This story was sent to me by one of my friends through email it’s from someone who asked me to keep her real name private so let’s just call her N n grew up in India in a region called Assam it’s in the northeastern part of the country and if you’ve ever heard of Assam you probably know it’s famous for its wildlife, assam tea, tea plantations and stunning national parks. It’s the kind of place where everything looks peaceful almost magical but sometimes the most beautiful places can also hide the most unseen unsettling things this story she shared it was her first real encounter with the spirit world it happened when she was just in sixth grade but later as she got older and thought back she realized the signs had always been there little things she didn’t notice back then but things that now makes perfect sense nara lived with her mom her dad and her younger brother a normal family living a simple life her mom worked as a school teacher and the school she taught at that place felt like it belonged in a horror film the building was old and not just old in a charming way i am talking walls cracked open chunks missing bricks exposed like bones under decaying skin and the history of this place no one really talked about it and maybe that’s what made it worse it felt like the building itself held memories memories that didn’t want to stay buried the school stood alone surrounded by a wide empty field and just beyond that towering trees strange thing was those trees would sway even when the wind was completely still by day the school seemed normal old but still alive with noise kids laughing footsteps echoing in the halls teachers talking but the moment the sun started to go down something changed like someone flipped a switch and transported the whole area into a different realm they had some security lights installed around the building but they didn’t help much when the last bell rang and people left that place turned completely silent but not the comforting kind of silence this one made your spine tingle it was it was thick heavy like something invisible was watching from the dark and if you linger too long you’d start to hear things soft whispers coming from the trees something was there you couldn’t see it but you could feel it like a shadow breathing just over your shoulder now despite all that the school still held events like any other school one of the most popular ones was the annual farewell celebration kind of like a festival with performances food stalls music and dancing ner always went her mom was a teacher after all during the day it was fun lively colorful filled with laughter and the sound of music playing through old speakers families walking around students performing people eating chatting so it felt safe but when nights started to fall and the crowd slowly began to leave that same unsettling stillness would creep back in the music would fade the laughter would die down and suddenly you would feel that that shift again after the event just before it was getting too dark Nara hurried back home with her family thankfully she didn’t have to stay too late and she didn’t want to she got home she changed into her pajamas and began winding down for bed but as she stood in front of the mirror something caught her eye right there near her nose scratches faint but sharp scratches thin red lines like something had dragged tiny claws across her skin at first she thought “What what the hell is this it looked like a cat scratch but there was no cat around.”She hadn’t played with any animals that day she hadn’t bumped into anything and they didn’t look like the accidental kind of scratch you get from your own fingernails or from heat rash or dry skin these were different then it hit her she had seen these before every time she visited the school at night she would come home and find these exact same kinds of scratches on her face she reached up and touched them and they stung that raw prickling kind of pain you get from a fresh wound and it felt weird like as if something like something she couldn’t see had dragged sharp fingers across her skin and the scariest part was the scratches always appeared in the same spot like every single time during the day she’d been to that school countless times she explored the halls touched the old desks pressed her fingers against cracked walls and even wandered near the trees but she never once came home with so much as a bruise or a scrape but only at night when the light faded and that eerie silence returned something seemed to mark her and at first she tried to rationalize it maybe she scratched herself in her sleep and only noticed it afterward maybe maybe it was a skin allergy maybe it was just dry air or something in the atmosphere but no matter how much she tried to explain it away deep down she she knew this wasn’t accidental it wasn’t a coincidence and it wasn’t her imagination because those scratches didn’t heal fast they they lingered raw red and sore and every time she looked in the mirror it felt like they were saying “I’m here.” She didn’t know what was leaving those marks but whatever it was it wanted her to remember h what was that was it just coincidence i don’t know and a few days later one evening Nara visited the school with her mother again the semester break was almost over and her mother needed to tidy up her classroom and rearrange teaching materials the building was mostly empty echoing faintly with distant footsteps and the creek of aging walls while her mother busied herself inside her classroom Nara wandered off curiosity had always tugged at her and something about the back corridor of the school had always caught her attention a wing that was darker colder and strangely silent even during the day she walked slowly her shoes clicking softly on the worn floor tiles the hallway grew narrower and dimmer as she passed by unused storage rooms and forgotten bulletin boards covered in curled yellowing paper then she passed a large window the kind that looked into the old staff lounge a room supposedly