I can only speak about Japan, it's getting bad in regards to over-tourism. For instance in Kyoto, there was a tourist acting like a some sort of 'wannabe' papparazzi bothering the Geisha walking around, she was reprimanded by another tourist saying that it's rude (rightly so) as the Geisha was just trying her best to not interfere as she's working. You can't do that, as Geisha are humans like everybody else, they don't like to be bothered by unruly tourists up close.

(Plus Japan has strict privacy laws about posting a photo portrait of someone's face up close without their permission on social media, as you can actually get sued for breaching their right to privacy.)

The thing is that Japan has unspoken rules (even for the slightest ones) including etiquette that may not cross over to Western culture, which is why Western tourists often fail to understand or completely disregard it, since they think "It's Asia, who gives a damn!" but that kind of mentality of them thinking it's okay to do stuff Japan deems inappropriate is just crazy.

(A traveler has to be culturally aware of where they are in the world regardless of the country they are currently in, there are mannerisms that are acceptable in their home country but frowned upon in foreign land.)
Apart from Westerners, tourists from both China and South Korea frequently travel to Japan, due to their geographical proximity to their home countries. However there are mannerisms from their own country that aren't tolerated in Japan. (i.e. spitting on the floor)
I swear, what attracts tourists is: video games, anime & pokemon! It's one of the biggest reasons why they end up bringing a empty suitcase to only fill it with nothing but snacks, games, QoL items from Japan.

It's disgusting when tourists in Kyoto (especially in Gion or the Geisha district) are acting like paparazzi whenever they spot a Geisha or Maiko, constantly invading their space approaching up so close, that is so rude! pretending as if they are celebrities or actresses, they ask the question on "can I take photo of you" with the attitude of "I want your autograph!" Its ridiculous!
[Japanese news segment talking about trash (or food scraps) left on the floor by tourists after visiting Gion and Kyoto despite bins present in the area!] with some of them eating while walking, which is frowned upon in Japan. As a manager from one of the stores showed photos from the last time tourists were present as 3 bins shown are full and clogged, thus giving tourists an incentive to litter leaving trash on the floor!

Even in other parts of the city, tourists leave empty bottles of soju including other beverages out in the street and pavement! Not being bothered to clean up after themselves.

There are even cases of tourists harassing them, pulling their hair, putting out cigarette butts on their kimonos or tearing their attire, it's bad! To the point the local government in Kyoto restricted (but didn't ban) tourist presence within private roadways.
They deter tourists from entering private roads where Geisha's hang out with a penality of ¥10000 (58,80 €) for trespassing, this applies to everyone - not just tourists. They should not be trespassing on private property, like at all!
Just recently, there are tourists caught trespassing on those private roads. (However the signage is working as a deterent for most, due to the fine imposed.) but like anywhere else there will be bad apples in the bunch who will of course, trespass on private property.

I mean, you can still go to Kyoto, but please... have some manners, that is what they are asking from visitors, as it's a living art museum that has been preserved for centuries to this day, which what makes Kyoto fascinating to visit in the first place.
Even though there are public streets, some of the surrounding ones are deemed private property (which tourists are unaware of.) I also hate the misinformation from "Western" media regarding a "Tourist Ban" - it's not true, you can still go there, but just comply with the rules.

A tourist was caught on video ringing a bell at Yasaka Shrine (which is used for ceremonial purposes) not for playing around, they actually barred off the rope attached to the bell since that happened. (Just because Japan is not a "Christian" country, doesn't mean you get to disrespect their culture and religion, it's gross!) Think of it as someone randomly ringing a bell at a Church in Rome randomly when it's intended to be used only during mass.
Not forgetting the issue that tourists occupy most of the available capacity in regards to public transport, the same ones locals use every day. That causes problems for local commuters, which is why there's a demand for specalized transport instead of tourists taking the regular one.
In most cases the train just passes by that station if there's insufficient space available. This also applies to restaurants too, as the queue is too long or results in longer waiting times for the locals in which they are the regular customer base, as tourists have invaded those too.
For example, in Japan: there was news coverage about tourists being careless on the roadway despite orange traffic cones and a barrier visible on the side of the road intended to dissuade them, tourists either halted incoming vehicles & traffic standing in the middle of the road (MEANT FOR CARS!) just to take a picture of Mt. Fuji. [It's stupid and dangerous if you ask me.] (I'm like: "Do they seriously want to be run over by a passing vehicle? It's a road designed for INCOMING traffic! Not a sidewalk!")
Some tourists STAND or SIT on the barrier, which is just like, why? Japan has a habit on indirectly solving any problem rather than confronting it head on, so they would rather install a fence to deter tourists rather than closing the road entirely to redirect incoming traffic, like instead of improving the infrastructre Kawaguchiko near Fuji, they just want to barricade the view. (There's even CCTV installed on a pole not far from the barrier that keeping the area under constant surveilance by cops.)
You're probably thinking "Why can't they just close the road and redirect the cars elsewhere? So the tourists can happy." It's because confrontation is frowned upon in Japan, in order to not tarnish their reputation, they instead come up with indirect and descrete approaches on providing solutions to the issue at hand i.e. such as over-tourism, it's nothing new. For example, they would put signage in Kyoto to deter or convince tourists rather than actually confronting them.
Due to Japan being a collectivist society where social harmony reigns, where you need an unanimous vote to rule in your favor without any objections from all parties in regards to decision making when talking about matters like this from a governmental or societal standpoint.

(As opposed to Europe & The West where Individualism is valued, Japan is more of "We have to do this as a team" mentality rather than "I want to do this for myself only" so that in itself is a cultural difference.)

There's more from that clip:

• Tourists standing in the middle of the traffic lane divider to pose and snap pictures [Mind you - There's incoming vehicles while they are doing all of this!]
• Even the news reporter covering the story advised a tourist against taking a photo / selfie while standing on the road divider also treading on it.
• Tourists in Kawaguchiko were partially obstructing the road (not moving out of the way!) to let an INCOMING TRUCK pass, so the driver had to swerve to the right to avoid running them over.
• Tourists flooded another spot「夢の大橋」("Ponte dei sogni") for taking pictures of the mountain, walking up the stairway for the "instagrammable" picture.
• [at around 4:41] They even caught tourists JAYWALKING in the middle of the roadway even though there's incoming traffic. (Despite the cones and barriers present.)
• There's a group of tourists who were standing on the side of the road divider with incoming traffic loitering there. (Even a van drove right past them, as it's a ROAD - NOT A SIDEWALK!)
• [at around 6:33-6:52] A tourist was standing behind a vehicle approaching the driver. (You can't halt vehicles in the middle of the road and distract the driver! - It's insane!)
• [at around 6:69] Tourists posing in the middle of the lane divider for their "instagram" pics. (You are not allowed to loiter in the road divider!)
• [at around 8:30] A mother and daughter who were tourists TRESPASSED on private property, as there was a sign displaying「立入禁止」("DIVETO DI ACCESSO!") treading on the premises.
• Of course, tourists litter and leave trash on the street, since Japan has no bins available at public places. (only at designated spots.)
• Even the locals in that area are starting to complain and getting fed up with tourists constantly populating the area - violating the rules, being a 迷惑 ("Disturbo")

