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Welcome, dear readers. Its time for another installment of the 100 weird tales game, from the site authors. Some stories are true through experience, some were heard from other ghost storytellings, and some just maybe made up just to scare us all. Join us for another kaidan round. We hope its given you time to look up some stories for yourselves.
Choco
A Revisiting of an Old Cabin
A long time back, I visited a cabin called Sinawik Cabin.
It's a cabin that was built for Girl Scouts back in 1949 by the Kiwanis Club. The club itself is a global one, founded in Detroit way back in 1915, and expanded overtime internationally. The cabin itself stood for quite some time, until it eventually fell into disrepair from 1983 onward.
Around 4 years ago, I took a trip up to Sinawik Cabin (which I'm NOW realizing is Kiwanis spelled backwards O_O). It was still standing, but eerily quiet. The bottom door of it was wide open, and the entire time I was there, there was an ever present sense of dread. From walking up the side of the cabin, back down, passing the open basement entrance, I couldn't shake it for the life of me. It wasn't until after I left the cabin and I was back in my car that the feeling had completely subsided. When I got back home, I did a bit of research on the cabin; as it turned out, it was set to be torn down back in 2011. Ironically enough, fate took its turn and it was burned to the ground in an apparent fireworks accident back in 2014. Now, with it being 2016, I decided to take a quick walk back to the cabin to see the foundation of it for myself.
The path back there was...well, it wasn't that it was in disuse more that it hadn't been tended to in a while, especially Sinawik trail itself. As I was walking, there were numerous times where I had to duck under trees in order to continue along the path. Part of a tree fell on to the path and splintered apart, and even though I was able to move over it, it was a lil unsettling. The dirt on this trail looked almost blackened.
When I got there, I looked up to where the cabin should have been and sure enough, it was completely gone. The foundation looked pitifully small, which puzzled me for a brief second, as the cabin itself was fairly big. Trees and shrubbery were found near or hanging above the foundation, and part of another trail had trees collapsed around it. It's as if this place was meant to be forgotten.
After inspecting the area, I hightailed it back along a neighboring trail back to my car. As I passed the old stone bridge leading to the Sinawik trail, I heaved a sigh of relief.
A relief in that I'd never have to go back to that creepy place again.
Dio
Recurring Dreams
(Adapted from a story I heard in college)
A young man and woman were living together, and for several weeks, the young man complained of a strange recurring dream. In it, he was in bed and in the mirror on the bathroom door was his reflection, whom watched him as he slept. Every night, his reflection would mumble to him, "Hey, its my turn, you've been living long enough. Time to switch places."
Because it was so strange and so consistent, he'd always wake up in the morning and turn to his girlfriend and tell her, "I had that dream again." Since it happened every night, with the same response every morning, she began to worry there was something seriously wrong with him.
Then one morning, he woke up, and told her "good morning", instead.
This took her by surprise so she asked, "Didn't you have that dream again last night??"
He merely stared at her curiously.
"What dream?"
Decon
Fixable
(Based on a local legends from Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire; it is said that a creature in the same of a man, sporting dark wings, will intervene during attempted murders and attempt to prevent people from committing suicide)
A thousand feelgood hallmark specials told Jeff that the emotions he’d be feeling in this instance were grand and dramatic; that he would be weeping openly, uttering cries of ‘Goodbye, cruel world!’ and cursing the misery of human existence. The reality, it had to be said, was a little underwhelming; he simply found himself standing at the side of a river, at 5:34 on a cold October morning, thinking to himself the following words; ‘If I were to jump in right now, nobody would discover me until my body washed up somewhere’. Something he’d been doing since at least 10 o’clock last night.
Truth was, things hadn’t been going very well for Jeff lately. He had tried several times to hold down a job, but the few places that even interviewed him would rarely call back. The resulting stress had caused him to last out at friends or family, sometimes for seemingly genuine reasons but most often for petty things. As a result, most people had begun writing him off, or distancing themselves from him. He had tried several times to pitch a comic he’d been penning and writing to several independent studios, but none of them were interested in a darkly humorous tale of a ex-Fireman and an Ice Esper and their escapades as P.I.’s in 1950s San Jose.
Peeling all the bullshit back, though, Jeff realised that the core problem was none of those things individually; it was the fact that, at the heart of it all, he was a deeply insecure man who sought constant validation to combat the constant nagging doubt that he was a failure of a human being. And he simply didn’t know how to go about trying to fix what was fundamentally broken. Lifting one foot off the ground, he found a bitter irony in the fact that he’d even be going out in a pathetic manner.
He shut his eyes as he fell forward, waiting for the icy sensation of the water to hit his face and the taste of mud to fill his mouth.
Instead, he felt a pair of arms catch him as he fell, cradling him slightly as a sensation of flight overtook him.
He opened his eyes, confused, only to balk in terror at the sight that confronted him. He was being carried in the arms of a dark, vaguely humanoid creature with large wings, flying over the surface of the water back towards civilisation. Jeff tried to ask who or what this thing was, but only frightened vocalisations passed his lips.
