You might probably have heard a lot of Ghosts Stories! This is just one among them. Usually in a ghost story, a friend will tell you a story of his friend who had a friend who might have heard a ghost story probably experienced by his Uncle, Uncle's father, Aunty, Aunty's mother, Grand father, Grand mother or their Mother, Father or someone else whom you can never ever encounter in your life.
Mostly this is a folklore, myth, imagination or work of an idle mind. Most of my friends don't believe in Ghosts Stories now, yet it is one of the most exciting topic for them to talk about and everyone have an experience of their own to share! I bet you might be thinking of an experience that you had at this moment. This particular story is not told to me by any friend, nor my relative and neither by some random companion I had met during my wild travels. This story is an experience that I had in person and I am going to narrate on what happened that night at one of my workplaces. I still remember that night and particularly those few seconds of encounter I had with that thing. I am still not sure if it was a wild imagination what I had due to an funny experience few minutes earlier or was it something really out of this world and weird. But surely it was scary!!
My shift started at around 6:30 pm Indian time and It was suppose to end at 3:30 am EST. This was one of those days when my ass was on fire and I was working hell bent to complete the given tasks as at-least 3 people were dancing on my head (My Internal QA, My Team Lead and My Onsite Account Manager)! I had to complete it as my account manager was chatting with me and regularly pinging me to get the status update on the progress I was making through out that night. I was sure that I will not be able to complete the tasks and I had already skipped my dinner to accommodate some extra time as I knew I had no choice. I tried to convince my account manager sitting thousands of miles away on the other end of this world via chat about my concern, but he was persistent in reminding me that he want to submit my work to the Onsite QA Guy before the EOD so that we can enjoy the weekend without working and take up new assignment next Monday morning. He said that he didn't mind spending some extra hours (out of office) to help me complete my tasks (He was helping me keep awake that cold and dark night!!) and how much he appreciates my Hard Work!! After few unsuccessful attempts and not so fruitful discussion with my Team Lead sitting couple of desk away, I got busy with the work. It was not particularly difficult task to complete but the volume was huge. Luckily or Unluckily, I was the only one handling this account and I didn't had any back up who could help by taking some of my work load. It was around 1:00 am, I was totally engrossed in the work that was assigned to me; when my colleague asked me if I wanted something. I asked him to bring me some Tea and a Pack of Biscuits which I could munch on while working. Taking this distraction, I also dropped some pellets of fish food for the guppies I had in a bowl. The lone Siamese Fighting Fish (Blue Color) didn't gobbled on those pellets. It had a habit of eating some dry worms which I had to hold in between my fingers for it to consume. After the 5 minutes break, I was staring back at the screen and got engaged in my work.
The next one hour passed by without any further distractions. My colleague came back with the tea and a pack of Britannia 50-50 Biscuits. This is when I realized that the whole floor was almost empty and everybody went down to get busy playing chess, carom or ping pong in the basement except for two guys who were dozing off in nearby desks. Since the floor was empty even the AC was turned off and the mercury was raising in the floor due to the closed office space (Even though it was winter season, the AC was always running due to this reason). Anyhow, I took a break of another 5 minutes drinking Tea and thanking my colleague for his courtesy when we heard a faint music coming from the other side of the floor. It was dark as lights were switched off and the music was so feeble that it might have gone unnoticed if the floor had people working. My colleague went to the side of the floor to explore where the music is coming from. I noticed that there was a message from my Account Manager to relax for the day as the client had asked for few changes after they saw the first batch of files and change document would be available only on Monday. "Great" I thought and again started playing with my Siamese fish. Suddenly this guy came near me claiming that he couldn't find the source (He initially thought that it was a mobile phone which he was not able to find!!). He looked a little scared which made me laugh for a second. I could understand his fear as there were rumors and stories revolving around the place which we had all heard. Ex: Building was previously a hospital; and stories like two engineers working on ground floor had experienced conference room Glass doors closing and opening automatically in a very slow manner which scared the shit out of them and they did not turn to office for next few days etc., etc., We knew this was all just cooked up stories to have some fun in the night, but during scenarios like these Our brains tend to work overtime to make us realize that we are not alone. Even though I never believed in such stories, the next few minutes made me thinking if I have to believe on a mysterious force in this planet to get some answers to the unanswerable! Anyways, since I had ample time now, we started searching for the source of music and soon we found the culprit. We found the source within 2-3 minutes of turning on the lights. The music was coming from a running computer at the farthest end of the floor. A headphone was connected and placed inside the locker of the desk. We laughed it out and were greatly relived that it was not one of those crooked aatma or a bhoot that was blood thirsty and has come down to hunt and kill these two innocent souls. We turned off the lights again except the one directly above my desk and my colleague went to the roof to puff a cigarette with two of my other colleagues who were already there.
