The Lantern That Remembered

Tucked between the rubber estates and the winding trunk roads of Negeri Sembilan, Sekolah Kebangsaan Damai Permai was a squat complex of pale-green classrooms and a canteen that always smelled of fried ikan bilis. For most of the year, it was unremarkable, but in late September, when the monsoon clouds gathered and the evening air grew heavy with the scent of damp earth, the school held its annual ‘Kem Malam’ for Standard Five students. This year, 212 eager eleven-year-olds, myself included, had signed up, our parents hastily packing sleeping bags, torches, and bottles of mosquito repellent. The camp was meant to foster camaraderie, but as the Chinese school tradition dictated, the night would also be a rite of passage, a test of nerve, for the teachers had planned a ‘ghost hunt’ in the unused staff quarters after dark.

I was part of a tight-knit clique of seven—Aiman, Vithya, Mei Ling, Zul, Arif, and myself—known for our insatiable curiosity and a shared willingness to challenge the rumors that had swirled around the school for years. The official story was that the old quarters, a two-storey block of abandoned teachers’ houses with peeling paint and rattly windows, had been condemned after a fire in the ’90s. But the local lore told a different tale: a gardener named Pak Samad had been found hanging from a rafter in the top-floor storeroom, and his restless spirit was said to wander the corridors, rattling chains and whispering in Hokkien. As the campfire crackled and the barbecue smoke curled into the sky, Aiman dared us to sneak away from the main group and spend ten minutes inside the quarters. At 10 PM, as the teachers were distracted by a raucous game of ‘crocodile, crocodile’, we slipped through the gap in the fence and crept toward the building.

The air inside was stifling, thick with dust and the faint, sickly-sweet smell of old incense. We flashed our torches along the hallway, our footsteps echoing on the cracked linoleum. The storeroom door was ajar, and as we pushed it open, the beam of my torch caught something: a child’s wooden spinning top, discarded in a corner, its red paint chipped. I picked it up, and for a second, I felt a strange warmth, as if it had just been held. Mei Ling whispered, ‘Put that down, Wei Ming.’ I complied, placing it back gently, but as I did, I noticed a small, leather-bound journal on a shelf, its cover embossed with a faded gold star. I took it without thinking, stuffing it into my pocket as Arif called us out for being slowpokes. We spent the next five minutes filming a shaky video of ourselves shouting ‘Hello, Pak Samad!’ into the empty rooms, then retreated, breathless and laughing, back to the campfire.

That night, as we settled into our assigned tents, the journal burned against my thigh. I pulled it out, and by the dim glow of my phone, I read the first entry. It was dated October 15th, 1995, and written in neat, childish handwriting: ‘Dear Diary, today I got a new spinning top. My mother said I must be careful with it. But I like to spin it on the floor where the cracks are. It makes a nice sound.’ The entries continued, mundane details about school and family, but then the handwriting became spidery, the letters jagged. ‘The man in the white shirt comes every night. He stands at the foot of my bed and smiles. Mummy says it’s a dream, but I know he is real.’ I felt a chill creep up my spine. I showed the journal to Aiman, who was awake in the next sleeping bag. He shrugged, ‘It’s just some kid’s imaginary friend.’ But then he pointed at the last page, dated the day before the fire: ‘The man says I must come with him. He says the top is mine, and I must take it with me. But I don’t want to leave Mummy. I’ll hide the top in the storeroom. Maybe he’ll forget.’

I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had disturbed something. At 2:47 AM, the camp was silent, save for the chorus of snores and the chirping of crickets. I lay awake, listening to the wind rattling the tin roof, when I heard it: a faint, rhythmic scraping, like something spinning on a wooden floor. I nudged Zul, but he was dead to the world. The sound grew louder, coming from the direction of the quarters. My heart hammered. I grabbed my torch and crept out of the tent, ignoring the dew slicking the grass. A light was on in the top-floor window of the quarters—a pale, flickering glow, as if from an old lantern. I had a sickening realization: we had left the storeroom door open. I knew I had to close it.

Stupidly, I ran toward the building, my bare feet cold against the concrete steps. The stairs creaked under each footfall, and the air grew colder as I climbed. The corridor was empty, but the door to the storeroom was swung wide, revealing a circle of candlelight in the center of the floor. On the floor, outlined in chalk, was a pentagram, and at its center lay the spinning top, now spinning on its own, wobbling and dancing as if an invisible hand were flicking it. I stood frozen, the torchbeam shaking. Then I heard a voice, a child’s voice, soft and pleading, ‘You found my diary. Can you help me finish my last entry?’ The top spun faster, and the candle flames bent as if blown by an unseen breath. I felt a cold hand wrap around my wrist, and I looked down to see a small, pale boy in a white shirt, his eyes empty black sockets. He smiled, and his lips moved without sound: ‘Play with me.’

I yanked my hand free and stumbled backward, tripping over a loose floorboard. The top spun off the pentagram and clattered to a stop. The candles extinguished with a collective hiss, plunging the room into darkness. I scrambled to my feet and bolted, not stopping until I was back in the tent, shivering under my sleeping bag, the journal still clutched in my sweaty hand. I didn’t tell anyone what I had seen, but I knew I had to return the journal and the top to the storeroom, to try and mend whatever I had broken. The next morning, as the camp wrapped up, I snuck back alone, but the storeroom was tidy, the pentagram gone, and the dust undisturbed. The spinning top and the journal were the only evidence that my night had been real.

Years later, I returned to the school for a reunion. The old quarters had been demolished, replaced by a new multi-purpose hall. But as I walked past the construction site, I saw something glinting in the rubble: a small, red spinning top. It was identical to the one I had seen as a child. I picked it up, and a fragment of paper, yellowed and torn, fluttered from its axle. It read: ‘Thank you for playing. Now I can rest.’ I shoved the top into my pocket and never spoke of it again. But to this day, whenever I hear a faint, rhythmic scraping on a wooden floor, I check the corners of my room, half-expecting to see a spinning top with a child’s hand resting on it, ready to play one final game.