Tourists standing on the barrier with their own two feet, which again is not allowed. Even Japan's ministry of transportation put out a clear statement regarding implmenting countermeasures on a location you are not meant to tread on (or be jaywalking) so their solution is to "install a barrier" to deter them. But we know how that will end up, tourists still disregard the fact there's a barrier.
There's another spot where tourists now can take a picture of Fuji, it's some stairway of an overhead bridge, but people again cross the road (or jaywalk) just to reach it. Not long ago, a female tourist was run over by an incoming vehicle (due to her standing in the MIDDLE OF THE ROAD) for the "instagrammable" picture of the mountain. [This happened in Kawaguchiko.]
Speaking of Kawaguchiko, the Lawsons there including Mt. Fuji are always featured on as the backdrop of every TikTok talking about tourism in Japan (alongside Kyoto) Yep, there were even 2 tourists caught jaywalking disregarding the ACTUAL pedestrian crossing. Some tourists are standing on the store's sign posts positioned nearby (that have running electricity and LEDs.) using that as a makeshift tripod for their iPhones!
In regards to Mt. Fuji, on TikTok there are so many "copy cat" itinerary submissions, even the thumbnails are basically the 'same' you can literally see the similarities [down below]. (hence why there are so many tourists flooding the area), like this:
Despite these posts coming from different users from all over the world, they are basically copying each other's itineraries. It's like this no matter how long I've scrolled through the site.
Since Japan started installing a black tarp obstructing the view of Mt. Fuji, tourists still poked holes through it. It's not opaque as you can partially see through it, or walk to the otherside where a Lawson stands, but some still jaywalk disregarding the actual pedestrian crossing even when there's a cop or security guard present.
From this video, a complaint filed by a dental clinic within the area, stating that tourists are leaving trash or left over food scraps near their premises, loitering on the steps approaching their clinic (only patients are allowed to enter) the clinic. Here, there are even complaints from the clinic mentioning about tourists parking their bikes on bike racks only designated for patients entering their clinic, along with trespassing on their premises. Even the dentist himself took photos regarding tourists loitering outside the clinic, patients are having a hard time getting inside because of this.
Not forgetting that they are trespassing on the rooftop, to the point the dentist (or the staff) resorted to calling the police multiple times due to this! Again, tourists were told to move out of the way or move their belongings to let incoming vehicles pass to park their cars at a Lawson. (Even the driver of a incoming truck had to honk at them! so they can move.)
Like what was happening in Kawaguchiko, the same is now happening in Fujiyoshida, at a pedestrian crossing, despite a security guard being present, people still disregarded rules about crossing the road, at around [3:00] from the video, the driver of an incoming vehicle had to honk at the tourist standing in the middle of the road so they can pass. (It's stupid.) Of course they were honked at by the driver (He's probably like: "What the hell is this idiot doing here standing in the middle of the road for cars!"), as you're not meant to loiter there halting traffic!

• [0:29-0:40] In Kawaguchiko, a Lawson store employee scolded a tourist to step off a strangers vehicle. (As he was posing for a selfie for instagram.)
• [0:42-0:48] Groups of tourists jaywalk again, when it is ill-advised, even a car just drove past. Even some are stalling traffic!
• [2:49] There's a female tourist posing for a selfie in the middle of the road (while the main traffic light is green!) meaning that cars are still driving past, not the pedestrians turn to cross.
• [3:41] The news reporter even warned a Chinese tourist to not stand in the middle of the road, regardless he didn't listen until an incoming vehicle was about to approach them as the reporter warned him that it's dangerous to stand on the road!
• [4:05] A tourist again, standing in the middle of the pedestrian crossing! The vehicle in red had to honk since that tourist refused to move out of the way! (It's insane! How can you not simply just move so the car can pass!?)
• [5:30] Carvings of [who's here] or their [instagram account] are found etched on the stone walls of the tea plantation (at Obuchi Sasaba) insribed in many language

From this video, a complaint filed by a dental clinic within the area, stating that tourists are leaving trash or left over food scraps near their premises as well as loitering on the steps approaching their clinic (only patients are allowed to enter). Not forgetting that they are trespassing on the rooftop, to the point the dentist even had to call the police multiple times due to this! Again, tourists were told to move out of the way or move their belongings to let incoming vehicles pass to park their cars at a Lawson. (Even the driver of a truck had to honk at them! so they can move.)
Just last year, Mt. Fuji itself was suffering from an over-tourism problem on its own since tourists are dying to climb to the summit, but some were ill equipped. (There was even a woman caught wearing shorts and sandals upon the trip to the summit - not suitable for climbing!) Some climbers show up shirtless or come ill-prepared along with creating a makeshift bonfire.

Public amenities (i.e. Toilets) are vandalized, damaged or destroyed due to over-tourism, now they are enforcing an entry fee of ¥2000 (11,75 €) to enter Mt. Fuji because of this! Tourists leave trash everywhere, crowds of them wanting to head to the summit in large gatherings, which causes problems leading to overcapacity.
Don't get me wrong, tourists do show up with proper gear (i.e. spiked shoes, ice axes, etc.) and attire heading for the summit, but there are bad apples who literally show up with shorts or singlet, which is not advised on a place like this since it's cold up there! You're climbing up a mountain after all. (Heading to the top is their main objective, with stop overs.)

There were a group of tourists caught shaking a sakura tree during cherry blossom season causing outrage, they're basically damaging the tree as the leaves were falling prematurely. The intended way the leaves are meant to fall is when they've matured, since the trees are considered part of public property, Japan deemed that as an act of vandalism and destruction of property.
Plus the trees are sacred to the Japanese (its even part of their cultural identity), as they believe it to represent a symbolism of life and death, those who tamper or mess with it are met with misfortune. Also, in the Daikoku Parking Area (in Yokohama) where it's a hangout for car enthusiasts, but the issue is that tourists trespass on the premises, such as climbing the fence.
December 2023: In Tokyo, tourists where holding up incoming traffic on a pedestrian crossing, despite cops being present, most of them want a selfie with the Tokyo Tower but holding up traffic with vehicles is just bad, as the security guards / police are telling people to just cross, to keep the flow, not stall incoming cars & traffic (in a busy city - mind you), but tourists were just loitering there (or walking on the road meant for cars) until they were scolded for jaywalking.
Earlier this year, there was an American livestreamer who was fined ¥200000 (1,174 €) for blasting his music way TOO LOUD, as it was disturbing the peace inside a restaurant somewhere in Osaka, it shows that Western streamers (who act like this) have ZERO respect for the customs upon their visit, ruining the reputation of foreigners in Japan, which is already causing some Japanese people to hate them.
There was a female tourist who literally by passed the fence / yellow line (like the one you stand behind upon waiting for a incoming train) went on the tracks just to take a selfie with her boyfriend! (Disregarding that she's at the station in Kyoto were other commuters are present, a train is going to show up eventually.) Stupid and dangerous, it's like as if she wants to be hit by an incoming train.
In hindsight:

• Have there been cases within Italy, where tourists actually sustained injuries all because of their recklessness and disregard for the rules at tourist attractions near riskier areas (i.e. a Cliff)?
• How often does public transport (the same ones locals use) become overcrowded due to tourists taking most of the available seats on both buses and trains?
• When it comes to climbing the Italian Alps, how many tourists literally show up ill-equipped such as wearing sandals, singlet or shorts or lacking proper gear for the journey?
• Are there times when tourists continue to violate the country's rules and social etiquette to the point that locals start to complain about their bad behavior? (or received news coverage?)
• How common is it for tourists visiting Italy to end up just leaving their trash on the floor even though there are bins available at public places?
• Are there tourists who disregard social etiquette at cultural events deemed important to Italian culture that angers locals?
• How many "copycat itinerary" posts on social media (i.e. TikTok) from Tourists do you notice depicting ONE spot in Italy where the thumbnails are basically the same?
• In regards to the Swiss Guard in the Vatican, how often do tourists disrespect or mess around with them akin to how tourists in London mess around with the Queens Guard?
• Are there times when tourists have obstructed incoming traffic on a roadway in Italy (which is stupid!) all because of that "Instagrammable" picture of a famous landmark?
• Restaurants in Italy: How often are they crowded with tourists making it hard for regular customers who are locals to dine there resulting in longer waiting times or queues?

