Aint as brave as you think.

so i'm sure you've read most of my past posts. you've read my stories, you've read about my hardships. most of you probably think i'm brave, or strong, shit like that.

well we've probably had enough of that. we've long had enough of stories that make me seem to be a strong person. today, it's time for a change. i am here to write about how much of a coward i really am.

ever since i was a kid, i've always slept next to my grandmother. alright, so in my much younger days, my elder brother slept in my room as well because he was scared to sleep alone in his. of course, he grew up, got over his fears, and moved out of the bedroom i continued sharing with granny.

i always woke her up in the middle of the night whenever i wanted to pee. on the other hand, when i woke up to see that she had went for a pee, i'd quickly dash out of the darkness and stand in front of the bathroom door waiting for her to come out.

everytime i couldnt sleep, when the rest of the house was already in slumber, i'd wake her up and sheepishly tell her, "gran, i can't sleep." it was just my way of comfort; i didnt like the feeling of being the only one awake in the house, so i just turned and woke her up as well.

it happened too many times, and she always got frustrated. if i woke her up for the fifth time that night, she'd snap at me, "how old are you already? just sleep!" and roll back on her side, snoring again just a few seconds later.

once, my two elder cousins from my mother's side came over for a sleepover, like they always did in my childhood. we all crowded around the living room, watching the episode of The Incredible Tales regarding the "third door", if you remember that.

granny had laid out mattresses for my cousins to sleep in the hall, and i joined them on my own will. the space in front of the tv was where my brother and boy cousin slept, [if my memory serves me right], on this section we called the "platform".

on the section below, which was the space between my bedroom door and the kitchen, was where my aunt, girl cousin, and i slept. to make it sound easier, in front of me laid my bedroom door, while right opposite it laid the doors of the dining room/kitchen.

and that night was the longest night of my childhood, because i could not stop remembering the episode of Incredible Tales.

i kept remembering about the ghost that kept moving from door to door, because it was caught in the loop. i kept thinking there was one right in my house at that time, that was moving from the kitchen to my bedroom door, back and forth, like in the episode.

i didnt sleep the whole night because i was thinking about it, perspiring and heart beating fast and saying the Al-fatihah over and over. [the only prayer i knew]

i stayed awake til about 6 in the morning, when my mom got out of her bedroom to hang some towels on the storeroom door. i got up and straightway went to her, and she got such a shock! "why are you up so early!?"

"i can't sleep," i whined. i made her bring me back into her room, where i slept on her bed with my little brother and father while she got ready for work.

once upon another time, my family had booked a chalet during our holidays. i'm not sure what the occasion was, i think it was my brother's birthday or something?

for some reason my brothers and mother decided to sleep on the floor while my father and i shared the bed. i was about 7, or 8 i think? and yes, i couldnt sleep at night because of the constant thoughts swirling in my head.

it was the 'H' building of the chalet, and the voice in my head, still a child like me, was teasing me over and over; "H stands for haunted!!"

i kept waking my dad up again and again, whining to him that i couldnt sleep. eventually he got fed-up, stood up and went to the toilet and rubbed my face with water. [it was a sort of custom that we should at least wash our face and feet before we go to sleep if we're from far, something like that]

for the rest of the night, i dared not wake him up anymore til i eventually drifted off to sleep.

when i was a kid, i never closed the door when i was in the bathroom. i'd make someone stand outside til i was done, and i dared not even be in a room alone. i couldnt even stand being in a lift alone! the 9th floor had never felt so high.

i once had a sort of argument with my elder brother when we were coming home from school tgt, and he left me at the void deck while he ran off and went up to our house alone. i stood at the lift landing for quite some time, before i got scared and started to cry and wail right there.

[take note: it was 1 in the afternoon.]

a Chinese woman came over and patted me, asking me if i knew where i lived. i mumbled to her, through my tears, that this was the block where i lived. she had a look of disdain, like she didnt know how to react, and that was when my grandmother appeared in the lift that arrived.

i dashed to her and i told her about how Abang had just left me there and i was scared to go into the lift, and she went home and scolded my elder brother for abandoning me like that. and she also scolded me for being such a scaredy-cat.

i have a girl cousin the same age as me, yet she was braver than me. she'd been my best friend from the huge family since forever. her mother is my father's elder sister.

dad once called their house, and asked my cousin for her mom. she said she wasnt in, and that she was alone in the house at that time. my dad placed the receiver down and turned to me, "look at your cousin, same age as you but can already be left alone in the house! not like you, so penakut!"

whenever i slept over at her house, i always made sure that i slept in between. if the other cousin slept over as well, i made sure to sleep between them, because i didnt want to be at the edge of the bed.

years passed and i remained a coward. i only learnt to sleep in my own room when i was 15; my grandmother had moved out, leaving me with no choice.

of course, even then, whenever i woke up in the middle of the night i'd straightway dash to my parents' room and squeezed myself at the edge of their bed.

my dad gets pissed off by this because when i ran out, i always never turned off the fan, while my mother was angry because she always woke up with a backache whenever i slept over. after all, i was not as small as before.

every morning i'd have to wake up at 5.30 to get ready for school, in order not to miss the 6.30 bus. the first thing i do upon waking up is turn off my bedroom lights, before dashing to my parents bedroom, not daring to turn and look at the rest of the house.

