In the year 1951, one small particular village in Singapore was infamous for unusual sightings of the supernatural. But when mysterious deaths and unfortunate infanticides kept on plaguing the village, everyone knew that there was something far more...
I opened my eyes the instant I felt it but all I saw was darkness. I turned my head to my right where my kerosene lamp was usually left overnight and my vision was still clouded by a certain blackness as though something was shrouding my vision.
Something wet and slimy had slithered their way in between the toes on my right foot. Little forked tongues enveloped my toes in painful deathlike glacial grips.
What was that? Was that a snake?
I breathed heavily with accelerated panic and tried to fling it away from my foot but my foot failed to budge. I forced myself to get up from my bed as a sharp acidic bite invaded my big toe but my body was slammed backwards by an unseen force.
THUMP!
Seconds later, something slippery and smelled like a vile mixture of rusty metal and coagulated blood, knotted itself around my neck and squeezed my throat. I did not know which suffocated me more - the offensive smell or the vice-like hold around my neck.
"Sayang?" A soft voice sounded on my left and I felt my wife's warm hands comforting me. "Sayang", a term of endearment that meant "dear" in Malay language. Her hoarse voice indicated that she had just risen from sleep.
Light from the kerosene lamp started to fill the room; my vision was coming back but I was struggling to breathe. I could make out our shadows swaying in a fleeting dance on the wooden walls behind her. The third shadow unnerved me; it was like a head full of hair that had long tendrils coming out from its mouth. My eyes were still on our shadows. One of the tendrils was creeping towards my wife's belly. I hastily shifted my head towards my wife's stomach, however, it frustrated me that I could not see anything.
"Sayang (Dear)? What's wrong?" my wife, Melati Sulastri, shook me gently and muttered a hushed prayer. As soon as she finished saying the short prayer, I coughed loudly and gasped for air. The invasive feeling on my neck was gone. I looked around the bed in frenzied chaos.
Her eyes were searching the room in fearful fright but her expression relaxed when she realised that there was nothing out of the ordinary. I immediately felt embarrassed. Was I imagining things?
"Are you okay? It sounded like a panic attack," Melati touched my head tenderly.
I sat up and stared at the spot on the wall behind her and saw that the third shadow was gone. I looked down at my big right toe. A small bruise was already forming.
It had to be real, right?
"Yeah. Maybe it was just a panic attack. Go back to sleep, okay? Sorry to wake you up."
"Aren't you going back to sleep?"
"In a while," I sat upright and darted my eyes around the room, unable to relax.
Melati snuggled next to me and closed her eyes. She shifted restlessly on the bed a few more times. It must be annoyingly difficult to find a comfortable position to sleep with a third-trimester belly. The lull of the soft gentle breathing next to me told me that Melati was already asleep.
Exhaustion started to kick in and I felt myself closing my eyes soon after. I was still sitting on the bed. With my eyes still closed, I lovingly groped for Melati's hand so that I could intertwine my fingers with hers before I slept but was met with something slimy and squishy instead. It almost felt like-
I tilted my head downwards. Immediately, my eyes shot open. It was clasped around a small intestine!
I heard a faint hiss dissipated below me and that was when I saw it.
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A floating head with long dishevelled greyish hair hovered just above my right foot. Its haggard, fiery-red eyes burned into mine as it wrapped and unwrapped its long tongue around my big toe. I gasped aloud as it retracted its bloody entrails from the bed. Being frightened was an understatement.
I flitted my eyes towards Melati who was still sleeping peacefully. Scanning the room with agitated eyes, I caught a glimpse of the floating head on the other side of the window staring straight at me with anger so intense that I knew that it was not the last time that I would see it.