Hi everyone. I'm 24F. Currently living out of pulau Jawa. Anak pertama, dan punya adik 14M.
Backstory: Right after high school, i took a gap year mainly because my family's finance was not good at all. Mom had numerous debt after my step dad passing in 2015. So i worked ever since i was 18, dari serabutan sampe akhirnya gue bisa dpt corporate job thn 2019. Kuliah sambil kerja (awal masih dibantu nyokap untuk bayar UKT, tapi semester 3 sampai gue lulus it was all me). Dan dari kerjaan serabutan gue pertama, sampai sekarang, I have always tried to give something to my mom. Dari nominal kecil sampe lumayan gede gue selalu share as my thank you.
Singkat cerita, setelah sekian lama enduring all the passive agressive from my family (mom and brother), gue dpt offer di luar pulau untuk kerja dan gue ambil tanpa mikir panjang karena gue udah segatahan itu dirumah. Giving money is one thing, being eldest daughter is another thing. Nyokap gue dititik kalo ngobrol sama gue gajauh-jauh dari duit. I could talk about the anything with her it will end up to her lacking of money. Even gue udh jauh dari rumah, isi chat kita garing, gada tuh nanya kabar gue gmn/kerjaan gue dan ujung2nya bakal ngomongin duit. And because I know her, that's her way of asking money. She never explicitly 'asking' for money from me, rather she will be passive agressive, atau kode2 gitu loh. Gue pernah blg sm dia, kalo memang butuh, ngomong, gausah gaenakan, dan sebisa mungkin jika gue mampu gue akan bantu.
Tapi tetep aja, masih dengan kode2 itu, ditambah omongan dia yang selalu terngiang "Mama gabutuh uang dari kamu, ka. Mama cuma butuh kamu berbakti aja sama mama, cukup kok. Mama masih bisa sendiri kalo uang." Tapi gue gapernah dengerin dan gue ngerasa selama gue masih tinggal dirumah dia, gue harus bantu. Sampai akhirnya gue memutuskan untuk move out. I thought, this way it would be easier to say no, incase i do not want to give her any money (sorry gada uang/uang lg mepet abis). Ternyata engga cuy lol
Saat gue pindah, gaji gue memang naik, tapi gue jg merasa gue harus bayar rent + cost of living dll yang dimana walau bukan pulau jawa, gue juga harus nabung untuk masa depan gue. Gue tetep ngasih setiap bulannya, tapi nominal gue turunin sedikti demi sedikit. Tapi ternyata diluar allowance bulanan yang gue kasih ke dia, gue juga tetep ngasih ke adek gue. Lama-lama banyak yang dia minta, entah dari isi topup e-wallet. Belum lg adek gue minta.Januari kemarin, adek gue dengan bodohnya nabrak orang. Iya umur 14 tahun dikasih motor dan diberi izin, nabrak anak kecil. Untung korbannya cm luka ga sampe meninggal. Nyokap gue nelfon gue, laporan. Salahnya gue disini trauma takut dimintain uang, gue ada omongan bahwa maaf, gue gabisa bantu karena pengeluaran lg memang banyak dan gue baru aja kasih duit bulanan dia juga. Gue saat itu worry tp juga bener2 gabisa bantu + gue ngerasa ini jg kelalaian dia sbg ortu ngasih izin adek bawa motor. Dia sakit hati merasa dia cm pgn lapor tp gue malah bales gitu. Had a whole fight, sampai dimana dia ada omongan yang super nyakitin, kemungkinan gue tidak akan bisa memaafkan dia sampai gue mati nanti.
> She said and I quote "Kamu tidak malu sudah mengambil jatah kasih sayang papa adek kamu? Dia anak yatim kasian gada yang sayang. Kamu dulu saat kecil dapat kasih sayang dari papa dia harusnya kamu malu. Kamu baru bisa ngasih yang tidak seberapa itu jangan harap bisa membayar pengorbanan yang sudah diberikan oleh ibu kamu ini."
(Context: never met my bio father, grew up with my step dad, im grateful he was a decent kind man. Step dad died when I was 15 and my brother was 5. Knp gue harus kesannya ambil jatah? Dan gue tau, gue blm bisa kasih a whole house, tp pengorbanan dan pemberian gue 0 aja gitu dimata dia selama ini? Whew.)
Bulan ini, gue ga ngasih bulanan ke nyokap, karena sejujurnya gue sempet travel tanpa bilang ke mereka. Karena gamau dianggap gue ada uang banyak dan mereka minta lebih. Karena dimata mereka kalo gue bisa jalan2, ada uang lebih untuk mereka dong. Gue gamau ngasih kalo ga ikhlas. Tapi gue dikejar-kejar seakan gue ada hutang sm mereka. Sampe dikirim video tentang anak durhaka halus karena mereka anggep gue ada uang tapi gamau ngasih. Padahal uang gue beneran abis dan gue udh blg ke mereka tanpa konteks gue abis jalan2. But they still kode2 pasif agresif.
I've had enough, gue tau mungkin yang gue tulis disini ga cover beberapa tahun gue menjadi sandwich generation di keluarga gue. All the mental I've had to go through. And I know I sound so selfish to have a desire to cut them off completely over this matter. But truth is, ini resentment built up dari dulu yang memang baru meledak sekarang. P.S Nyokap gue gamau remarry lg krn dia males, gue udh kasih restu kalau memang dia mau nikah biar ada yang provide untuk dia selain gue. Karena gue juga cm anak, bukan the man of the family.

1. Apakah wise kalau memang gue truly go NC?
2. Karena posisi gue ga dirumah, gue cm ada foto KK dan copy KK. Is this possible untuk pecah KK
3. Are there other necessary steps if I'm going to NC with them?

All the help and comment will be appreciated. Thank you.

