Don't Leave The Lights On

It was the middle of November and It was raining in my country. I lived in a country in South-East Asia and the monsoon season was no joke. That day, I was thinking about visiting the village my grandparents grew up in. My grandparents met in that village and moved to the city to raise my father and his siblings. They had passed on a few years ago but the house they own still stood in the village and it is maintained by a housekeeper hired by my father. I decided against going alone as I felt like having company on a holiday was more enjoyable than being alone. First, I called my father and asked for permission to make sure he had no issues with it. He agreed without hesitation since he wanted to go check out how the place was doing anyway. I hit up my friend, Jamie to go with me. He was a good friend of mine since my childhood and my parents knew his family from way back. He was bored so he said yes to it as soon as I brought it up. We eventually decided on a date to meet up and drive down to the village a week later so we could prepare.

After a long week, we were finally ready to head back to the village. Jamie took his belongings over to my house, and we loaded up my pickup truck with everything we needed. We left off early in the morning and arrived at the village just as the sun was beginning to set. The sky had gone grey and was beginning to get covered by clouds. We pulled into the driveway of my grandfather's house and unloaded our things. The house was silent as we walked up to the door. It was locked so we knocked on it. A short elderly lady who looked to be in her late 60s answered the door. She hugged Jamie and me. She was my grandfather's housekeeper since I was a child. Her name was Nana. I asked her if she heard that we were coming from my father. She said yes and walked us through the house. It felt more like a museum than a home. Everything in the house was pristine. I remembered playing in this place when I was a kid with some of the neighbour kids.

She eventually led me and Jamie to the room we would be using. I looked around and saw an old photo frame sitting on top of a table. I walked over to it and saw a picture of my grandparents together. It was their old room. After we got settled in, Nana called us down for dinner. Once we were done with dinner, we sat in the living room and watched some TV. Nana came in and sat down with us. We chatted for a bit before deciding to head back to the bedroom. Before we left, she said to listen up and told us there was a tradition in the village that we should never leave the lights once it was past midnight as there was a legend passed down that something evil will approach the house that does this. I asked if everyone still does this because I remembered we did this when I was a kid too. She replied solemnly "Yes, It is a tradition we continue because it is real". I didn't think much of it so we said our goodnights and went into our room. It was a great view from the bedroom. The windows were facing east and we would be able to see the moon over the hills of the village. It was around 11.30 pm, we were surfing the internet and watching videos on Youtube with our data.

Nana knocked on our door and came in. She told us that we had to turn the lights off and we had to keep it off until sunrise. If we needed the bathroom, she said she lit a candle in the bathroom. She left after that, leaving us alone in the dark. We started talking because both of us were still awake. Eventually, we managed to fall asleep. The next day, we left the house and walked to the nearest store. . The closest store was a couple of minutes away. It was a small store that sold food, tobacco, and alcohol. We walked in there and asked if there was anything fun to do there. The guy behind the counter replied that there was a bunch of guys that always played football in the nearby field around this time and they would let anyone play. Naturally, my friend and I were interested so we headed over to the field and met one of the guys there. They let us play and we had fun till the sun had set. I realised that we needed to go home and the field to my grandparent's place was a 15-minute walk. The other guys that were playing lived right next door so they went home quick.

We started walking back but since the sun had set, it had turned dark. The road leading back would go past the store we were at earlier. As we passed by, we noticed that there was nobody there but the store was wide open. I was slightly confused even if this was in the middle of nowhere shouldn't, they at least close up?. I thought quietly to myself while Jamie was listening to some podcast about ghosts, monsters and legends which I hated. Then, he tapped me on the shoulder and said "Hey, listen to this." as he passed one of his earphones to me. It was the podcast like I had thought and it was talking about a myth of a ghost lady. As I listened on, the hosts were explaining that this lady was a wealthy businesswoman who lived in a remote area. She was a pretty lady that liked to wear traditional clothing that was yellow. One day, she had passed by one of her businesses late at night and decided to go in to inspect the place as it was a shop that opened for 24-hrs. What she saw when she entered was her two employees were in the middle of smoking some type of drug. She was furious and in her anger, she fired them. The two drug addicts got upset with her and they started arguing. Eventually, one of them picked up a nearby knife and stabbed her before running off leaving her to bleed out on the ground to her death.