“Please do not be alarmed, young man.” The creature said- or projected, rather, due to it’s lack of lips- “I do not intend to harm you.” The voice was unbelievably soothing; seemingly of indeterminate gender, accent or slang, it was softspoken and delicate with clear diction. So soothing was it that it did seem to abate some of Jeff’s fears somewhat. He simply lay in the creatures arms in silence as they flew over the river, gazing out at the sight ahead of him.
He never realised how beautiful the few lights of the town looked from a distance, or how calming the nearly faded moonlight reflecting off the river water was.
Eventually, the creature set Jeff down at the end point of the nature walk alongside the river, before it rejoined one of the nearby streets. Jeff tentatively stepped ahead a little bit, before turning back to the creature, rubbing his arm sheepishly.
“Why did you save me?” He asked, surprised at the ease with which the words passed his lips.
“You were about to make a tremendous, pointless sacrifice.” The creature answered, same even tone as before.
“No offence, but you... look more like the kind of thing that’d be more up for eating my decaying corpse then stopping me from topping myself, heh.” Jeff chuckled, nervously.
“Not at all; it is my duty to come to the aid of individuals that require it.”
Jeff looked down, sheepishly. “Pal, I dunno what you’re thinking, but you should'a let me go.”
“Why so?”
“Because I’m... a mistake.”
The creature crouched down, adopting a less intimidating stance. “I sense there are stronger words you wish to use, young man.”
“I don’t like who I am. What I am. What both of those make being around me like and how they lead me to treat people. The fact I pushed most people away is probably a good thing, considering I was... probably nowt but a drain on all of them. I... don’t want to be alive anymore.”
Jeff stared at the ground for a few moments as the creature stood silent, allowing the catharsis of voicing those thoughts to run it’s course.
“Check your phone, young man.”
Jeff blinked a few times, sniffing a little bit before removing his phone from his pocket. He’d forgotten he’d even brought it with him. Upon hitting the home button, the screen was illuminated by a number of notifications- text messages from concerned friends, several missed calls from family members, IM notifications from his girlfriend. It was a little overwhelming, to say the least. Jeff looked back up at the creature, a hand over his mouth as his eyes grew damp,
“I’m afraid I cannot offer you any immediate answers to your problems, young man, but I can tell you this; the solution to life is never death, and searching for one by chasing oblivion so brazenly will not give you what you need. Besides; it seems you have more anchors tethering you to this world then you may have realised. Draw the strength you need to face your demons from that, little one, for to be so loved and cherished is a precious thing indeed.”
Jeff was staring back down at the phone, a few tears already running off of his cheeks and landing onto the still lit lock screen. “Thank you.”
The creature gently approached him, calmly wrapping it’s arms and wings around him in a warm embrace. “There is always a chance things can get better, Jeffrey. That much I can promise.”
Doc Tran
Ghosts of War
This is one of those stories you hear about every so often in the Vietnamese-American community. a couple variations of this tale can be found online. Not an common story among Vietnamese, but definitely a familiar one for those whose relatives were survivors of the war.
Wars always have their own stories. Tragedy. Sorrow. Of unspeakable atrocities. Of unfathomable nobility and courage. It comes as no surprise that during such times, we might even hear stories of ghosts, terrors, and things from the other side of this life as well.
It's said that during the Vietnam War, many women were left waiting at home for husbands and lovers to come back from the war. Sadly many never did. Though on one occasion, in a farming village whose name has been lost to time, there was one instance where a missing soldier did finally come home to his farm and the woman who loved him. It was several years after the war ended.
The woman was overjoyed to see her lost love returned to her and tearfully embraced him. It was miracle. The soldier, however seemed to show no emotion despite the long awaited reunion. All he said was, "Woman, make me food." It seemed out of character for him to speak in such a brusque way, but she brushed it off and happily made her love his meal. Once he finished, he went to bed without a word. The soldier would sleep the entire day and then woke that night to tell her, "Woman, make me food."
Again, the woman happily complied. As days turned into weeks, the pattern would continue. He would sleep all day, and then eat at night. He never worked. Never helped around the house. Things were getting tight on the farm and they were running out of food. The soldier's voice was starting to change. Deeper; as though it was not his, but a hollow copy of the voice the woman so loved to hear say, "I love you, my dear wife."
As times grew tougher, she asked the local Catholic priest for help. The Father came, and after watching the husband's behavior, he said to the woman, "This man is not your husband. He is a spirit that has taken his body for its own."
The woman was terrified and heartbroken at the revelation, but trusted in the priest's word. The only thing to do was to exorcise the spirit. The woman and the priest waited until nightfall. True to his routine, the soldier woke and said, "Woman, make me food."
This time though, instead of the tormented woman, it was the priest who answered his request. Quickly the priest performed the exorcism, and just as quickly, the soldier fell to the ground; his body rapidly decomposing to little more than dust. The husband, it seemed, was long dead; a convenient vessel for the spirit to use at long last have a taste of the joys of the living.
Thanks for joining us. One round left.
--All Authors (10/25/16)
images taken by the authors or drawn by the authors. map of vietnam from www.d-maps.com.
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