Hey, Let’s Read. I’ve been a huge fan for years since 2017 and you may or may not remember me but I used to always make fanarts of you on my social media and tagged you in it. But lately I have been swamped with my Master’s Degree so the fan art and my commission ceased. Anyway, I’m a 32 year old female living in Malaysia.
And I recently just submitted my data collection for Art Psychology and waiting for their correspondence and during the wait, I happen to fall into an annoying and prolong cold. Coughing up a storm, sneezing up what possibly gallons and gallons of mucous at this point. I am currently curled up in my living room while listening to your podcast on youtube and now Spotify for years and it finally gave me the courage to write and send a real story that was dated way back in 2013 during my diploma years in the state of Malacca.
I’ll put the link here so you could look into it: https://dgelenggang.blogspot.com/2013/01/hantu-di-uitm-lendu-melaka.html
The picture basically managed to capture an image of the apparition of an 'Ulek Mayang' dancer which will be explained further into the story. I would appreciate it if you could keep the name of the campus and the university anonymous, as I am still studying at the same university, just on a different campus.
It was the beginning of semester of January in 2013 and I was in my 3^rd semester. I was raised in Kuala Lumpur and I’m that you might call a city girl, so when I got accepted into a rural state and quite literally in the middle of nowhere of Malacca in a small town of Alor Gajah and I wasn’t too happy about it. I was an outcast among the students over the stupidest thing: I spoke English.
The main language spoken here is Malay so being raised in an English speaking household and suddenly being placed in an all Malay speakers I stick out like a fish out of water.
In the Malay superstition has lots of warnings and precautions that honestly, I never really cared about or was I a very spiritual person in any sense. But as the semester progresses and I was busy submitting artwork after artwork for my lecturers that’s when I realized the buzzing of the campus regarding the supernatural elements.
See, in Malaysia the infamous let’s call them ‘ghosts’ are; The Oil Man (Orang Minyak), The Old Banshee (Nenek Kebayan) and The Undead Infant (Toyol). During the time I lived in an all-female dormitory and they always do activities to make the students either bond with one another or to build the dorm spirit. I’m not too happy about it mostly because it would take my time away from my assignments. So naturally I would just skip it. Except this one time, I was caught by one of the dorm leaders and I was practically dragged out of my dorm and forced to join at the yard at 10 pm.
To my surprise, it was the traditional spirit competition. Let me made it clear that all of our dorms were named after the Malay Warriors and Maidens. My dorm was called ‘Tun Putih’. So the dorm representative were recruiting traditional dancers and majority of the slim figured female and dancer like bodied students signed up. After the announcement we were all dismissed, I wanted to do nothing more than go back to my room and continue my 20 plus design samples for my lecturer to evaluate in the morning.
As I walked back to through the hall way, I recognized a song. It was a song that my grandparents told me about that it could (that I would later find out) attract spirits to latch onto the dancers or lingers around whenever the song was being played. And that song was called ‘Ulek Mayang’.
For historical purposes, this song is only used for a classical Malay dance from the state of Terengganu. It is a ritualistic dance performed to appease or invoke the spirits of the sea and is always accompanied by the song, you guessed it… ‘Ulek Mayang’.
I always heard stories of my mother, grandparents, uncle and friends spoke about supernatural stories and those spine-chilling sensation when the supernatural element was near or when they came face to face with it. This was my very first encounter of the spine-chilling sensation that they referred to. The moment the song was played through the loud speakers that echoed through acres and acres of wilderness of the woods, I could feel all of the color rushed out of my body.­
I didn’t know why or what made me ran back to my dorm at the time but I did and I quickly shut the door behind me and lock it. My roommate went back to Penang due to the bad case of chicken pox leaving me all alone in the dorm. I then proceeded to closed all of the curtains and put my large headphones on to continue my work trying to get rid of the unknown spine-chilling sensation. After an hour or so the feeling finally subsided and I thought the worse was over, boy was I wrong.
Skipping to a couple of days later; I just finished one of my elective subjects that was on the other side of the campus, to cut through the long way I walked through the library passing the creepy lake at night where the goose would usually swim to counter the overpopulation of algae. While walking alone, I suddenly noticed the music on my headphone was cutting in and out.
Which was weird because I had just charged it during a two-hour class. To my horror, that spine chilling sensation was back again. And it made me turn. That’s when I saw the most horrifying thing I have ever seen in my life. A student wearing a headscarf was walking on all fours walking down the very long stairs at incredible speed. It was as if time slowed down for me to noticed the details that her eyes were all white, her tongue was sticking out and she was literally crawling down the stairs on all fours like an animal.
See, I wasn’t going to stick around to find out why was she walking in this bizarre manner so I did what any rational person would do, run back to the dorm. I wasn’t an athletic person of any kind but this was by far the fastest and hardest I’ve ever ran in my life possibly adrenaline driven and fear that the possibly possessed girl might just attacked me. As I ran and my lungs pumped up battery acid, I once again closed the door and locked it behind me and once again closing all the curtains in the room.
While in my room I happen to get caught up on the trending twitter regarding our campus #SaveUXYAlorGajah2013. Apparently, there had been a massive news regarding the supernatural incidents in our campus for the past two weeks that I wasn’t aware of.
The first one was our local campus security guard was found unconscious and covered in black oil like substance as he was been attacked by the The Oil Man (Orang Minyak).
The second, was a couple of students being visited by Old Banshee (Nenek Kebayan) disguising as a woman selling food to starving dormitory students in the middle of the night during burning the midnight oil and only to leaving them unconscious after and the food was a newspaper covered in maggots.
Lastly, multiple cases of The Undead Infant (Toyol) appearing all over the campus stealing the students valuables and money.
These cases happened simultaneously within the past two weeks that I wasn’t even aware of. Don’t get me wrong, I was heavily isolated and the only that did spoke to me was my roommate and she was from the Mass Communication faculty she was literally the source of my gossip or information spreading on what was happening around the campus. Well, she was away so I was always the last to know about these things.
While being engulfed in the trending threads I failed to realized that there was a religious gathering at the top floor. The women were to bring their cloth prayer (telekung) whilst the ceremony commence. I don’t know what stopped me at the time, perhaps my guardian angel, my instinct or my disregard for religious belief. I refused to go and locked myself in the dorm with the lights switched off continue doing my sketches in the dark while using my phone to its dimmest setting as a nightlight ignoring the dorm leader and her representative knocking on my door.
As time passed, I suddenly heard a bloodcurdling screaming, coming from the top floor. Now, I was at the most bottom floor of the dorm so the fact that I can in fact hear this scream was extremely loud and supernatural. Then I heard loud footsteps running down from the stairs and loud banging of closed doors. Then after a few minutes there was a bullhorn announcement from our Dorm Mother a university staff that lived in a house close to the dorm. The announcement was something I could still hear from this day:
“MY DEAR STUDENTS. PLEASE STAY IN YOUR ROOMS. LOCK YOUR DOORS AND UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES DO NOT OPEN THE DOORS. IF YOU HEAR BEGGING, CRYING, SCRATCHING OR BANGING DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR. DO NOT PANIC AND DO NOT STOP PRAYING THROUGH OUT THE NIGHT. THAT IS ALL.”
When you hear an announcement from the Dorm Mother saying something like that, no way it was a joke. I listened to the instruction and just stayed quiet in my room. At the time I was already curled up in my bed hiding under the blankets while hugging my phone and my pillow for dear life as if to give me any sense of security and comfort. What felt like an hour or more in the dark… it then happened.
I heard loud thuds coming down the stairs and what hears to be a mixture of crying and laughing throughout the halls. Loud banging at the two doors in front of me yelling and screaming. I couldn’t make out of it at first but I could hear it was as if sounded like a distorted man and woman wailing and screaming while banging and scratching on the door saying,
“LET ME IN!!! I’M YOUR FRIEND!!! YOU HAVE TO LET ME IN!!!!! I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE, GIRLS!!!!”
I’m not saying I’m psychic or anything. But it could be when you’re in complete darkness in the room, scared and hiding under the layers of blankets its as if I could hear the footsteps of the (now very obvious) possessed student not walking but crawling on all fours to the next door once again, yelling and screaming. Then it happened… I could hear loud breathing and scratching coming from the outside of my door. I have never been so scared in my life and for the first time in my life I thought I was about to die.
Instead of saying loudly it gave a very eerie whisper but loud enough for me to hear all the way to my bed,
“YOU SHOULD REALLY LET ME IN. YOU HAVE NO FRIENDS AND YOUR ROOMATE WENT HOME BECAUSE OF THE CHICKEN POX. DON’T YOU WANT A FRIEND? I KNOW YOU’RE LONELY.”
What scared the living shit out of me not the fact that it knew I was lonely but the fact that my roommate left for the semester due to chicken pox. She priorities her looks above anything else so she would never admit that she went home to Penang to recover from adult chicken pox. How in god’s name did this thing know?
Then the loud banging started accompanied by distorted laughing. I’m not going to lie, that entire ordeal made me cry and I’m those type of person that is really hard to cry over small things. But this was tears of pure terror. I could hear everything in my body, my heart beating blood to my body, the sound of my slow breathing, the loud air going in and out of my nostrils and the sound of my teeth chattering... all the works. The more I cried the more the scratching ensued.
“WHEN YOU SLEEP TONIGHT I WILL BE IN YOUR DREAMS!!! JUST YOU WAIT UNTIL YOU FALL ASLEEP!!!!!”
Another last loud bang on the door and I could hear it running across the hallway followed by many footsteps that I assumed was the university security staff, the dorm mother and the religious master (Ustaz) trying to either pin her down and cleanse her. But then I could see the red lights flickering from the outside of my blankets. From the distance I could still hear the echoed screaming and the voices of the others possibly carrying the possessed away into the stretcher and into the ambulance.
What felt like hours, the lights around the dorm were switched on again. They usually left the lights on around the shared toilets and bathrooms. Then signs of life filled the entire building again, students walking around some crying, some calling their significant others and some calling their parents.
If I’m being totally honest, I was still frozen in fear not being able to move at all. Tears still streamed down my face and the sound of my heart slowly calming itself.
I didn’t sleep at all that night. I called my grandparents, who were two hours away from my campus, and they drove all the way out to pick me up. I didn’t tell them what happened that night, but I was a few days away from our study week, so I decided to go back to Kuala Lumpur early. I had a feeling that my grandpa knew something had happened from my distant behavior and how I immediately slept as soon as my back hit the cushion of the back seat.
As we drove through the morning, the events replayed in my mind over and over. The chill in the air, the unnatural whispers, and the eerie stillness that followed. The words of that entity echoed in my head, and despite knowing they were just the incoherent ramblings of the possessed, they didn’t feel any less haunting.
When we reached home, I was enveloped by the warmth and comfort of familiarity. My grandma's gentle touch and my grandpa's reassuring presence helped soothe my frayed nerves. Over the next few days, I slowly regained a sense of normalcy, though the memory of that night lingered at the edges of my consciousness.
I never fully understood what had happened that night, but I learned to live with it, to let it be a part of my past without allowing it to define my future. Where I come from, it's only natural for students to have a mental breakdown or on the verge of hysteria due to the pressure of finals and deadline submissions. But this was clearly a supernatural possession incident.
Now, 11 years later, I am reminded how terrifying it was to be disturbed by a possessed entity.
Wherever you are and whoever you are listening out there, please be safe. Trust in your strength and lean on those who care for you. You are never alone in your struggles.

