When I returned to Singapore, something had changed in me.
Not outwardly, perhaps. I still wore the same clothes. Drank the same overpriced cold brews from the café downstairs. I still took the same MRT line to work, still replied to Slack messages with polite sarcasm, still nodded at meetings I wasn't really mentally present for. But there was a weight behind my eyes now. Like something coiled up and silent had taken root behind my skull.
And worse—I think people noticed.
My manager, Karen, asked if I was feeling okay after I missed a weekly sync. My neighbor, a quiet man in his fifties who never spoke more than a mumbled "evening," asked if I'd been cooking incense. "Smells like frangipani," he said, almost suspiciously.
I told him no. But I knew what he meant.
The scent had followed me.
---
It wasn't constant. It would come in waves—subtle, like a memory brushing against my skin. I would be brushing my teeth, staring at the mirror, and suddenly there it was: that sickly-sweet perfume, floral and earthy and almost rotten at the edges.
The first time it happened, I dropped the toothbrush.
The second time, I simply stared into my own eyes for what felt like ten full minutes, waiting for something to move behind them.
But nothing ever did. Not in the mirror.
Only in my mind.
---
I began to dream again.
But they weren't the same as before. These dreams weren't nightmares, exactly—not in the jump-scare sense. They were more like... memories I didn't recognize.
A woman combing her hair beside a stone well.
An offering being placed on a moss-covered shrine.
A chant repeated over and over in a language I couldn't understand, but somehow felt familiar.
In one dream, I stood in the middle of a dense forest as shadows moved between trees—human in shape, but not quite human in movement. Their joints bent the wrong way. Their eyes blinked sideways. And yet I wasn't afraid. I felt like I was one of them. Or maybe I was being *taught* to be.
When I woke up, I found black dirt under my fingernails.
---
I tried to rationalize everything.
Trauma, maybe. Post-travel culture shock. My therapist said something about unresolved symbolic tension, that "Bali may have awakened a shadow self." But when I asked if shadow selves could *follow you* back across borders, he paused.
He never answered the question.
---
My apartment began to feel less like home.
I found small things moved—barely noticeable, but enough to feel like someone else had touched them. My bedroom slippers shifted to the wrong angle. The blinds were sometimes drawn when I was sure I left them open. One night, the drain in my bathroom sink filled with cloudy brown water and then drained on its own—no sound, no warning, just that strange earthy smell left behind.
And then there were the mirrors.
I started covering them.
First with small scarves, then with sheets. It was a ridiculous thing to do in a modern city apartment, but I couldn't take it anymore. Every time I looked, I felt like something on the *other* side was getting clearer.
One night, I left the mirror uncovered by mistake.
At 3:08 a.m., I woke up gasping—chest heaving, heart pounding—and stared straight into it from my bed.
She was there.
Not directly. Not fully. But her outline. Like fog on the other side of a glass panel.
Hair down. Body still. Head tilted slightly.
And those eyes.
Not visible, but *felt*—deep, mournful, endless.
I didn't move. I didn't scream.
I just closed my eyes, whispered, "I see you," and waited for the morning.
---
I started searching for something.
Not a solution—by then, I knew there might not be one—but a pattern.
I returned to the priest's words in Bali. *"You invited her. Not with words—but with your eyes. Your fear."*
And that made me wonder: could others have seen her? Could she have followed *them*, too?
I joined forums. Paranormal Reddit threads. Spiritual healing Discord groups. Travel horror blogs. I even reached out to a woman I found on a medium's website who had written a blog post about a haunted bungalow in Canggu. Most people ignored me.
One person responded.
A woman named Alina. She was American, living in Chiang Mai, and said she had also seen "a white-clothed woman in Ubud in 2021." Her messages were short, almost nervous.
> "She doesn't haunt places. She haunts people. Once you see her, she *knows*. I left everything behind. But she still visits."
I asked what she meant.
> "She's not a ghost. She's a mirror. You don't escape her. You become her."
I didn't reply after that.
But her words stayed with me.
---
Then came the first real incident.
I was in the lift, heading down to grab takeaway. It was just past 9 p.m. The fluorescent lights above buzzed faintly. I stared at my reflection in the elevator wall—because by then, I'd forced myself to stop being afraid of it.
I blinked.
And the reflection didn't.
Just for a second.
It was enough.
I stumbled out of the lift, heart thundering, vision blurred.
From that point on, I began documenting everything. Times. Smells. Sounds. Shadows. Dreams.
June 11th – 2:44 a.m. – frangipani scent again.
June 14th – mirror fogged up while I was brushing my teeth. Didn't shower.
June 17th – dreamt of fireflies leading me through a jungle. Felt like Ubud again.
June 20th – found hair in my sink. Long. Black. I cut mine short last year.
I tried salt rituals. Prayer. Burning incense. Lighting a candle like in Bali.
Nothing worked.
---
Then, in late June, I received a package.
No sender. No return address.
Inside was a small woven tray.
An offering.
A square of banana leaf. Inside it: marigold petals, grains of uncooked rice, and a single stone figure.
The same as the one the priest had given me.
But this one had *eyes* carved into its face.
Two wide, black, staring holes.
I dropped it instantly.
And from the corner of my living room, I heard it.
The faintest whisper.
Not words.
Just breath.
As if the air had turned inward.
---
That night, I did something reckless.
I booked a ticket back to Bali.
One-way.
---