Since childhood I’ve always desired to see ghosts in real life. This is not just a wish. I really wanted to meet ghouls and vampires and I worked quite hard to search them.

When I was 5, I visited my village and I remember one of my oldest sisters, Niama was possessed by an evil spirit. She used to behave like a normal person at first and then start behaving strangely all of a sudden. She used to throw things everywhere, hurt herself, and shout unnecessarily and sometimes even try to kill herself.

After few minutes, when the effect of the spirit was gone, she always used to say that she can see ghosts. She told that they looked very different from the creatures of the planet Earth.
After few years I went to that village again and I looked for a person who could help me meet a ghost. I met someone in that village who was said to be a friend of spirits. He was also known as “the shaman.”
So when I went to him and told him that I want to meet ghosts, he started frightening me in different ways saying- ghosts are extremely creepy and scary, you will get a heart-attack if you see them, and utter nonsense.
But then I explained to him how much I wanted to meet ghosts. He finally agreed after warning that was extremely deleterious, especially for children.

He then handed me a list of things which were required to meet the spirit; and since I was little immature that time I easily believed such superstitious stuffs.
One of them included a special leaf which was only available in a forest nearby.
So the 8-year-old-me went to that forest in the following evening, all alone.
I found the special tree and tore a leaf from it and was about to return when I saw few big men was beating a stray-dog with stones and laughing evilly. I quickly hid behind a huge tree. One of them said, “This dog always barks at us whenever we go to Mr. Rashed’s house for theft. From now on, this dog shall no more bark,” and then smirked a little.
Firstly they tied the dog with a rope, then picked up few stones and beat him brutally and frightfully until his last breath.
I almost got tears in my eyes. But I was in a situation in which neither I couldn’t run nor shout.
However, after some time, they left and I could safely return home.

That spirit which Niama was possessed of only scared her to death. But we, human beings can kill an innocent animal this brutally, that too just to not let us rob! This simply means humans are crueler than ghosts and ghouls.
That day I decided not to see any ghouls; because probably I had seen something which is far more dreadful than a ghost.