The local police eventually caught and locked up the two murderers but the woman's family was devastated. They had heard that if they buried the woman in a certain way she would come to life and exact revenge on the ones who did this to her. So, they did accordingly to the rumour and she was buried. Two weeks later, the two murderers that were in jail mysteriously had been stabbed to death in the exact same way, the woman they killed. Some say that after settling her murderers, she still roams the same place she died killing people because her mind was gone after that leaving only her strong rage and misery in the form of a ghost. Those rumours also say that she targets houses that have their light on after midnight because it reminds her of her death. I took out the earphone and passed it back to Jamie. He asked, " So, ring any bells?". I replied with a slightly scared grin " Are you thinking that the lady from the podcast is the reason why we aren't allowed to have lights on?". I was going to say something but he cut me off and said "I don't think that would be possible, it must be something else". I rolled my eyes and walked ahead of him.

We reached the house eventually and let ourselves in. Nana greeted us and we had dinner before retiring to our room. It was about 11.50 pm, Jamie decided that we should stay up and if the ghost from the podcast was the reason why we shouldn't leave our lights on he would "maybe" have a picture of it as proof that it exists. He was really getting into this whole ghost thing now. Nana had already returned to her room and most likely fallen asleep so she wouldn't know anyway. So, as the time approached midnight, we stood by the window which was right beside the street. The houses around us that we could see had already turned off any lights. It was midnight, almost instantaneously we felt a chill run up our spine. We looked at each other slightly afraid now then peeked through the blinds at the street. Luckily, there wasn't anything there. We both let out a sigh of relief before I proceeded to smack Jamie a few times for coming up with this stupid idea. Suddenly, I heard footsteps coming from outside the window. We did the same as before and peeked out onto the street.

Our blood ran cold when we saw a woman dressed in a white dress walking down the street. I panicked and told Jamie to stay while I sprinted to the light switch and turned it off. It was too late at this point. She had already seen Jamie looking at her. "Shit, she's coming here.", he said as his voice was trembling. I ran back to the window and saw she was already at the window. We stumbled back towards the door away from the window. We ran out of the room and went towards Nana's room. At this point, she heard the commotion and already predicted us doing something stupid. She came out just as we were running to her room. We told her that there was a woman in our room. She immediately took out a pendant and told us to hold her hand. The woman now walked out of the room. This time we could see her face clearly. It was a pretty woman but she had scars all over her face that wore a maniacal smile.

She was wearing a white dress that looked like it was made out of silk. She had long black hair and wore a crown on her head. We were all scared but Nana told us not to be afraid. She said that we should just stay calm and everything will be fine. The woman walked towards us and Nana stood in front of us to protect us. The woman stopped in front of her and looked at her with a menacing smile on her face. Nana took the pendant in her hand and started chanting something in a native dialect or something like that. The woman started screaming at the top of her lungs as if she was being tortured by thousands of knives stabbing into her body at once. She fell to the ground, writhing in pain, begging for mercy as if she was being burned alive from inside out. We all watched as she slowly disintegrated into nothingness until there was nothing left but smoke rising from the floor where she once stood before disappearing completely into thin air.

After the ghost disappeared, we fell to the floor. Nana brought us back to our room to go back to sleep. The next day, we got yelled at by Nana and swore never to do anything that would put us all in danger like this again. We were scared of what people might think of us so we kept the incident to ourselves for the longest time. But now I realize that the least we could do was pass on this incident as a cautionary story to my family members to never-ever leave the lights on in the village.