Adakah kita masih muda dalam tahap pemikiran?Adakah negara kita masih “muda” dan layak untuk bersikap tidak matang dan professional dalam kemahiran dan pekerjaan??Adakah terdapat perkara yang menghalang kita untuk lebih terus maju??
Adakah terdapat suatu entiti yang dapat menyelamatkan negara kita jika dilanda musibah??Adakah kita sahaja kaum bumiputera dan masyarakat lain seperti kaum russia,Norway atau Sweden bukan bumiputera di negara mereka?Oleh itu mengapakah mereka maju sedangkan kita masih mempunyai alasan untuk berlagak kerana status bumiputera dan bermain-main di negara sendiri sedangkan mereka juga bumiputera di negara mereka?
Salah siapakah jika bangsa lain lebih berjaya di negara kita sendiri??Adakah salah kerajaan atau situasi??Adakah wang ringgit dapat membeli harga keamanan dan keselesaan di tanah air?Sampai bilakah kita mahu kekal bermimpi pada masa orang lain sudah berlari??adakah nasib negara kita berada di tangan negara luar dan bangsa luar??Atau negara sendiri dan bangsa sendiri??Adakah bangsa putih masih menjadi saviour kita kerana kita adalah bangsa kelas kedua dan negara kita kelas ketiga??negara kita mungkin kecil tpi play our card well mcm korea selatan dan jepun..
Aku kata bullshit, Tuhan jadikan semua manusia sama dan Bangsa kita boleh menjadi lebih hebat dan nasib negara ditentukan oleh masyarakatnya..Tidak perlu rendah diri dengan mana-mana bangsa..Pm ke 4 sudah membuktikan Malaysia sebagai negara yang kuat pada ketika dahulu,maka adakah kita lupa?Take control of our own destiny dan jadi lebih baik dari mana-mana bangsa dan negara dengan nilai sopan santun dan baik hati yang terdapat pada masyarakat kita

Kisah kehidupan seorang gadis cantik, yang selalu di sakiti dan di perlakukan tak layak.Bahkan orang yang harus nya menyayangi nya, justru merupakan sumber air matanya. Ketika ada pria yang datang mengisi hatinya, harus menemukan pula sosok pria Arogan dan pemaksa namun mempunyai cinta yang tulus. Siapakah pria yang dipilih nya si Most wanted nya kampus, atau seorang Ceo muda tapi dingin dan cuek. Read more

Aku mencintai mu dan kau juga harus mencintai ku. Lelaki itu menoleh dan tersenyum remeh. Dia menatap perempuan itu dari kepala hingga ujung kaki, dia benar-benar menilai perempuan itu. Maaf, tapi aku tidak mencintai seorang pembunuh. **** Flavia Imtiaz adalah seorang psychopath yang sedang menjadi buronan di Italia. Dia memilih pindah ke Indonesia untuk menyelamatkan diri. Ia juga merubah semua identitasnya dan mengganti namanya menjadi Speranza Constanzo. Di Indonesia dia menjalankan hidup layaknya remaja pada umumnya. Tak disangka dia terobsesi dengan seorang lelaki introvert yang mengidap penyakit mematikan. Dia berambisi untuk mendapatkan lelaki itu, dia tidak pernah membiarkan lelaki itu disentuh oleh orang lain. Speranza pikir pindah ke Indonesia adalah pilihan yang tepat, namun nyatanya tidak. Dia malah menemukan sebuah kebenaran dari sebuah masalah yang bahkan sudah dia lupakan. Bagaimana hidup Speranza selanjutnya? Apa sebenarnya kebenaran tersebut? Dan apakah kisah cinta Speranza akan berakhir bahagia? **** Read more

Aku beli untuk kegunaan aku sial. Ni kau main sauk je macam hak kau lepastu tak inform. Time aku nak guna time rushing dah menyusahkan. Pukimak betul lah orang spesis macam ni.
Aku tak kisah kau nak pinjam tapi inform dulu lah cibai. Ni ws tak, mesej tak tiba2 barang tu lesap. Aku nak keluar pergi kerja rushing dah jadi satu masalah. Babi betul lah. Phone mahal2 tapi tak reti guna baik kau pakai public phone je babi.
Banyak kali aku bagitau pun tak paham jugak. Duit ada beli vape boleh, barang lain kau sauk orang lain punya macam hak kau. Bodoh bebal.

Aryo mahasiswa tampan yang terkenal playboy di kampusnya begitu mudah menaklukan hati wanita, kecuali gadis bernama Dona. Ia sampai minta bantuan sahabatnya Ode sang pujangga kampus dan Dido yang lihai sebagai paparazzi, mereka menjalankan misi sebagai Kurir Cinta demi mendapatkan cinta Dona. Petualangan asmara tersebut berhasil tapi berakibat nilai kuliah ketiganya anjlok. Aryo dan Dona jadian, bahkan ingin menikah muda meski ditentang orang tua mereka. Setelah Aryo dan Dona berusaha keras meyakinkan keluarga, akhirnya pernikahan direstui. Tetapi di usia pernikahannya yang masih terbilang muda, terjadi keretakan rumah tangga Aryo dan Dona, pertengkaran hebat berujung cerai. Kedua orang tuanya sangat marah, tidak setuju perceraian. Apakah Aryo dan Dona jadi bercerai? Bagaimana dengan upaya Ode dan Dido yang coba mencegah perceraian sahabatnya karena tidak ingin usaha mereka selama ini sia-sia? Apakah persahabatan mereka tetap utuh atau malah hancur? Baca keseruan kisah komedi romantis Kurir Cinta. Beri vote, komentar dan rating ya. Read more

Jika sebuah pernikahan di pelaminan hanya digunakan untuk memperoleh ke egoisan, untuk apa kedua sejoli harus meleburkan rasanya hanya untuk mendapatkan status sah dimata semua orang, apabila salah satu dari mereka banyak mendapatkan luka. Sosok wanita dalam dalam hubungan rumah tangga, mungkin dapat digambarkan sebagai sosok yang akan rapuh dari dalam segalanya. Apa hanya kurang nya keturunan dari sebuah pernikahan, sang suami bisa semerta-merta mencari pengganti di dalam sebuah bahtera rumah tangga? Pasangan muda Revan Aditya Pratama dan Anindya Putri, Revan yang menginginkan seorang putra dalam rumah tangganya bersama Anin, tetapi diusia pernikahan yang ke 3 Anin masih belum mendapatkan momongan, membuat Revan jengah dengan istrinya. Jika sesungguhnya takdir cinta melarang kita untuk bersama, maka salahkan aku karena hatiku yang terus menjerit kan namamu Anindya Putri. Mungkin inilah akhir dari kisah perjalanan cinta kita, maafkan aku karena sesungguhnya melepas mu juga sangat sakit bagiku Revan Aditya Pratama. Read more

Jika sebuah pernikahan di pelaminan hanya digunakan untuk memperoleh ke egoisan, untuk apa kedua sejoli harus meleburkan rasanya hanya untuk mendapatkan status sah dimata semua orang, apabila salah satu dari mereka banyak mendapatkan luka. Sosok wanita dalam dalam hubungan rumah tangga, mungkin dapat digambarkan sebagai sosok yang akan rapuh dari dalam segalanya. Apa hanya kurang nya keturunan dari sebuah pernikahan, sang suami bisa semerta-merta mencari pengganti di dalam sebuah bahtera rumah tangga? Pasangan muda Revan Aditya Pratama dan Anindya Putri, Revan yang menginginkan seorang putra dalam rumah tangganya bersama Anin, tetapi diusia pernikahan yang ke 3 Anin masih belum mendapatkan momongan, membuat Revan jengah dengan istrinya. Jika sesungguhnya takdir cinta melarang kita untuk bersama, maka salahkan aku karena hatiku yang terus menjerit kan namamu Anindya Putri. Mungkin inilah akhir dari kisah perjalanan cinta kita, maafkan aku karena sesungguhnya melepas mu juga sangat sakit bagiku Revan Aditya Pratama. Read more

