Ghost from Sweden

Part 1

I woke up from sleep with a start. I had been sleeping like a log after the tiring events of that day. It had been a long day for me. Shifting houses is a painful task for me, both physically and emotionally. I get so comfortable in a space and its surroundings that moving from that place and adapting to a new house is difficult for me. This was the third time I had shifted homes in the six years I had been staying in Bangalore.

Previously, I lived in a two-bedroom apartment with a kitchen and living room on the 3rd floor of a building. The rooms were small, but the living room was good enough to host a party for twenty people. I shared this apartment with a girl from the same college as me. Both of us worked in IT companies. I stayed in that flat for around three years.

Today is my first night in this new house. The building is new, and the house smells of fresh whitewash and paint. Most of the homes in the building were unoccupied since its construction had just been completed. A family stayed in the flat opposite mine.

By the time I shifted my stuff to this new flat, the sun had already gone down. I ordered a pizza and made a cup of tea for myself to go with that. I was too tired to do any unpacking that day. I decided to slip into my nightsuit and placed the toiletries in the bathroom. As soon as I hit the bed, I drifted into a deep sleep.

On suddenly waking up, I realized that I had slept with the lights on. I saw the time on my phone, and it was 1:59 am. I drank some water from the bottle kept at my bedside and switched off the room lights. As I was about to close my eyes, I noticed a circle of light on the ceiling. It was moving. I looked towards the window for any lights coming from the street. There were none. I looked around the room, trying to figure out which object was casting the light on the ceiling. Unable to find it, I went back to sleep.

I woke up the next day to the bright sun rays falling on my face since the window was devoid of any curtains. Aah, I would have to put up the curtains as the first thing.

I set up the new house in the following days and accustomed to the new surroundings. I even threw a small housewarming party for my friends. I had started on the journey to make this house my home. I particularly liked that the house was brightly lit by sunlight during the day and was well ventilated. Bright light makes everything so positive, and I liked the new vibe of the place.

It was almost a month since I had moved to that place. As I was sleeping, I suddenly woke up in the middle of the night. I went to the washroom, came back, had some water, lay back on my bed, and closed the lights. I wasn’t very sleepy, so I started fiddling with my phone. Putting my phone back, I seemed to see a moving light on the ceiling. “I must have switched on the torch on the phone” , I thought. The torch on the phone was not on; in fact, even the screen lights were not on. I looked around the room for the source of the light. I even got up and looked outside the window after parting the curtains a bit. There was a street light outside, but as soon as I closed the window, the room was pitch dark except for that moving circular light on the ceiling. I wanted to solve the mystery of this light but could not find the source, so I pacified the Sherlock in me and went back to sleep.

A couple of days went by in routine life. Again one night, I saw the same moving circular light patch on the ceiling. I kept staring at it for a long time. After some time, I heard some muffled sobs. I was a bit alarmed. I went to the window and looked out to see if anyone was crying on the road. The building had a reasonable distance from other facilities, so I doubted if the noise from anyone from the other building would reach.

Moreover, they were faint sobs, so they had to be near. I went to the hall thinking that maybe it was coming from the neighbor’s flat opposite mine. I could not hear the sobs in the living room. I went back to my bedroom and looked up the time. It was 2:10 am. I was a bit scared now. Though it was too late to call someone, I still called one of my friends. He picked the phone in half-sleep. I explained the incidents to him briefly, to which he said it must be someone nearby sobbing, and the source of light could be any small object hard to notice. He told me to go back to sleep since it’s probably just some figment of my imagination. I closed my eyes shut tightly and dozed off.

The next day was a bright sunny Saturday, and I went out shopping with my friends. By the time we were back, it was 7 pm. All my friends started to leave. One of my friends lived far away, so I suggested that she stay since it was a 1.5-hour drive back to her place. We could watch some movies together, and since the next day was a holiday, we could go for morning breakfast to one of the famous cafes near my place. She said she had wanted to go to that cafe for a long time and that cafe was particularly renowned for breakfast.

