"The Haunted Tree at My Old School" | CLANCYPASTA

[00:00:00] From the time I could remember, there was always a huge tree near the area where we would gather for assembly on some days. The tree was apparently as old as the school itself, even previous generations remember the tree being there.

[00:00:51] Being that old, there were all sorts of stories around it, and a good chunk of them included spooky ones. Some say you should never spend too much time under the tree or you would get haunted.

[00:01:07] Some say that if you try to climb it, an unseen force pushes you down. Others say that you would see apparitions around the tree, or even on it. Apparently, if you get haunted, it would follow you into your home.

[00:01:26] There have been a few incidents where children, teenagers, and adults who climbed the tree were pushed by an unseen force and people fainting. One was a story of a guy seeing something unsightly by the tree. But I never bought into those stories.

[00:01:49] I always thought that the people who were spreading those stories were doing it for entertainment. I always thought that there would be some kind of scientific explanation for those occurrences. I assumed that those who were pushed only just lost their balance.

[00:02:07] As for those who saw apparitions slash objects, were just hallucinating from either drugs or some other conditions. But this experience I had makes me rethink my opinion about paranormal stuff. For a whole year, I suffered relentlessly, precisely because I ignored the warnings.

[00:02:37] It started when I was 14 years old. It was lunch break. I was drinking some water from a set of taps right under the tree. Two of my friends followed me to drink water. We were having different conversations until one of them, named Jake, started talking about

[00:02:57] the tree being haunted. Yo, did you know that this tree is cursed? If you disrespect it in any way, you'll get haunted. Jake talked as he was drinking the water. You seriously believe that superstitious stuff, Jake? I questioned him, rolling my eyes.

[00:03:18] Well, there have been unexplainable incidents, so yeah, Jake answered. Oh come on, Jake. There is a scientific explanation for everything. If they genuinely have no explanation, then they are nothing more than made up stories designed to scare you, I said as I went up to the tree.

[00:03:40] Here, I'll prove it right now. I can do this and nothing will happen to me. Right after saying that, I spit at the trunk of the tree and kicked it. See? Nothing will happen to you. There is no such thing as ghosts or curses, I said confidently.

[00:04:06] Well, I suppose you do have a point, Jake said. Before long, lunch break was over and the bell rang. We got back to our classes. There were some extra classes held after the normal classes finished, before sunset.

[00:04:28] Right when the sunset glow illuminated the world with bright red, I started hearing strange sounds. It sounded like distant thunder. I could hardly hear it, it was barely audible. The strangest thing was that the sound came from exactly the direction of the tree.

[00:04:51] Our class had no windows at the time and there was a clear view of the tree. The sound had like 2-3 minute intervals and got louder every time. And last time I heard the sound, it was fully audible. I could hear it clearly.

[00:05:13] From that point, the sound kept at that same volume, not changing. I convinced myself that what I was hearing was the sounds of a distant thunderstorm. I hoped that was the case, at least.

[00:05:30] My town was a quiet town with barely any vehicles so I could hear things very well. This is why I thought that it was a sound from a distant thunderstorm. The sound kept repeating itself, having small intervals in between. Time flew and it was time to go home.

[00:05:55] Extra classes had ended and it was past 8pm. I was hesitant to cross the school yard with that sound still repeating itself over and over. As we were packing our things to go home, I asked Jake if he heard the distant thundering noise.

[00:06:16] No, I don't hear it at all, Jake answered me. Maybe the tree is haunting you. I thought that he was doing one of his pranks again to deliberately scare me. These kinds of scary pranks were his thing.

[00:06:34] He really liked pulling these kinds of pranks every once in a while. So I asked another classmate named Joey. No, I don't hear it, Joey answered with a puzzled look on his face. It's probably just your imagination. I did not ask anyone else.

[00:06:59] It was at that point that I confirmed that I was the only guy who was hearing the distant thunder sounds. Joey was one of the most honest kids I knew. He would never lie, even to prank someone.

[00:07:15] After I was done packing my stuff, I quickly hurried out of the classroom. We were only allowed to use the main entrance to exit the school which was pretty close to the tree. The sound still did not stop.

[00:07:31] As I got closer to the tree, the sound grew louder which confirmed to me that the sound was indeed coming from the tree itself. On the corner of my eyes, I saw a shadow figure go up the tree lightning fast where the tree was illuminated by lightbulb's light.

[00:07:53] It was so fast that it took less than a second to go from one point to another. This sent chills down my spine. It startled me to my core. So I fastened my pace to get away from the tree as fast as possible. The sounds were still here.