I came back to my desk and noticed that I had received a confirmation email from my account manager to stop the work for the day. I stretched myself reading this email and was pretty happy as I could hit the floor to join in games or go to roof top and discuss on what happened few mins back. As I started to compose the 'reply' back acknowledging my freedom for the day, I noticed that someone was standing near the floor entrance door. From the angle where i was sitting, the door was few desk ahead of me towards my right side. If I remember properly, If I stand in front of my desk and step aside three steps towards right and walk another 10 steps dead straight I could find that door on my right hand side wall. I could see that someone was reclining against that glass door trying to get a peep inside. It was like someone standing near the wall next to the door, directly in front of the AC Switch which was again on the left hand side of that glass door (if someone is facing it from outside & right hand if someone is facing from inside) and bending to get a peep with his hand on the other side of the door for grip! I thought that it might be one of the other people working with me in that floor trying to get inside without using their Access card (if someone pushes the access button from inside the floor, it saves him an floor Log In Entry) and just checking in to see if they could turn on the AC back. To help that person I got up and started walking towards the door and instantly I realized that I can't identify him. My eyes were trying hard to identify who it really was? Even though there was light outside that door, I couldn't figure out the person now directly staring at me. His face was not clear and for some reason my eyes were stuck on his face which I was not able to identify. I could not judge any of the facial signs like eyes, ears, lips but i know it was his face and I was staring continuously at him. It was not one of those scary badly burnt faces that I saw but I vaguely remember seeing anything at all. This mystery involuntarily made my steps slow, I could hear my heart thumping louder and louder, I felt that the door has moved itself to the farthest possible place. The closer I went near that door, the darker the figure grew becoming more clearer. Yet, I was not able to identify the person. Anyhow, I knew it was not one of my buddy from the rooftop as I thought they might be busy puffing their cigarettes and I could have identified them easily. It was not my reflection, there was no chance that I could have seen myself from the angle I was walking. As I neared that door, that person just moved away in an instant as if towards the stairs going down. For some reason the next 2-3 steps I ran towards the door to see who it was. I opened the door to see that no one was there and in an instant I felt the cold air coming from the open door of the roof top. I regained my composure and saw that my colleagues were climbing down the stairs from roof top which was directly in front of the door. And I knew that person went down as the lift was down from last two to three days!! Suddenly I saw that the security guard was climbing up from the dark first floor to the second floor where I was standing, I could make out that he was sleepy and just climbing up to check on the lights and AC. I asked him if he was there near the door few seconds back, to which he said that he just came now. My next obvious question was, did anyone go down? and he claimed that he didn't see anyone going down and he went to the roof top to close the door behind which my colleagues had left open while coming down. At that moment, my three colleagues asked me what happened and why i was standing out? {Joking if my Account Manager left me alone as they were not aware of the current status} I reassured myself that this has to be a prank and without revealing that I saw someone whom I couldn't identify and that I was totally scared, asked them as coolly as possible "why they went away when i came to open the door?". If they had said anything stupid, I would have known that it was their prank but they simply said that "maybe security man came to check the lights maga!". I was not sure if they were just trying to bully me and I thought "But he came after that man went down and he did not see anyone going down!" I asked them if they were sure it was not them as I was standing outside for them with my access card locked inside the floor. They laughed and assured me that it must be the security guard and that they were just going down to the basement for games as the lift is also down. The look of their face gave me a gut feeling that they were telling the truth. I waited for the security guard to return and ask him again if he saw someone going down, I was sure he might have caught a glimpse of that man in those stairs no matter how sleepy he was! But again he claimed with a reassuring sound that no one went down and I was the only soul standing in front of that door. This made me involuntarily reveal my story to my buddies who were climbing down the rooftop as they were also my good friends to which they laughed it out claiming that I was stressed out with work and they took me down to the basement where I luckily I was not made an object of mockery.
That night I was confused, I was not sure what I saw. It looked like a Man but I couldn't identify him nor could make out his face. Was I really stressed out? Was it just my imagination? Was it a figment of my brain playing trick on me? Was it my colleagues who pulled off a perfect scare trick? Was the security guard telling lie? Did he see someone going down or was it him? Was it a co-incidence? the next few days I was confused and i was repeatedly telling myself that it was a prank or a dream as it was 2:30 am. As my colleagues never took out that topic to indicate it was a prank which they might have done to make me feel stupid, I feel that it was a work of my imagination to scare the hell out of me. I never discussed this with anyone again expect for those three guys for the heck of getting branded a psycho. However, I told this on few occasions when my other friends happen to discuss some scare stories over a cup of Tea and laugh it out! This reference was given rarely again in that workplace but with only those two or three guys more with whom we used to discuss ghost stories in the dead of the night as a good way of spending the night. There was more spice added to the ghosts stories of that work place when the fish bowl was getting half filled the fish food and no one claimed to have been feeding the fish during the day time when the floor was empty. I made sure that there was a note sticking on the bowl to indicate not to pour fish food in bowl; but at-least in a week the bowl was to be found to be filled with lot of fish food in it and constantly needed clearing. This used to happen even those days when I had just cleaned the bowl previous night. None of our inquiries revealed who was responsible for the extra food pellets in the fish bowl which made it more interesting for the ghost story lovers of that work place. Initially, I used to develop a cold feet out with fear when that topic of my glass door experience came but later on as time passed I regarded it as a part of my very good imagination worth telling to some of my friends and their friends and their friends!!
Please share your comments and feedback so that I can write more on few more life like imaginations that I had and also some of the experiences shared by my friends and other random people that I have met over the course of my life. Thank you for spending your precious time reading this blog post.
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