fell into sleep. Rest all also decided to do so and ran to their respective rooms. The hostel’s gallery light kept on turning off and on for few minutes.”
“The next morning it was quite peaceful, none of us want a discussion about last night. We all got busy in our own work; however, at night, Pranav felt dizzy while walking in the gallery area and he fell unconscious there all night. As hostel warden saw him there, he admitted him to a nearby hospital and the doctor explained that he had dehydration and was quite weak. He was on a glucose dose for 2 days, while his family was informed and they were on their way to meet him. We kept visiting him daily to check how his health is. In just 2 days his condition got worse and now he also was vomiting frequently. While this all was going on, I was afraid that maybe he got possessed or something.”
“His parents arrived with his uncle and they took him back to his home. We all felt so bad that he left Vadodara, but we were also happy that maybe his condition will get better while at home. For the first initial weeks, we were able to chat with him online. And he stated that he was now in good condition. However, he also stated that he is having frequent nightmares and having a vision of us playing Ouija in his dreams. He was convinced that they shouldn't have had played Ouija. He had a dog named ‘Cujo’ he loved him, but soon the dog died and they were shocked to realize that dog was not ill or old enough to die. Pranav stated that they were able to discover some neck strangling marks on the dog.”
“All of the boys who participated in the event were scared as hell. While the 2011 year was to end our interaction with him reduced. Well, college friends are very much temporary and we tend to forget certain ones as we got busy in our life, so we all had minimal chats with him and on since 31st December, our last communication to him was almost 2 weeks after he was home. And we didn't know what was going on.”
“3rd January was his birthday, so we all decided to call him at 12 AM-midnight, his phone was not reachable so we called his mom and I said, ‘Aunty, can we talk to Pranav?’ His mom sounded surprised and was in emotional tone. She sadly said that Pranav was met in an accident almost 1 and half weeks ago and was now in a coma. This brought tears to our eyes too. The news sent chill down all of our spines.”
“I asked, if we can at least say happy birthday to him, his mother would have hovered the phone to his ear and we while in emotional state shouted ‘Happy Birthday, Pranav’ while trying hard not to cry, and said, ‘We miss you, bro, get well soon!! We will pray for you’. His mother would have seen tears dropping from Pranav's eyes, which was quite abnormal for someone who is in Coma. Since then we all hadn’t talked to him for a week. One afternoon his mom called on my phone and gave heart-shattering news that Pranav was no more! He died in midnight.”
I saw everyone’s face. All had shocking expression coated on their face.
***