sealed off for years and that is when she saw someone a a little girl standing just behind the glass still pale motionless her skin almost looked grayish white her eyes were unnaturally wide glassy and fixed directly on Nara but empty as if looking through her not at her she was wearing a faded oldfashioned school uniform not the kind students wore anymore something from decades ago nara froze the girl didn’t blink she She didn’t move her small hands rested against the glass one of them smudged faintly with dirt as if she had been trying to press her way out and just as Nara whispered “Hello,” the girl faded not turned or walked away she just melted into the dimness behind her dissolving like smoke into shadow nara stood there rooted in place her eyes wide in disbelief when she ran back to her mother and nervously asked if any other children were still in the building her mother simply shook her head no one’s there sweetheart why and later that week still shaken Nara asked one of the teachers about the old staff room and the woman’s face changed immediately her expression was tight and cautious she hesitated and then muttered quietly “That wing has been locked for years no one has used it since the accident.” But when Nara asked what accident the teacher didn’t answer and she just she just walked away and no one ever explained what had happened no one ever talked about that wing again but the image of that little girl those wide hollow eyes would haunt N for years and after that weird incident months passed but the feeling never left her there was something wrong with that school something hiding beneath the surface something watching from behind walls or glass and one night she and her friend Meera decided to push their curiosity even further there was a school event that evening music lights students laughing everything felt festive and ordinary but while the others were distracted by performances and snacks Nara and Meera slipped away they crept toward one of the classrooms near the back of the school and no one used that room anymore but that night for reasons they couldn’t explain the door was slightly a jar they looked at each other unsure mera smirked and said “Let’s just peek inside what’s the worst that could happen so they did and the moment they stepped in the door slammed shut behind them with a loud violent bang and there was no wind nothing that could have caused it and suddenly the air inside the room shifted the temperature dropped so fast it was like walking into a freezer nara’s skin erupted in goosebumps she tried to laugh it off but her voice was shaking and then they heard it a voice more like a whisper low broken raspy get out it came from the back corner of the room near the boarded up window but no one was there the air felt heavier by the second like the room itself was closing in around them and then they saw something a shadow not a figure not a person just a shape long and hunched crawling across the wall not walking dragging itself across the surface like it had no bones to stand on the girls screamed n grabbed the door handle twisting and pulling until finally it gave way they burst out of the room running back toward the lights and sound of the event they didn’t speak for the rest of the evening but the haunting wasn’t over meera called her in a whisper i woke up with dirt under my nails she said her voice was trembling i didn’t go outside i didn’t touch anything and then she told her there were scratches across her back like deep ones angry ones the same kind N had seen so many times before only this time they were longer more violent as if whatever was in that room hadn’t just scared them it had followed them and from that strange day years passed life moved on but the memories of those nights never really left her the scratches the silence the warnings and the signs they stayed buried in the corners of her mind she tried to convince herself it had all been in her head maybe just an overactive imagination fueled by ghost stories and horror movies that’s what she kept telling herself over and over until one night something shattered that illusion she was lying in bed scrolling mindlessly through YouTube just trying to kill time nothing serious and then she stumbled across a video a woman casually filming herself while walking past a graveyard it wasn’t even a ghost hunting video or anything dramatic the woman was just walking sharing some local myths and legends surrounding the area a calm steady voice nothing particularly spooky she wasn’t touching anything she didn’t react to anything strange there was nothing around her just her voice her footsteps and the camera but then right there on the screen something happened red thin lines began to appear on the woman’s skin like right in front of Nara’s eyes fresh scratches blooming out of nowhere as if something invisible had reached out and touched her.Nara felt her breath catch her blood turned cold because those marks they looked exactly like the ones she used to get in that moment everything came rushing back the sting of those unseen scratches the feeling of being watched the whispers in the trees the little girl and that mysterious figure she saw in that school she strolled straight into the comment section heart racing she was desperate to see if anyone else noticed the scratches and if anyone had answers she scrolled through the comments someone said it was a demonic mark when a spirit attaches itself to you it leaves its sign and that is when everything clicked it was all connected something lives in that school it doesn’t just haunt the school it marks people and N she was one of the first to be marked maybe one of many and that is the end of today’s story wild isn’t it n thought she had walked away that whatever haunted that school was in the past but some things don’t stay buried in old buildings some things follow you like a scratch on your skin that wasn’t there yesterday.
I will be back with more spine and tingling stories next time until then bye. 👋
krpoems23 