mystery footsteps

Its an incident back from the days when I was 15 or 16 years old, I always share it with my friends to show how we sometimes confuse very natural things with supernatural. From my early childhood I was extremely scared of all the things that go bumping in the night. I used to gobble up all the ghost stories I could lay my hands on like a hungry wolf and after that used to lie awake till midnight, thinking of all the horror creatures a person can imagine, thinking that they have flocked around my bed and are waiting for me to close my eyes so they could pounce on me.

My early childhood was in small houses crowded up with my five siblings, parents and pets but when I was sixteen my family decided to move into our ancestral home. It was a huge, spacious two story building with big courtyard, garden, pond and whole lot of decades old trees which were left to grow as per their wish. Just to make it the very perfect dwelling place of my beloved creatures. There were hand counted persons in that household, and the wiring was too old to provide sufficient light to every nook and cranny. There was more shadow than light, and frequent power cuts made the environment even more eerie.

To add up to the glory our puja room was on the 2nd floor, the only room in the 2nd floor, with two amply big roof on either side. I used to go there every evening with my siblings for sandhyarati. One day I accompanied my sister, I have not changed to fresh clothes which is essential before entering pujaroom, so I was standing outside the room. I was waiting for my sister to finish sandhyarati and come out so we could go downstairs. The stair was crowded with unused furniture. It was completely dark as there was no electricity line in that stair. We had all its steps memorized, so we never needed an electric light there, instead we used to come with a torch or candle, which was inside the room with her at that time.

As I was standing outside the door, I heard distinct footsteps, no like all cowards, I too am extremely meticulous about things to panic about. I never panic without ample rhyme or reason, so I heard with bated breath and to my horror those steps were really sounding. Every single step was distinct, the steps came to the corner, after turning which it will just be face to face with me, I inhaled deeply and peeped from this side of the wall and saw no one. I almost felt that I will have a heart attack and jumped right inside the puja room without giving a hoot to sanctity. My sister laughed a lot and we both came downstairs.

A few years later, I have become a lot more older and braver, hence it was not possible for my ego to allow me to ask some one to accompany me while I roam around the home doing chores. This deepawali evening, I was on the top floor alone, placing candles on the roof, the only person present in the home was my mom, in the kitchen in ground floor. When all of a sudden the electricity went away. As I was just about to go downstairs after completing the affair, I heard the same footsteps again slowly ascending the stairs step by step. I just stood there frozen, thinking, may be last time it did not harmed me because I was with my sister, and was just outside the puja room. What if it attacks me now. I just stood there with chill running down my spine. The steps came slowly up and stopped exactly where they have stopped last time.

I waited for a few second and then just ran like a bulldozer to the ground floor, I saw my mother on her 1st floor bedroom while I was sitting in the courtyard panting. All of a sudden some wisdom seeped in, and I asked her to confirm that she has gone upstairs exactly at the same time when I was hearing those footsteps. And I realized for the first time, that those stairs were made in a strange manner, so that the sound of footstep of a person is echoed in the story above. That night too, some body must have gone to 1st floor from ground floor when I was standing outside the puja room and the footsteps must have sounded just like they did on the second night.

I believe most of the ghost stories in this world have similar origins.