Hello and welcome to 31 Days of Terror 2023, day 22.

My parents were both working and returned late in the evening, such that when I got back from school, there was no one at home.

I went straight to play with my friends in the neighbourhood.

There was this one big old house I would often go to, where there were two older girls I loved playing with.

Their grandparents were adored by the neighbourhood kids.

I remember them, they were nice to all the children.

It is common in India for kids to call senior citizens grandfather and grandmother, even if one is not related to them by blood or any other familiar relation.

This incident happened a few years after the passing of their grandfather.

I was eight or nine then and as usual I went to the girls house after school.

I walked up to their house, back then there weren't gates or compound walls, and called out my friends to play.

Pretty soon I realised no one was at home and I was pretty bummed.

The toys we played with were on the floor to the side of the open veranda.

I took a toy car and rolled it on the floor thinking how I will kill time.

From where I stood I looked around expecting my friends to return any second, and for no reason I looked up at the house.

On the first floor I saw holding the bars of the window, the ghost of the dead grandfather looking right back at me from inside the house.

He wasn't translucent nor disappeared when I saw him, he looked like a human with flesh and blood peeping out to see who just came to his house.

I remember he was looking from the window of the same room he resided in up until his death.

The realisation only added to my fear, without making a sound I turned and ran the fastest my legs could carry me.

I have heard ghost stories but didn't believe all of them, however when I saw that day I know it was no hallucination.

He was right there. I can still see him watching me from that window when I close my eyes.

The crazy thing is I wasn't afraid of him as a person, i.e. the person he was before he passed away.

His ghost didn't look upset or angry but merely had the questioning look like, what is that girl doing there?

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