i usually woke my mom up to accompany me outside while i shower in the kitchen toilet [the bedroom toilet has no hot water]. sometimes she gets in the lazy mood, and she'd shoo me off and ask me to wake my dad instead. this would piss him off in turn, because he treasured his few hours of sleep he had before he had to get ready for work.

i knew all along that i was a scaredy-cat, yet i never stopped reading ghost stories. in return, i'd beg my parents to let me sleep in their room after i read these books. sometimes i didnt ask; i'd just take my pillows and crash onto their bed, and pretended to sleep as my mother told my little brother, "eh who invited her to sleep here!?"

even when i was in sec 5, i still ran to their room when i couldnt sleep. when Slender man was a hot topic, i read everything about him which of course, made me so damn afraid to sleep alone. i begged my little brother to sleep in my room with me.

oh, and i went to bed with the lights on. my father would only come in and turn them off when he's made sure that i was really asleep. if i wasnt, i'd just get up from bed and turn the lights on again.

and yes, this cowardice of mine remained til now. i'm sleeping with my grandmother again, and every morning and night, i'd ask her to be in the kitchen to accompany me while i shower.

when the kitchen gets too quiet, i'd call out to her to make sure she was still there. i didnt want her to scold me for being a penakut, so whenever she answered, i'd say, "can you check for me if i'd turned on the heater already?"

if she didnt, i'd rush through my shower and quickly dashed out, and into our room, getting upset because my grandmother had betrayed me when she said she was gonna accompany me.

everyday, if i got home late, i'd call her when i'm at the void deck so she'd fetch me from the lift. the storey we lived in is always really quiet, and it didnt help that my house has a gate and door a few metres apart. it's always nerve-wrecking to open these two in the darkness, alone.

it gets really difficult for me to just pee, believe it or not. the classroom toilets of my school are really creepy, and if i couldnt prop the door open using the rubbish bin, i'd end up going down and heading to the one beside Co-op, which was a bit more crowded.

i once went to study at Republic Poly with my then best friend, who was a guy. i wanted to pee so badly, but the toilets were empty [it was the weekend] and dimly-lighted and i didnt dare step inside. i also didnt dare tell him that i didnt manage to pee because i was too scared.

when we were leaving though, i told him again that i really had to pee. "i thought you already went?" he queried. so i admitted to him that i didnt dare go because it looked really creepy.

he kept urging me to go, "just go, just go, i wait outside. i'm right here!" but i couldnt! one more look into the toilet, and i couldnt! so we walked back all the way to Causeway Point before i had guts to go pee.

he was also the one who told me, "my brother said block 50 toilets are haunted." block 50 was where we had one of our modules, in split classes. this one statement of his was enough for me not to ever go into the toilets for the two hours of lessons.

during Hari raya, my granny went back to her kampung, leaving just me and my aunt alone in the house. she told my aunt to sleep outside, and reminded me to turn off our bedroom lights before going to sleep.

i ended up laying my mattress outside with my aunt, and slept next to her. and during night-time, i would literally tail my aunt around the house because i didnt want to be left anywhere alone.

just a few days ago, i bought tickets for The Conjuring. when it came to cinemas and everyone was talking about it, i told myself i was never ever gonna watch it.

i only suggested it because the prince was mentioning that he really wanted to watch it, and he was mad at me at the time. i couldnt think of any other way to cheer him up, so i went to buy us tickets without a second thought.

i knew it was a bad idea. it wasnt gonna end up pretty, and i was right.

first things first, i didnt watch a single scene. i only dared look at the screen during the normal scenes, or when there was sunlight. i was also constantly letting go of the prince's hand just so i could cover both my ears. at the end of it all, i was still scared, like i had seen and bore witness the most unimaginable.

i was quiet the whole time as the prince and i went down the escalators. what's more, he bumped into his secondary school mates to chat with so i didnt find any excuse to make a sound.

and before we parted, i started to cry.

"i don't want to go home alone." i started with a whisper. he told me he couldnt send me home, and that was when i started to bawl, right there in the middle of the crowd. "i don't want to go home alone...!"

i started to sputter nonsense. "i knew i couldnt watch it because i know i was gonna be this scared... but then anything for you, just to make you happy *laughs* because you wanted to watch it, and, and *more nonsense about demon possession while the prince wiped my tears*"

even as i was talking, my lips were trembling and i was literally shaking so bad, cause that's how traumatised i felt. i really didnt want to be left alone!

there were only two people i could think of to call; the person whom i once called my best friend, who was just 1 station away, and the prince's classmate. i called the former but he couldnt, [or maybe he just wanted to avoid being with me] and when the latter answered, i cried to him telling him what happened and could he send me home?

the prince had to talk for me halfway because i started crying again, and wouldnt stop mumbling, "i dont wanna go home alone.." he told me, before we parted, "you can do this okay, i know you can. call me if there's anything." and he gave me a hug as i went through the gantries, looking fierce but still scared as fuck.

in the end, this classmate [the one with the same name as my elder brother] took the liberty to fetch me from Khatib and sent me home, all the way to my block's lift landing.

so there you have it. i'm not as brave as you think. i am a scaredy-cat. i may look like a ghost myself, but supernatural things are just exactly what i'm most afraid of, ironically.

just today my aunt joked, "if i were to ever put you in an empty house, i think you'd be so scared to go to the toilet that you'd just pee on the floor!" i'm not gonna say this is entirely true, but i am not gonna deny it either.