As soon as other friends left, we changed to our night suits and prepared some pasta while watching TV. We had already eaten out a lot during the shopping spree, so didn’t want an elaborate meal. After we had our dinner, we chatted, went through our shopping for that day, retried a couple of dresses and earrings we had bought that day, clicked some photos, the typical girly stuff.
Tired from walking all day around shopping, my friend went to sleep around 11:45 pm. I was exhausted but it seemed like sleep would not come to me. I read a book in the living room and went to bed in an hour. I was preparing to go to sleep when I heard the sobs again. I ignored them, thinking again that someone must be crying in their house nearby. As I lay down on my bed, I saw the moving circle of light, and the sobs grew a bit louder. I started to get a bit scared. I was thinking about whether to wake my friend up, and looking at her deep in sleep, I decided against it.

I lay on my bed for a while tossing and turning and trying to block the sound of the the muffled sobs. Unable to resist, I called out my friends name. Unlike me, she is a sound sleeper and did not budge even a little. I gave a soft nudge to her shoulder, and she stirred a little. On continuing to call her name and nudging her, she squinted at me. “What is it ?”, she asked. I asked her if she could hear any sounds. She rubbed her eyes and sat up on the bed. Moonlight was filtering through the window since the curtains were parted. On trying to listen, she said she could hear someone crying softly. “Thank god you hear it too”, I exclaimed. I was starting to think that I imagined things. “But what’s the big deal in hearing that sound”, she said. “Someone must be crying in some nearby house”.

I told her that I had repeatedly been hearing that sob for a couple of days now, and pointing to the moving circle of light on the ceiling, I said, “See that? I first saw it the night I moved in. I have been unable to find the source for it till now. The sobs started shortly afterward”.

She laughed at me and said it was a failed attempt to scare her. “But I am not joking”, I spoke with a grim face. She suggested we go back to sleep. We went back to lying on the bed, but I couldn’t sleep. I noticed that even she wasn’t able to sleep either. I was staring at the circle of light, and so was she. We started talking about what it could be.

After a time, the sobbing sounds stopped though the circle of light continued to move on the ceiling. The circle became a bit bigger and stopped moving. Then, we started hearing another voice. We were scared now.

We heard a voice call out not to be scared. We would not be harmed in any case. “I am the spirit of a person who lived in Sweden and died a year back”. The voice continued and told us that he was married for a year when he was diagnosed with a terminal illness. He had a young wife and a plan for a shining life ahead. Suddenly, all his dreams shattered in a day as soon as the doctor handed out the test reports to him. Unable to cope with the news, he went into depression. His wife tried her best to cheer him up as they ran from one doctor to another. All doctors said they were sorry and could do nothing much regarding the rare disease.
Even the news of his wife being pregnant with his child could not cheer him up. He started seeing a therapist, but his condition remained the same. Physically, the signs of his illness had begun to show up profoundly. He had started to become weaker and had lost his appetite. His parents had moved in with them since his wife also needed care. Mentally, he became very disturbed and started to go down a downward spiral. Unable to take it anymore, he jumped off the terrace of his building when his wife and parents were visiting the doctor on a routine checkup.

The sobbing started again. I looked at my friend, and she seemed as shocked as me. Scared, I looked at the light and asked what it wanted from me. The sobbing stopped again, and the voice said that he wanted help in sending a message to his wife who lives in Sweden. “I live in a different country”, I said. “It would be better if you can ask someone living in Sweden to check on her”. The voice mentioned that the soul doesn’t get to choose who they can interact with. They can communicate with a few people where frequency matches. Again, the voice started sobbing, saying, “Please help me!”.

I was not as scared now and told the voice that I would help. “Do you know the exact address and phone number at which your wife can be contacted?”, I asked. He said he could tell the address but wasn’t sure if his wife still stayed there since the family may have vacated after the incident.
I still wasn’t sure how I would connect to his wife from so far away. Had he provided any phone number, it would have been super easy in this digital age, but it wasn’t easy without that. I remembered my sister-in-law had a colleague from Sweden who had visited us in India some years back. I checked my phone for her number. “Great!I have her number”, I told my friend.

I sent a message to her number stating that I needed some help and asked her to text me back when possible. My friend and I went back to sleep after that.
We got up a bit late the following day due to being up till late the previous night. As decided, we went to the cafe to have breakfast and discussed the events of the last night over breakfast. My friend’s phone buzzed at that moment, and she got a call from another friend. She wanted to catch up, so we asked her to meet us for lunch.

At 2 pm, our third friend joined us for lunch at a nearby restaurant. She was super happy since her company was sending her abroad for a couple of months. We strolled around for some time in the nearby area. “Where are you going for onsite”, I asked. “Sweden”, she answered.

Stay tuned for part 2.