[00:08:19] They stopped as soon as I went out of the school. I hurried home. I had this strange feeling that I was being watched and it made me extremely uncomfortable, lost my appetite. And as soon as I went back to my house, I lay down on the bed.

[00:08:45] I felt extremely exhausted. So I fell asleep. The next day at school went by with no incidents until normal classes ended. This time I didn't hear any sound. I occasionally looked at the tree out of curiosity. The tree looked normal until normal classes ended.

[00:09:19] As I was packing, I glanced at the tree once and clearly saw a shadow moving at lightning speed. I got so startled that I almost dropped the book I was holding. Because of that, I hesitated to look at the tree again.

[00:09:38] And as soon as I finished packing up, I left the school. This repeated for a few days. It became a frequent everyday occurrence. At this point I thought that there was something wrong with my eyes.

[00:09:59] What Jake said about the tree affected me much more than I had initially thought. And one day, as I was sitting on my seat doing some schoolwork, I heard the sound of drums coming from the tree. It was persistent so I could not resist looking at the tree.

[00:10:22] When I looked, nothing was there. But I could clearly hear the drum sound coming from the tree. I looked away from the tree for what seemed like a few seconds. When I looked at the tree the next time, there was a shadowy apparition standing there.

[00:10:46] It looked human, but features were not visible to the naked eye. I knew this wasn't normal and started regretting making a mockery out of the tree. I wanted nothing more than to run home and forget this. But the school day wasn't over yet.

[00:11:11] For the first few seconds, the figure remained frozen standing. The next second, it suddenly moved. It looked like it snapped its back forwards with a rapid movement. I was scared out of my wits and almost screamed.

[00:11:34] I hated myself for looking at the tree when I knew that nothing good was going to happen. I would hear the drum sound from time to time, but I never looked at the tree for the rest of the day. Days went by like that.

[00:11:56] I would hear the drum sound from time to time, but I would refuse to look at the tree because I was too frightened to look at it anymore. On one of those days, I heard drum sound at first, but the next sound I heard was what

[00:12:13] sounded like a group of girls laughing hysterically. I instinctively looked at the direction where the sound came from, which was the tree's direction. What I saw there made my jaw drop. I saw a woman's head on what seemed to be a stick-like body.

[00:12:39] She had black, empty eye sockets and was smiling from ear to ear. Almost immediately after seeing it, I felt nauseous and fainted. When I woke up, I was home, greeted by my mother's worried face. I told her everything that happened.

[00:13:06] She told me that everything was going to be alright and that she would work something out. The next day, I went to school and saw it again there. The same figure I had seen the previous day. The minute I saw it, I fainted.

[00:13:29] And soon, this became pretty much a daily occurrence. It got so bad that I couldn't go to school anymore. Several weeks passed by since I could not go to school. I got physically sick as well.

[00:13:46] I did not have any new encounters with that creature while I was home. My mother was worried about my condition and tried her best to get someone to help me, but no one could.

[00:14:02] When I got better, my mother sent me back to school again, hoping for a change. The same thing happened again, only worse this time. This time, I saw a group of creatures with deformed faces, with goat legs dancing under the tree.

[00:14:25] Like with the previous figure, it caused me to faint as well. This time, I took a long break from attending school. For the first few days, things were normal, only suffering mild physical sickness like fever.

[00:14:47] But after a while, I started seeing the previous figure in different parts of my house and fainting every time I saw it. I remember this one time especially when it absolutely freaked me out. It was a bright, moonlit night.

[00:15:10] I had fallen asleep as I was reading a book and I had a nightmare of the figure I kept seeing. Upon seeing the creature in my dream, I bolted awake to see the same creature on the ceiling right above my head.

[00:15:30] The minute I saw it, I felt a hand grabbing my neck. I struggled to breathe before fainting. When I woke up, I was near the school in the middle of the night. I was frightened to the core.

[00:15:51] I ran back home as quickly as I could with my head down in case I might see it again. The next day, my mother noticed red marks on my neck where the hand had been.

[00:16:08] My mother, upon learning of this in full detail, decided that she should transfer me to a new school in a new town. It was clear to her as well as to me that I was not going to be given peace in neither my school nor my town.

[00:16:29] Not too long after, I was transferred to a new school in another town. As soon as I moved there, I felt as though a huge weight had been relieved from my shoulders. Ever since that, I have not seen that figure at all. It's been twelve years since that.

[00:16:55] You are probably wondering if I still visit my old town. I usually don't, because every time I go there, I would occasionally feel a hand grabbing my neck and would see different types of figures on the corner of my eye.

[00:17:15] The last time I went back to my hometown was over four years ago. Since that kept happening, I simply do not want to go back to that place anymore.