June 3, 2006

I was sitting alone at home reading, when the lights suddenly went out. There was no one else at home and I couldn’t even find the candles. The emergency light was already broken. The light from the torch was extremely dim. Unfortunately the whole block was in complete darkness. Realising that I couldn’t do anything in my house that was in complete darkness, I decided to go to my friend’s house, who lived nearby. I had never been to her place as she had only joined my school a few weeks ago. Her name was Fizza Saeed. I gathered my books and left for my friend’s house.

As I started walking towards her house, I heard a roar of thunder and it started raining heavily. Within minutes I was totally wet and was shivering with cold. There was no other human being on the road. I felt a bit frightened. I didn’t even have an umbrella. I was in need of a shelter and then suddenly saw her house in front of me. I felt grateful to God and quickly ran towards the house. There were many houses in that lane but nobody seemed to live there. Among those houses only Fizza’s house was lightened up. The house was very beautiful from outside with a big beautiful garden. I was looking around, when suddenly I saw a beautiful woman standing in the balcony with thick, black and beautiful long hair.

I called on to her thinking she was Fizza’s sister or her cousin, but I didn’t get any response. Suddenly I saw, the door was locked, the small bulb was illuminating the whole house. I began to tremble, this time not from the cold. I was pushed inside the house by someone and the door was locked again. There was no one in the house. The house was very beautiful and clean from inside. I was looking around the house when suddenly I saw the same beautiful woman standing in front of me. She resembled my friend Fizza but when I tried to talk to her, she started to walk towards me.

Within seconds, that woman had reached my side and when I looked at her legs I was paralyzed with fear. She grabbed my shoulder but I didn’t understand why didn’t she do anything to me, maybe I had some Islamiat books with me.

Screaming, I broke free, opened the door and began to run. I didn’t care about the rain and I didn’t even turn to look behind my shoulder until I reached my house. Although I had reached my house but did not have the courage to enter it. I knocked at my neighbour’s gate, and when she came to open the gate, looked at her legs and went inside her house. She gave me hot coffee and asked me to sit. I was dripping wet. I quickly told her everything that had happened. She listened carefully and then told me that the house was haunted and was named ‘Saryana Cottage’ and no one had lived there since 1885.

The house was completely locked for many years. She said that whoever went inside the house never came back. The whole area is deserted. No one goes to live there. I was even more terrified when I heard that story and refused to leave my neighbour’s house until my parents came to pick me up.

I thanked Allah for saving my life, for I was the only one to come alive out of that ‘haunted house’ Saryana Cottage. From that day onwards, I never went out alone at night again, especially when it was raining. When I went to school, the next day, I asked about Fizza from my class-teacher who told me that Fizza has left the school and had left Pakistan.

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