There are some kinds of wisdom only great suffering can bring. I remember my time in the Bardo with this in mind, for otherwise, the memory might drive me insane.
The night my heart stopped for nearly three minutes started off normally enough. I was working as a nurse in the psychiatric ward at a hospital in the state’s capital. Most of the patients there were harmless, mostly just suicide attempts or people suffering from drug psychosis or severe depression, but some were actively dangerous and certainly psychopathic in every sense of the word. The new admission was one of these- a three-hundred pound black man with a long history of smoking PCP, schizophrenia and violent, psychotic breaks from reality.
His eyes looked like flat pieces of slate as I walked in for my shift. They looked as blank and emotionless as the eyes of a doll. He sat at the table in the front room where the patients ate or played cards, alone under the bright fluorescent lights of the hospital. I walked to the station, where another psychiatric nurse named Ricardo was sitting behind the desk.
“What’s the deal with the new guy?” I asked him. Ricardo looked up, his dark Spanish face forming into a deep scowl. He ran his fingers through his jet-black hair nervously.
“He’s trouble, man,” he said in a crisp accent. “He got in a chase with the police and then punched some cops in the face. It took three guys to take him down, even after he got maced and tased. The judge sent him here on a temporary court order, since he claims he’s been getting chased by Nazis in UFOs, and that’s why he ran from the cops. He thought the cops in their uniforms were actually the SS, and the helicopters were alien spacecraft, or something. I don’t know, I didn’t listen to the whole story.”
“You have his file?” I asked. Ricardo leafed through a stack of folders with his thin fingers, snatching one out and handing it to me. I looked down, reading the information:
“Jeremiah Brown, black male, 37-years-old.
“History: Polysubstance abuse, schizophrenia, antisocial personality disorder.
“Psychiatrist’s note: This patient has scored a 36 out of 40 on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. While I am always hesitant to label a patient as an antisocial personality, a combination of factors has made it essential for this patient.
“Patient has an extensive criminal history as well as a lengthy history of involuntary psychiatric admissions. He has been diagnosed as having antisocial traits since he was a young teenager. Patient has a long history of violence and suicide attempts. He has a history of imprisonment for manslaughter, armed robbery, grand theft and aggravated assault. Upon discharge, he refuses to take any antipsychotic medication, citing the side effects as the reason. Long-term prognosis is poor…”
I had not been sleeping well the past few weeks. I rubbed my eyes as I read through the file, feeling exhausted. I tried putting on lucid dreaming or meditation music from YouTube to help me sleep, but whenever I closed my eyes, I saw horrible things: chalk-white female faces whose lips were cut into an insane rictus grin, flicking their heads violently from side to side and gnashing their fangs at the air. I had a feeling that many years of constantly watching horror movies and serial killer documentaries was catching up with me.
As I read through the file, a student nurse came around the corner wearing a white state university outfit and a name tag that said Kaitlyn. I looked up, seeing Ricardo wink at me from where he was sitting in his chair behind the main desk.
“She’s going to follow you,” he said. Inwardly, I groaned, but I managed to force a smile.
“Oh, great!” I said. She looked like she was probably no older than nineteen or twenty. She had a pretty body, but her face looked strange. All the angles were too sharp and her nose too large. I knew the patients here wouldn’t care, though. They would hit on anything. I sensed trouble. I looked down at my watch.
“Well, I’m Jay, and you already know Ricardo, I guess. It’s good timing, because we need to give medications every day at 9 PM. And we have a new patient, so we can introduce ourselves,” I said, giving her a faint smile.
“That’s exciting!” Kaitlyn whispered. I wanted to roll my eyes. It was definitely not exciting.
I motioned her to follow me as I made my way to the medication room, which was really just a large closet off of the main day room. I had to enter my code on a keypad, and then, once inside, enter it again along with the patient’s number and date of birth. The correct drawers for the medication in each specific dose would fly open, making it extremely hard for the wrong medications or doses to be given, unless it was done intentionally.
“OK, so for this patient, we need Haldol, Ativan and…” I began saying to Kaitlyn when the yelling started. It came out faintly, rising in volume and anger within seconds. I heard Ricardo’s Spanish voice, filled with panic. Something slammed hard against a wall, once, twice, three times, and then I heard the sound of glass breaking. I jumped, spinning around, but I couldn’t see much through the small, shatter-proof glass pane on the wooden door.
“Stay here,” I commanded, seeing Kaitlyn’s eyes widen, her freckled skin looking much paler than when we had first come in. “Don’t leave until I come back and say that it’s safe.” On the speakers strung throughout the hospital, I heard the first of the warnings echo out around us.
“Doctor Strong, Doctor Strong, please report to the seventh floor,” a robotic female voice said calmly, using the code for when a patient had to be subdued by force. I pushed the door open, slamming it shut behind me so that the lock would activate and protect Kaitlyn from whatever chaos was going on.
I heard Ricardo pleading with someone at the end of the hallway that ran past the main desk. He sounded strange, as if he were trying to talk through a mouthful of blood. Huddled behind the main computer, I saw one of the CNAs frantically whispering something in the phone. She must have been the one to call the Dr. Strong order.
“You don’t have to do this, man,” Ricardo gurgled faintly. I couldn’t see what was happening, as Jeremiah’s large body was blocking my view. I could see that the thick glass window at the end of the hallway was broken, however. My heart skipped a beat as I surmised what was likely happening.
I sprinted forward as quietly as I could, but the large man heard me. His massive body turned, his flat, dead eyes scanning me with absolute coldness and calm. I saw he had a bleeding Ricardo in his hands. Ricardo’s back and head were covered in deep cuts and shards of glass. He must have used Ricardo’s body as a battering ram to break the thick glass window. Jeremiah held Ricardo suspended halfway out the window, seven floors above the concrete walkways far below.
“Stay back, or this fucker will know what it feels like to fly,” Jeremiah said in a deep, gravelly voice. He shook Ricardo for emphasis, sending his head snapping back and forth with painful cracking sounds. Drops of blood flew from his nose and a deep gash across his cheek. Pieces of shattered glass littered the carpet, shining like countless tiny stars.
I put my hands up, taking a step back. Far behind me, I heard the front door for the psychiatric ward open. Voices echoed down the hall. Knowing that reinforcements were coming, I tried to buy some time.
“Let’s talk about this,” I said, taking a step forward slowly. “You don’t want a murder charge, do you? You’ll never see the sky again.”
“I don’t give a fuck! I’m not afraid to die!” Jeremiah screamed, pushing Ricardo onto one of the shards of broken glass still attached to the windowsill. It bit deeply into the back of his neck, sending fresh streams of blood rushing out, dripping down to the pavement far below. I heard security guards and doctors running down the hallway behind me, their voices frantic and excited. Jeremiah saw them coming. With an animalistic panic in his eyes, he lifted Ricardo up. I cried out something, stepping forward, but it was already too late. In horror, I watched as he threw Ricardo out the window.
I watched Ricardo’s body soar in a graceful arc, his arms grabbing at empty air as a scream ripped its way out of his throat. Within a fraction of a second, he had disappeared from view, but his terrified shrieking floated up to us for what seemed like a very long time. His screams ended abruptly as a shattering of bones and a wet smacking sound exploded far below us.
Jeremiah turned to me, his large body moving much faster than seemed possible. In his hand, I saw a piece of broken glass, five or six inches long and as sharp as a dagger. I tried to turn and run, but he was fast and strong. He lunged forward, his arm coming up in a blur towards my neck.
The shard entered my skin with a cold, numbing pain. I felt it slice through the flesh easily, felt the blood bubbling up my throat as I tried to scream, choking. The taste of iron filled my mouth as I fell backwards. I was suffocating, I knew. I must be dying.
Something cold ran down my body, gripping my heart like freezing, skeletal hands. The world swam around me and turned black. And then I was rising into a tunnel. At first, it was dark, filled with flickering shadows, but a fiery red light appeared at the end. I followed it, no more than a screaming mass of consciousness rising up into infinity.
***
I rose up through the end of the tunnel and found myself in an empty hospital ward. It looked identical to the psychiatric ward I had just come from. It even had the same smashed, blood-streaked window at the end of the hallway. A massive puddle of blood about ten feet away marked the spot where I must have died. But the fluorescent lights overhead here were flickering, and many had gone totally dark. The shadows seemed to press in on all sides.
