We Were There

Chapter 6: Twins

Kim blew her candle and now it's down to one candle now. I wanted to ask Kim if what she experienced was true or not but I rather not. It was eleven in the evening and the three of us are here in the dark with only one light source. That means, Yhan has yet to tell her tale. 

I could barely make out Yhan's facial expression in this dimly lit room but I could see, she was smiling. She's excited. I just know it. Excited to give us nightmares and the like. Her grandfather is one of a kind. He loves to tell spooky stories and that's probably where Yhan gets her charisma from. Like what I always say: What runs in the blood, runs in the blood.

Yhan placed her hands together. " So, shall we start?" I could sense her excitement in her voice. 

Kim and I looked at each other and back at her and nodded. 

" Okay." She took a deep breath. " There's this one urban legend that's been circling around town recently, as what Grandpa told me." As what Grandpa told me is her starting cue. Always. " There's this baby sitter and this rich family who hired this baby sitter." I just heard her swallow her saliva. That was sure unasked for.

" The rich parents told the baby sitter that they were coming home late and all. Just the usual blah blahs and rich parents stuff and the baby sitter nodded. I mean, it's just for the night, she must have thought." Yhan paused. 

There was silence in the room.

" But that's where she's wrong." Yhan said that with a scary whisper and Kim and I couldn't help but feel frightened by the ambiance she's giving. If there was an oscar for telling ghost stories, she'd definitely pull it off.

" After the baby sitter put the children to sleep, she went to the living room. I mean, she has exams coming and she wanted to get a good night's rest. Who wouldn't?"

I heard Kim gulped.

" After a short nap, she woke up to the sound of children giggling. So she must have thought the children woke up and started playing." Yhan paused again. This pausing of hers is really creeping me out. " So what the baby sitter did was to get up from the sofa and decided to give them a piece of her mind." As she said that, I could see the candle's flame flicker a little bit. Weird. All the windows are closed. No draft. 

" ' Okay. Back to bed!' the baby sitter shouted. But all she heard was silence in return." Yhan's really getting the hang of this and it's definitely working. Definitely. My heart's starting to race. 

" The baby sitter searched the ground floor for any signs of the children. But there weren't any. When she was going up the stairs because she wanted to check if the children returned to their rooms or not, what she saw stopped her dead on her tracks.

On top of the staircase, was a little girl wearing a white dress and a little boy wearing a knicker set. Like they were taken from some kind of a vintage movie in the 1800s. They were holding hands. The baby sitter knew that they weren't her children. ' B-B-Back to bed.' was all the baby sitter managed to mutter." Yhan paused again. The candle light flickered. And I was getting goosebumps. I never realized that the room was this cold. Or was it really this cold?

" The twins giggled and skipped happily out of her sight. She continued up the stairs and into the hallway, but those twins were nowhere to be found.

The baby sitter headed off to the children's rooms and was relieved to see they were fast asleep. She sat at the foot of the bed where the youngest daughter was sleeping and dialled up the father's number. Due to her curiosity, she just had to ask." Yhan smiled. That smile though. I know that it's going to give me nightmares tonight. I glanced over Kim, and she was already biting her finger. She always does this every time she gets scared. Her reason? This is to prevent her from screaming and from telling Yhan to stop. She doesn't want to be a killjoy you see. 

" ' Hello Sir? I'm sorry to have disturbed you but how many children do you have?' that was the first thing that greeted the father. The baby sitter wanted to make sure, just in case. 

' Oh. Good evening, Tara. Why do you ask?'

' The twins are up and awake and they seem to be playing Hide & Seek.' 

She was expecing an answer like 'Yeah. They're quite a handful.' but instead, the father replied,

' What twins?'

 and that gave the baby sitter shivers down the spine. "

I got startled when Kim suddenly hugged me and screamed. She was holding the sleeves of my white shirt. Her hands are cold, that I can tell. Yhan is enjoying herself. See? Like I said, I'm somewhere in between but I'd be lying if I said that didn't scare the hell out of me. 

Yhan was laughing and she was having the time of her life. She was about to blow her candle and that's when we realized...

Her candle was already unlit.