In Continuum.

Five Fours

Last Sunday when i booked in i stayed up till pretty late after lights out timing to catch a chat with Jonathan and Sgt. Evans,which was about to leave camp on block leave till...well,ORD.That son of a bitch.

But anyway,we talked for an hour and a half straight,and nearly forgot the existence of Wei Jie who was snoring away beside us.I'd like to sincerely apologise to him right here,as i might(Or probably did)have disturbed his beauty sleep.But then again,judging from the volume of his snoring i think he dealt with our bullshit fine.

Anyway,the three of us talked about a lot of things,from sergeants to new sergeants.From fellow platoon mates to old experiences at BMTC.Oh well,those were the days,and then we came to that little topic most,if not all NS men will talk about to each other:The Hauntings.

So i am doing a public service here,to shed some light on those who are about to enter NS(You are in for it),those who will never get the chance to enter ie. the ladies.The hauntings of army are not just...urban legends of out-of-this-world proportions.Most of them are half truths and whole lies,but they are come from somewhere,where stories actually begin.

I personally am not a very superstitious person.Im not an atheist to begin with,but i always give a queer eye to those celebrating the existence of the big guy.I mean seriously,you probably achieved whatever you achieved yourself,he didnt exactly help you much.So why are you praising him like he handed you the answer sheets an hour before the exam?Seriously,get a grip.

Anyway,back to my little public service thing.Remember how those seniors used to scare you with stupid ghost stories about your school during orientation camps,when you stay over in the school and sometimes,even the stupid old dicipline master would chip in?Those were real,really.Real bullshit,that is.In NS everything is the real deal,but i never knew that of course.I dismissed most ghost stories as mere myths,or just some stories to scare the five year olds out of their wits.Of course,that thought ended soon after i experienced one of those creepy stuff myself.

First and foremost,i'd like to introduce my company back in BMTC to you guys.Orion company,as some of you might know,is named after the constellations in the sky and an ancient Greek warrior.Very nice moral to a name,but the history of the company isnt such a beautiful epic story.However,in terms of proportions i dont think it fades in comparison with the real Orion's story,in any sense.

Orion company has experienced tonnes of deaths,including that kid who collapsed in bunk right after a training due to heart failure,as well as the kid who jumped down from the tallest floor(Where i stayed)to the basketball court right behind.He died instantly,of course.

There are other stories,which include the ghostly figure in the lift,which by the way gets stuck on the fourth floor with no reason whatsoever.The lights in it are never fixed by the way,and always blinking.There's the story about the kid who sat on the parapet one night,dangling his legs over the ledge and scaring the living daylight out of our ex-OC.

Then there's the five fours thing.Something i observed myself one day.

So here's the thing.Every building in BMTC,in fact every military camp is numbered from one to...the number of buildings there are in that particular camp.BMTC is a big ass camp by itself,and has a lot of buildings.Orion's company line of course,has its number as well.

44.

Yes,what a lucky number huh.Then we can explore that further.Every company has four platoons,and every platoon has four sections.Each section has about twelve to thirteen beds(Yeah,thirteen).So who is the lucky guy in platoon 4,section 4,bed 4?Well,this indian friend of mine two beds away called Ravi.

One night we were in our beds,minding our own business sleeping.I was awoken by some noise in the bunk and i woke up.I didnt wear my glasses or whatever,but i heard somebody kicking and pulling our cupboard doors,as if he was trying to force open the doors or something.I looked around but couldnt see anybody,so i figured it mustve been Adrian on the other side of the room looking through his cupboard.

Morning came and we were still minding our own businesses when Ning Shan came to me and asked if i heard anything yesterday night.I told him that i did,and that it sounded like somebody trying to break the cupboard doors.That was when he told me about the malay village thing in BMTC,how school 2 was built on one big bloody village.At night he heard people talking at the windows(He was bed five),and kept hearing that noise from my direction.Me?I heard it from his direction,so it mustve been somewhere between bed three and four...

Oh well,just something i experienced in BMTC that i brought up to Jonathan and Sgt. Evans the other day.Something memorable,but a little creepy altogether.Just a food for thought,so take care!Dont you just hate metal cupboards rattling...

PS.That Sunday night after our chat i forgot to lock my cupboard door and the wind sort of blew it open all by itself.THAT freaked me out bad.Real bad.