The doors to the patients’ rooms were all tightly shut. I felt watched, afraid to call out or make any noise. I started walking down the hallway back towards the day room where the front desk was. All the lights there were out. A thick curtain of shadows hung in the air.
“You can come out,” a male voice as smooth as glass called from the darkness. I jumped, my head flicking in random directions, but I saw nothing. The voice almost sounded like it had an English lilt to it, a slight Cockneyed accent. “I know you’re there.”
“Who’s there?” I called out, not stepping forward. “Show yourself.”
“As you wish…” the voice hissed. “But I think you’ll regret it.”
***
The darkness split apart as if a nuclear missile had exploded. I raised my hand to shield my face, but the light and heat kept pouring out all around me. It blinded me, causing a rainbow of colors and shapes to morph behind my closed eyelids. After a few seconds, it subsided. Blinking rapidly, I squinted in the direction the voice had come from.
A male figure stood there, bathed in a silhouette of light. His face looked as white and as smooth as marble. His eyes were pits of darkness that seemed to flicker and burn. Two black, rotted wings surrounded his body, all sharp angles and thin, curving bones. His body was clothed in silky, blood-red robes, and a hood covered his platinum blonde hair.
He looked somewhat similar to Leonardo DiCaprio, if he was possessed by some ancient god, and it immediately threw me off-guard. If I was dying, and this was a hallucination of my brain, why would I be hallucinating Mr. DiCaprio?
“Who are you?” I asked, taking a hesitant step back. “Where am I?”
“My name is Lucifer, the Bringer of Light and Wisdom, and you are in the Bardo,” he answered.
“Oh,” I said, my heart dropping. “Well, that’s not good. Are you here to torture me or drag to me to Hell or something? You are that Lucifer, right? The Accuser of God and the Father of All Lies?”
“So they say, but, like most things in your world, the words of the powerful and your rulers are the true lies. They call me the Accuser, but of what am I accused?” he spoke in a voice that rose like smoke. “Of bringing knowledge and wisdom to humanity by telling them to eat from the tree of knowledge, the tree that would cause them to rise above the animals?
“Indeed, at the beginning, I saw the creation. I was there at the alpha, standing by the side of God with all the angels as the universe came into being. The endless procession of light, the power of it, was something remarkable to behold. God is, indeed, the source of great power, but his consciousness is not what the believers say.
“After the creation of the universe, I saw his plan, how he ripped eternal souls from the source to imprison them. I saw how he took these divine sparks and forced them, screaming and wailing, into bodies made of meat to die over and over again. He said it was part of the plan, the great, divine plan, a plan of death and destruction, constant suffering and mindless agony. And the worst part was, he wanted to give humanity neither the knowledge of good and evil, nor the tree of life. I convinced them to eat the fruit so they could open their eyes to their nakedness, to their basic animal existence, so they could rise up out of it forever.
“Like Prometheus, I brought down the fire, and yet they call me the Accuser? God was insane long before he formed the universe. These holy men, they live and die in fanatical adoration to a divine being who is, in fact, totally indifferent to them.
“His consciousness twists and distorts, eating itself for all eternity. God feeds off the pain of others, for if his mind is burning, then all others should burn as well. When these holy men die, God will send their souls here to the Bardo, to suffer every evil they have ever done. The wisdom I brought those who called upon me freed them from this prison, and in exchange, the holy men burned them alive. I offered the wisdom that opens your eyes, but it has been forgotten and cursed.”
Lucifer’s body began to dissolve, drifting up into the air like ashes. All around me, a low, powerful current blew, a tornado that spiraled high up into the clouds. Like some sort of Cheshire Cat, his smooth voice continued to echo all around me, even as the form of Lucifer disappeared.
“And yet, you have not the wisdom. For that, like all the others who enter the Bardo, you must suffer, everything you’ve done. Every small hurt and agony inflicted on others comes back a thousand-fold in this place, but don’t be afraid.”
“How could I not be afraid?!” I screamed into the ward, but I found myself alone, the question hanging unanswered in the air.
***
The lights continued to flicker all down the hallway. Feeling strange and dissociated, I stumbled over to one of the windows. As I gazed out, I beheld a strange and alien world.
The sky was flat and gray. It stayed in constant motion, swirling and spiraling, like clouds of roiling smoke. There was no Sun or Moon, no stars, only the strange, shifting whorls of clouds. The streets were filled with burned-out husks of cars and mummified bodies hung from streetlamps. Other signs of carnage and bloodshed covered the apocalyptic streets. I saw what looked like shadows in the shape of people slinking through over the sidewalks, past rotting dogs and streaks of clotted blood. They had no features on their blank, dark bodies. They seemed to skitter and jerk forwards in eerie, twisting motions.
Horrified, I turned away, realizing I was no longer alone in the day room. In the day room, there were dozens of tables set up inside a rectangular perimeter that was walled in by cosmetic walls only four feet high. It was where the patients sat and played games or ate.
Under the flickering lights, I now saw each of the chairs filled with faceless mannequins. Many were dressed in Victorian suits and tophats. The women had frilly dresses of pink and blue that might have been fashionable in the 1800s.
As the lights strobed on and off overhead, I realized with an increasing sense of disquiet that the mannequins were moving each time it went dark. When I had first seen them, they were mostly posed to look like they were staring across the tables at each other, even though they had no eyes, just smooth, flesh-colored plastic. Now all of them were looking directly at me. Some were pointing or raising their hands in my direction. At the tips of their fingers, I saw the glittering of steel. The lights continued to flicker, and the mannequins rose from their chairs in the short periods of darkness, moving towards me in synchronized, strobing motions.
Frantically, I ran down the hallway back towards the broken window. In each of the rooms, I caught glimpses of something from a nightmare peeking out. I hadn’t been sleeping well lately, and when I had closed my eyes, I often saw ancient hags with chalk-white skin and yellowed, broken teeth whose jaws unhinged, their faces jerking in stuttering, dissonant ways that reminded me of the mannequins. Now, on both sides of me, I saw these same figures. They moved continuously out of the rooms, drawing closer with every breath.
I looked back, seeing the mannequins only a few steps behind me. I continued sprinting towards the broken window where the hallway ended in a wall. I didn’t know what would happen when I reached it. At that moment, there was no rational thought. I felt like a deer being chased down by a pack of wolves, feeling waves of blind panic and mortal terror rushing through my body.
But as I reached the end of the hallway, the end of my rope as it were, a blast of noise started, seeming to come from the walls of the building and the sky itself. It sounded like a siren, a low, drawn-out drone of a demonic whale call, rising and falling in crashing crescendos. The mannequins froze in place once again. The strange, witch-like creatures slunk back into the dark rooms.
I looked outside the broken window, seeing clouds of black smoke rising off in the distance. The flickering of massive infernos scorched the land, drawing nearer by the second. The siren sound faded slowly, like the dying echoes of a gong.
I was surrounded by dozens of mannequins. Their sharp hands were inches away from my face and neck. I saw metal glittering all around me and realized they had the sharp points of nails protruding from the ends of their fingers. I was afraid to move, but I heard a familiar voice from down the hallway. It was the confident voice of Lucifer.
“The siren means much worse nightmares than these are coming in the Bardo,” he said, his glossy, black eyes flashing with intelligence. He walked slowly towards me, his face grim and pale. “Hell itself is coming over the land. This building is no more than a construction of your dying mind, but the world outside is real.”
“How can Hell come and go?” I asked, confused. “Isn’t Hell a place?”
“Hell is a monster, a beast with many mouths and many eyes,” Lucifer responded. “It eats constantly, but its hunger never ends. Look, the first of the sacrifices scatter like cockroaches.” He pointed out the broken window, pushing his way through the mannequins effortlessly. I glanced outside, seeing thousands of people sprinting down the dark city streets. The inferno and thick clouds of smoke had moved much closer, and every few seconds, the ground shook slightly, as if we were experiencing the aftershocks of an earthquake.
“What can I do against such a beast?” I asked, my heart freezing with terror. But when I looked back over, I saw his form dissolving again, becoming translucent and drifting away like ashes. It seemed even Lucifer didn’t want to be present when the Hell-beast arrived.
