Paranormal Story Archives
March 2002 – Story of the Month

• STORY OF THE MONTH •

The White-Robed Figure
by Cindi C.

What I am about to tell you happened to my mother when she was a little girl. My mother was born in Singapore. My grandfather was a bank manager and was frequently being posted over to Hong Kong to work at the branch there. My mother's old home was an old two-story house, and there is a dark veranda outside the bedrooms upstairs. Because my grandfather was frequently away from home, my grandmother would have my mother sleep in the master bedroom with her, but when he returned from his trips to Hong Kong my mother would have to sleep in her own bedroom again. As a result, my mother's bedroom would remain unoccupied for months at a time. This was the usual arrangement in my mother's home when she was a child, but during one of her father's sojourn back home, something happened that she would eventually tell me years from then - something that she has never forgotten.

It was during the first night of my grandfather's return, and my mother had finished her supper, washed and got ready for bed. However, as she lay in her bed with the mosquito nets tightly drawn around her, she could not sleep. Maybe it was the excitement she felt with her father's return, she wasn't sure, but no matter how she tried, she just wasn't able to fall asleep. She told me that she was just lying there, listening to the cicadas, and looking at the wind playing with the curtains on the open windows. Her bedroom door was open because the nights in Singapore are very warm. And as she lay there, she suddenly noticed a white-clad figure coming through the open bedroom door. With the mosquito net around her, she couldn't make out who the figure was, but she assumed that it was her mother in her night gown come in to kiss her goodnight. So feigning sleep, she shut her eyes tight and was planning to startle her mother when she approached. Minutes passed, and nothing happened, and thinking it rather strange, my mother opened her eyes to take a peep. What she noticed was that the white-robed figure was just moving silently from one side of her bed to the other, pacing, never stopping. Gradually, the pacing began to pick up speed, and the figure was moving fairly rapidly around her bed.

By now, my mother realized that the figure could not possibly be my grandmother, but who could it be? She told me that even though the situation was pretty bizarre, she still did not feel fear at that time, all she wanted to do was find out who it was that was pacing around her bed, so she sat up to take a better look at the figure. No sooner was she to sit up, the figure stopped at the foot of her bed. Mother noticed that the figure was hooded, and dressed all in white, the face was obscured by the hood it was wearing. Still not being able to see who it was, my mother leaned forward to get a better look at it. It leaned forward as well, as if in reciprocation of my mother's action. My mother then noticed that the figure doesn't seem to have a face, it was seemingly hollow inside the hood, apart from its eyes, which seemed to be dark tunnels that lead to infinite space... She didn't know how to describe it, except that the creature seem to have these hollows within the empty space of its hood.

My mother said that she wasn't even afraid then, she just felt very confused. And as she sat staring into the "face" of this creature, it suddenly scattered some dust or ash from an urn that it was carrying in its hands into my mother's face. And as soon as this dust hit her face, she felt that she couldn't breathe at all. My mother began to panic, as she didn't know what to do. Somehow as she struggled, she managed to lay back down on the bed, and immediately, she felt that she was somehow able to regain her breath when she was lying down. Wondering what the figure was doing after that, she sat back up to take a look, and the figure threw the dust at her again, and again she was not able to breathe. This apparently had happened a few more times, before my mother decided to stay lying down, and she was very frightened by this stage.

Not knowing what to do, she remembered the Lord's Prayer from school (she went to a Christian girl school), so she began to recite the Lord's Prayer over and over again. Even now, she told me that at the time, it was the only thing she knew that seem to offer her protection against this creature. As she recited the prayer, she felt somewhat safer. She had also pulled the blankets over her head, even though it was a very hot evening. She said that she had stayed under the covers, reciting the Lord's Prayer until she heard the chickens in the yard cluck, indicating that it was morning. She then pulled a corner of the blankets off, to be greeted by the morning light. She then cautiously sat up, and found that the figure had left sometime in the night.

After that evening, she had a cousin come over to stay with her in her room, but she never saw the figure again. My mother told me that according to an old Chinese belief, when people occupy a room, the room is filled with yang energy, but if a room is deserted for too long, the yang energy began to dissipate, and the room is than attracted to the yin energy of wandering spirits. She believes that the room was occupied by the spirit that turned up that night while she was staying in her mother's room, and was none too happy when she returned to sleep in it.

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