'Tis the Season to be Spooky
The Halloween season is finally upon us, so what better time to speak about the eerie stories that haunt the memories of two AUP students than now?
Comforts of Horror:
Image Credit: BSD/Unsplash
Renata Fabre's story all began after she moved into her Comforts of Home apartment her freshman year.
After two weeks of bliss while settling into her apartment and discovering Paris, the AUP freshman and her roommates began to face several unnerving encounters in their new Parisian apartment.
One morning, her roommate needed to leave the apartment but could not seem to find her keys. Almost positive she had not blindly misplaced them, the roommates confusedly searched the entire apartment, lifting every sheet and comforter, but to their dismay, could not seem to locate the keys anywhere. They dismissed the incident and carried on with their day.
As the night approached, Renata and two of her roommates noticed that the keys inexplicably appeared in the same place they had looked that morning. This could have been regarded as a sheer coincidence, however, the mystery did not stop there.
On a similarly somber evening, Renata and her roommates were having a gathering with some friends when they began to hear the unmistakable creak of the wooden boards as if there were footsteps approaching them. Their friends deemed this stirring sound to be the footsteps of the neighbors above but to their dismay, their apartment was on the top floor.
Not long after the night of the first footstep incident, Renata noticed the shift of energy in the living room; the air of the room began to feel heavy as if it was being filled with a masculine, ghoulish presence. Feeling as if she was being watched, she heard the same footsteps, however, this time the footsteps were leading towards the large French window, which was locked. An abrupt, chilled wind rushed in as the previously locked window stood completely opened, the curtains swishing about.
At the sight of this, a friend of Renata who was visiting at the time proposed that they try an ancient Mexican method of heating up sugar and alcohol. If, after doing this, the sugar burns strong, this signifies a supernatural presence in the area. To no surprise, the sugar dispersed its black fumes and, simultaneously, Renata's roommate's foot was abruptly grabbed by an invisible force.
With its presence confirmed, they turned to other ancient Mexican methods in an effort to rid the apartment of it. The girls searched for something to burn throughout the old apartment, as smoke chases away lingering spirits, but could only find a baguette. The girls took the baguette, split it in two, lit it afire and as the smoke emerged they began 'burning out' the apartment in the utmost French fashion.
Just as Renata entered the kitchen, she was grimly greeted with a daunting pound on the countertop—the spirit was persistent. Frightened, the girls darted out of the apartment in search of any other method to rid the building of this haunting force.
They came back prepared and determined to exorcise the ghost from their home. Begging the spirit to depart, they lined the doorway with garlic, lit candles, dispersed holy water in every room, and burned sage through the entire apartment.
Their ghostly friend decided to let them live in peace, but will he do the same for the next student resident?
Insidious 2, more like Insidious Boo:
Image Credit: Tao Heftiba/Unsplash
The air was chilly, autumn color was in full bloom, the night was anything but young, and Max Stiemerling De La Vega, an AUP sophomore, and his friends arranged themselves around a laptop screen to watch the infamous film, Insidious 2. Having closed the window in the bathroom just behind them to prevent the draft from lurking in, they eagerly watched the scenes unfold with lighted faces.
Halfway through the film, a little boy who was one of the main characters in the film, screamed again and again, “Open the door! Open the door!” In that same instant, the bathroom door abruptly slammed shut so loudly that even Max’s mother came in to see what had caused such a commotion.
Begrudgingly disregarding the violent slam as being caused by a draft, the boys continued to watch the film, frightened by the ghostly occurrence.
Months had passed and all the boys put to rest the events that occurred that night-all, that is, except for, Max. Max, having been perplexed by the hair-raising scene and unexplainable events that followed thereafter, tried to retrace this moment in the film in hopes that re-watching the wicked scene would propel another supernatural interaction to confirm his doubts.
To his confusion, this scene of the film no longer existed. And more than that, this scene seemed to have never existed.
Re-watching the film, confirming that he had the correct title, reading summaries of each scene, and even checking every manuscript, it appeared that Max had been divided into an alternate universe where this specific door scene ceased to exist.
None of the boys present in that room that night have ever been able to come across this scene again, yet they all distinctly remember having seen it, and the sound of the crashing door rests engraved in their memory.
Was this an act of the imagination? Did evil spirits conjure this event into their memory? Were Max and his friends launched into an alternate universe? Only the spirits can tell.
Either of these instances could be scratched off as pure coincidences, but how can you explain the slithering chill that climbs into your limbs when you live a spooky story?