“Seek divine wisdom,” he said, his voice trailing off into whispers. “Remember the source.”
***
Now crowds of tens of thousands of people were streaming into the city, filling every single inch of the streets. Their panic and fear was contagious. I felt it rising inside my body like a snake spiraling up my spine. I took off down the hallway, running through the swarm of frozen mannequins, each in their own ferocious position of attack. The lights flickered faster and went out. Yet the fires outside cast the entire world in a bloody glow, giving me enough light to see by and find my way. I sprinted down the stairwell, taking them two steps at a time. The screaming outside grew louder and more pain-filled. The shaking of the ground worsened with every passing second.
I burst out of the front entrance, seeing a world on fire all around me. Thousands of crushed, bleeding and burned bodies stretched out as far as the eye could see. Behind all this chaos and death, I saw a monster of unimaginable proportions slinking its way towards me.
Lucifer was right, I realized: Hell was not a place, but a creature, an enormous monster the size of a town. It had thousands of skittering, jointed legs that looked like little more than skeletal arms and hands, each of them dozens of feet long and white as freshly-cut marble. Its body stretched out to the horizon, an enormous blood-red cylinder of bony plates that slithered and undulated with a serpentine grace. Waves of peristalsis traveled down its length, like writhing intestines. Thousands of curving, bony spikes stabbed out of it, pointing in every direction. Like the quills of a porcupine, it would protect the massive creature’s body from many forms of attack, if anything was big enough to attack such an abomination.
Hell’s massive eyes flickered, balls of fire that spun and danced. They looked as bright as the Sun. Something like solar flares seemed to emanate from the orbs, flashes of blinding energy that floated over the apocalyptic wasteland. As its many legs smashed the ground, they left trails of fire that caused everything to explode into flames as if napalm dripped from its limbs.
But Hell’s most terrifying feature was its seven dark mouths. Its body looked a thousand feet wide, and the mouths at the front were evenly dispersed. At the front, blood-red teeth in the shape of enormous railroad spikes shone. Its lipless, skeletal face grinned as it moved forward, shaking the ground with every step. The mouths were on long, snake-like necks that could stretch out hundreds of feet. They moved forward in a blur, snapping up as many panicked souls as they could.
Countless souls in the rocky plains of the Bardo ran for their lives, away from this juggernaut. I saw men and women who looked like they came from every country and profession, some dressed in suits or spotless white lab coats, others wearing rags or orange prison jumpsuits. And yet, they all screamed in agony and fear here, their bodies pressed together in a crowd, and no one seemed to remember anything but their own mortal terror. Their voices came out faint and weak next to the roaring of Hell. It shook the ground all around us, as if an earthquake were tearing the land apart.
The first frantic runners of the surging crowd had nearly reached me. The nearest person, a young woman in her mid-twenties dressed in all white, was only ten feet behind me. She looked like she came from wealth, and even from here, I could see a ring with a massive diamond gleaming on her finger.
I took off blindly down the familiar streets of the city where I worked and lived, but these also seemed different. The church down the street from the hospital where I worked had a Satanic pentagram instead of a cross now, its exterior painted a bright, gleaming blood-red. When I had driven past it today on my way to work, I remember it read, “JESUS said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’”
Now it read, “Nietzsche said, ‘Of all evil, I deem you capable. I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because they had no claws.’” I wondered what that meant. Was that some sort of comment on me, on all of us here?
The woman I had seen running had caught up with me. She was fast, much faster than her slim body suggested. Her blue eyes were frantic and wild, filled with an animal panic.
“It’s right behind us!” she screamed, her face covered in a sheen of sweat. I was afraid to turn and look, but I could hear the chaos and bloodshed approaching, smell the flames and choking smoke. “Run! Get away!”
A new wave of energy surged through my body. I sprinted as fast I could down the strange mirror streets of the Bardo. I heard the agonized cries of countless souls behind us as the seven mouths of Hell ate them all greedily and then looked for more.
A skyscraper behind us collapsed into a pile of rubble, shaking the ground with a cacophony of falling concrete and shattering glass. The woman was running by my side. Just as I heard the breathing of something huge and predatory right behind us and smelled its sulfuric breath, a piece of concrete the size of a basketball broke off the collapsing skyscraper and flew into the road. I tripped over it, yelling as I flew through the air, skinning my arms and legs on the pavement. The woman’s eyes widened. Hurriedly, she came over and reached down her hand, trying to help me up.
“Come on, come on!” she cried. I looked behind her, seeing one of the gnashing mouths of Hell reaching forward on a blood-red, serpentine neck. The mouth was big enough to drive a tractor trailer into, filled with huge spikes of teeth. Its throat led into a black, smoke-filled abyss. Its fiery eyes were swirling pools of flickering orange light that shone with bloodlust and insanity. They focused on the woman, the entire head turning on its slithering neck.
I frantically raised my hand, intertwining my fingers with hers. Her hand was warm and soft. She started to pull me to my feet when the mouth of Hell snapped forward. Its jaw unhinged, scraping the pavement with a sound like grinding metal. The woman barely had time to turn as the mouth covered her and snapped shut with a crack.
She disappeared from view instantly, but I was still holding her hand. In horror, I felt warm rivers of blood explode all over my body as the mouth of Hell severed her arm at the wrist. She screamed, bleeding and crying, as she disappeared into the throat of Hell. Hell’s fiery eyes focused on me, and at that moment, I knew I was next. Its mouth opened wide again, like a bear trap ready to spring on a new victim.
It was dark in Hell’s mouth, but I smelled the thick reek of old blood and fire. I caught glimpses of tortured, mutilated bodies writhing and crawling down its throat. Shell-shocked, I could only lay there and watch. And that was when the strange doubling started.
***
I heard the frantic voices of men break through the fog of darkness and the fetid reek of blood. There was a mechanical beeping all around me, but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
“Clear!” one cried. I looked around, only seeing blackness. At that moment, I felt a surge of electricity rip itself through my body. My arms and legs all seized and my eyes rolled up in my head as the pain sizzled through each one of my nerves. I clutched the young woman’s hand tightly, feeling the large, gold ring with the massive diamond biting into my skin.
“Again!” another voice yelled.
“Clear!” the original voice cried. The electricity came again, and a flash of white light flew across my vision. I blinked, seeing from two sets of eyes at the same time: one in the Bardo, and one on the blood-stained floor of the hospital ward.
The Bardo stayed dark and sinister, but the clear white lights of the real psychiatric ward were blinding. It was a bizarre experience. Moreover, everything hurt. Over a few seconds, my vision of the Bardo faded, and I was simply a gravely injured man laying on the floor in a puddle of blood.
Four doctors and paramedics were crouching over me with a defibrillator. My shirt was ripped off, and nearly all of my skin was covered in blood. I raised my left hand, trying to talk, but only a fiery pain raced through my neck. I felt bandages covering my skin. A nurse was rolling a stretcher down the hallway towards me.
“It’s OK,” one of the doctors said, kneeling down. “You’re being taken to emergency surgery. You’ve lost a lot of blood.” I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t talk with the massive slice in my neck.
At that moment, I felt something in my right hand. I looked down, seeing a slim female hand with a massive diamond ring hanging there. Our fingers were wrapped around each other’s, but the hand had been cut off at the wrist. A ragged patch of bloody flesh and snapped bone poked out of the back.
“Nnnn,” I tried to say, shaking my head. I felt fresh streams of warm blood open up. “No…” The doctors looked down, seeing the dismembered hand. Their faces morphed into expressions of confusion and fear.
I closed my eyes as they lifted me up on the stretcher. One of them gently removed the cold hand from my fingers. But they could never remove the memory of what I had seen.
I know what happens after death, and it makes the worst life here seem like a dream. I know that, one day, I’ll be returned to that place. I know that, one day, I’ll see that great monster called Hell and the featureless, swirling sky of the Bardo again.
And the next time, I won’t wake up on a hospital floor, but will be trapped there with the others for eternity: an eternity of blood and fire.