19th July 2026. It was an another night in my life, I still cannot explain how I ended up in that massive, decaying bungalow and killing Pei Patti. It looked exactly like the haunted houses you see in old Hollywood horror movies. The paint was peeling off the walls like dead skin, and the wild green vines climbed up the porch, trying to choke the windows shut. I lived there with a family: James, the father who always looked tired; Oliviya, his quiet wife; Aiva, the aunt who stayed in the shadows; young Lood, who loved to play with toy cars; and little Pricy, the youngest daughter with bright, innocent eyes. To this day, I do not know who I was to them. I was not a brother, a son, or a cousin, yet we lived under the same roof, shared the same bread, and carried the same terrifying secret.
Her name was Pei Patti. She was a ghost, a frail old woman who looked easily over ninety years old. Every single day, she would suddenly appear in the middle of the house. She did not scream or float; she just did her casual, daily routine. She would walk down the long hallway, adjust a crooked picture frame, or dust the back of a wooden chair. Over time, the family simply got used to her. Our rule was simple and strictly survival-based: whenever Pei Patti appeared, we froze. We stayed completely silent. Once, Lood almost let out a massive sneeze while she was walking past the dining table. I remember diving across the floor, pinching his nose just in time, and holding my breath until my lungs burned. We laughed about it later in whispers, but the fear was always there, heavy and cold.
There was only one rule that truly kept us prisoners: we could never take little Pricy out of the house. If anyone tried to walk the younger daughter past the front door, the air in the bungalow would turn into ice, and Pei Patti would become furious. Because of this deep, paralyzing fear, we never went out as a group. We never let Pricy see the sunlight outside the gates. I had only been living with them for a few days, but I could see the sadness eating away at the family. We were trapped in a beautiful cage.
On our third night together, we huddled in the dim kitchen. The silence was too loud. Oliviya was crying quietly, brushing Pricy’s hair.
“We cannot live like animals anymore,” I said, my voice shaking but firm. “We need to leave this place. We have to save Pricy and give her a real life.”
James looked up, his eyes bloodshot. He looked at his little girl, then at his wife. He took a deep breath and nodded. “You are right, Vishwak. Tomorrow, we pack. We take the risk.”
It was a dangerous choice, but for the first time, hope felt real. We went to bed dreaming of freedom. But the next morning brought a twist that made my jaw drop. James walked into the living room, holding a stack of official papers. He looked confused, almost like he was walking in a trance.
“I bought the house,” James whispered, staring at the floor. “We do not rent it anymore. It belongs to us.”
I stood up so fast my chair tipped over. “What? James, we just decided to run away to save our lives! Why would you buy our prison?” He did not answer. He just stood there, holding the papers tight.
Before I could get an answer, the world outside began to move. Joshep, the old landlord, arrived with a massive cargo truck. He had been storing his old, dust-covered belongings in a temporary tin shack in the empty yard next to the house. Since James bought the place, Joshep was finally clearing everything out. I walked across the dirt road and sat on a wooden bench, watching the movers lift heavy boxes.
“Need a hand, Joshep?” I called out, trying to find some normalcy in the chaos.
“Pass me that crate, young man,” Joshep grunted, wiping sweat from his forehead. I stood up and helped them load the truck, lifting heavy wooden boxes until my arms rubbed raw. It felt ordinary, like a normal summer afternoon.
Then, without any warning, the entire world shifted. The sky darkened in a second. I was suddenly back inside the house. The family was frantically throwing clothes into suitcases. We were trying to leave after all.
But Pei Patti knew.
She appeared in the grand living room, and she was no longer the quiet old lady who dusted chairs. She was pure, violent rage. Her eyes were completely black. A loud, unnatural roar shook the entire bungalow. Everyone started screaming, but they stayed glued to their spots because we all knew she hated when people moved before her.
With a wave of her thin hands, she used her invisible power to rip the house apart. Heavy wooden chairs flew into the air. Glass windows shattered into thousands of sharp pieces, flying through the room like a storm. I was watching from the doorway of a small bedroom, my heart slamming against my ribs.
A heavy iron lamp lifted off the desk and flew straight toward Aiva’s head.
“Look out!” I screamed. I lunged forward, throwing my body into hers, knocking us both to the floor just as the lamp smashed into the wall where she had been standing. I did not stop. I crawled through the flying debris, pulling Lood under a heavy oak table, and pushing Oliviya out of the way of falling bricks. It felt like I was inside a wild, high-budget action movie inside my own head. Even in the middle of the terror, I kept asking myself: Who am I to these people? What role am I playing?
Pei Patti noticed me. My interference made her completely furious. She started targeting me specifically, threatening me as she teleported from one corner of the room to another, her face twisting into a monster’s grin. My heart pumped pure adrenaline. I was terrified, but a strange, calm thought entered my mind: We are all going to die anyway. If I have to go, let me die fighting.
With a deafening bang, Pei Patti slammed all the heavy wooden doors shut. I heard the distinct sound of iron locks twisting from the outside. She had locked us in a death trap. Through the broken window, I saw her walk out into the courtyard, carrying a battered steel bucket.
“We need to break out now!” James yelled.
Together, James and I threw our shoulders against the front door. We smashed against the wood again and again until the frame cracked open. We tumbled out onto the gravel driveway, breathing heavily.
A few feet away, Pei Patti was standing calmly by the water pump. She was filling her steel bucket, preparing to clean the outer patio. She looked completely peaceful, moving slowly just like an old maid from the past. I stared at her, deeply confused. Why was she preparing to clean after trying to kill us? What was her story?
Driven by survival, I ran across the gravel and grabbed her from behind, pinning her arms to her sides. I expected a massive blast of magic. I expected her to fight back with the strength of a demon.
Instead, I felt nothing but frail, brittle bones under a thin dress. She did not resist at all. She just stood there, letting the water spill over the rim of the bucket. It felt horrible, like I was physically hurting a helpless, innocent ninety-year-old grandmother.
“Help me!” I called out to the family, my voice cracking with a weird mix of fear and shame.
James, Oliviya, Aiva, and Lood rushed forward. Fueled by days of terror and the desperate need to be free, we all grabbed her. Together, with a sudden, chaotic pull, we tore the ghost into two separate pieces. There was no blood. There was no final curse. She just let us do it without a single struggle.
And then, the darkness swallowed me, and my eyes snapped open to the quiet sight of my own bedroom ceiling.
My Waking Reflections and Doubts
I sat up in bed, my heart still racing against my ribs, sweat dampening my hair. I looked down at my smartwatch. According to the screen, I had only been in a deep REM sleep for about twelve to fifteen minutes. Yet, inside my head, I had lived through three whole days of terror, hope, and survival with a family whose names—James, Oliviya, Aiva, Lood, and Pricy—felt completely real to me.
As the dream fades, I am left with a heavy, deeply unsettling feeling. Am I a hero, or am I a murderer? I helped a terrified family escape their haunting, but the way we did it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. We killed a ghost, but she didn’t fight back at the end. She just stood there like a frail old lady and let us destroy her. Why did she do that? Was she tired of being trapped in that loop too? Did she want us to kill her so she could finally rest?
I have so many doubts about what happened in those fifteen minutes. Why did James suddenly buy the house right when we were planning our grand escape? What role was I truly playing in that world, and why did I feel such a strong duty to protect a family I didn’t even know? This isn’t the first time I have had these long, cinematic dreams, but it is the very first time I woke up and immediately felt the need to write every single detail down before it disappeared. I escaped the haunted bungalow, but I woke up in the real world feeling like a man with dirt on his hands.
