I’m using this post to chronicle the events of this evening, as they have been truly fascinating.

Some quick backstory: the small section of the city that me and my friends live is generally known to be haunted. And even if you’re not a believer in the supernatural… it’s at least a bit eerie. I’m not going to dox myself by stating the location, but let’s just say that “creepy sightings” and murders/deaths due to unexplainable circumstances are our bread and butter.

For most people, this means you move away as soon as they can.

For folks like me and my friends (who absolutely love all things spine-chilling), it generally makes for a pretty good time. Our Halloween parties are awesome, most of our drinking nights have some sort of spooky game interlaced into them, and if you have literally nothing to do on a Friday night with your friends, you can always go on a tour of some of our haunted locales - graveyards, abandoned buildings, creepy forests, you name it.

So, with that background established, let’s cut back to tonight:

Me and my closest three pals decided to try our hand at using a Ouija board. Were we going to be normal and try the Ouija board in one of our family attics? Nah, too basic. We instead decided to trek up together to, what I shit you not, is an abandoned treehouse left in an elevated section of our city, surrounded by forests. What could go wrong, right?

We climbed up to the treehouse, set down a spooky themed rug, lit some candles, and brought out the ouija board. Despite my pretty extensive resume of dealing with all things creepy, I’d never actually tried a Ouija board before, so I was really excited to see what would happen.

We went into this excited to break every rule in the book - we weren’t going to do a seance, we were going to ask whatever we want, and we didn’t need to worry about being respectful to the spirit, etc - we figured if something interesting were to happen, it’d be more likely if we went in as carefree as possible.

We sat in a circle around the ouija board and got started, asking the simple question “Is there a spirit with us?” with all of our hands placed on the planchette. No real response - we fluttered the planchette in a few different directions but we could tell we were kind of forcing it.

We asked a few other questions - “What is your name?”, “When did you die?”, etc. but nothing really came of it.

After trying for the next half hour and not really getting anything in the form of a response, we decided that we probably didn’t have any spooky luck tonight, and opted instead to share scary stories in the treehouse. We left the ouija board out just in case we’d get luckier later in the night.

Amidst a break in our storytelling where everyone was grabbing drinks and snacks from their bags, I decided to give the ouija board another quick go. I placed my hand on the planchette alone and whispered the following question - “Will you please grace us with your presence tonight?”

Surprisingly, the planchette started moving. It’s hard to explain, but you kind of know when something is moving on its own, versus you sort of subtly and subconsciously moving it with your hand to force an answer. This felt real. A tingle went up my spine. It was cool as hell. My hand was moved to the following letters.

Y E S

Awesome! I looked over to the group and told them that the Ouija board was working again. Excitedly, we all huddled around and placed our hands on the planchette. I followed up with another question.

“Where are you from?”

We sat there excitedly waiting for something. Instead… nothing. The planchette was still. The lack of any sort of external force with us was very, very obvious. Disappointing, but I had an idea I wanted to follow up with. I turned to my friend Kevin and asked him: “Do you want to try doing it solo? It worked for me.”

Kevin was confused, but he decided to give it a try. We all backed up to give him some space with the Ouija board. He placed his hand on the planchette and repeated my question: “Where are you from?”

His expression changed to shock as his hand started moving with the planchette. He turned to all of us and mouthed “I’m not doing this!” to which I excitedly mouthed back “I know!”. I pulled out a notepad and recorded the answer as the planchette went from letter to letter. I recorded the following:

N O T I M P O R T A N T

Love it! A spirit with some sass. I asked Kev to back up for a sec as I approached the ouija board, prepped for one final “solo” question. I asked:

“Why are you only responding when it’s one of us using the board?”

Yet again, the planchette moved effortlessly with my hand. It was faster this time, so I said the letters out loud and had another one of my friends (Eleonora) transcribe onto my notepad. The answer was:

O N E A T A T I M E

Fair enough! I thanked the spirit, my hand still on the planchette.

“I appreciate your answers, friend!”.

To my surprise, in a strange synergy between me and the spirit, I felt compelled to move the planchette again. It was the fastest it had ever been this time as it covered the following letters:

T E L L E V E R Y O N E E L S E T O L E A V E

Huh.

My friends looked at me skeptically as I said the letters at a time.

“Are you sure you didn’t just force that on purpose?” asked Eleonora - I assured her I definitely didn’t. That was definitely from the spirit.

At this point, this had been the most clearly supernatural phenomena I’d ever experienced in my life, and I was excited to keep it going. My friends, usually unflinching and made of ice, were a little bit thrown. Eleonora and Martin looked ever so slightly spooked, but Kev was willing to go with it. “Might as well see where this goes!” Kev said, as he started climbing down from the treehouse. With a slight bit of hesitation, Eleonora and Martin followed suit.

Sweet. An actually creepy night.

I embraced the quiet amidst the lighting of the candles and the power of the Ouija board. I geared up for my next question. I wasn’t going to hold back.

“Spirit… how will I die?”

I took in a deep breath, waiting for some movement. Slowly…

D E P E N D S

Interesting answer! If not a bit underwhelming. I geared up for my follow-up.

“Oh come on Spirit… what about something a bit more specific?”

My hand moved with the planchette, to the following letters. I tried hard to focus and connect the letters since I didn’t have anyone to transcribe with me:

W H A T I S Y O U R N A M E?

Weird. Completely dodged my question and asked me my name. Okay all-knowing spirit, I assumed you’d already know that. I decided to try tricking it.

“My name is Belle!”

Movement from the planchette on the Ouija board. It took me to the letters:

D O N O T L I E

Hm. Well-played, spirit. I gave the spirit my actual name (Jennifer), and continued to see the follow-up response.

W H A T I S Y O U R F A V O R I T E F O O D

Honoring the spirit’s rules, I opted to tell the truth instead of following up with another lie. Ya girl loves Donair and this spirit deserves to know that.

The ouija board’s response:

C O R R E C T

Before I could take in the affirmation from the spirit (who is asking who questions here, spirit?) it followed up with yet another question.

W H A T I S Y O U R B I G G E S T F E A R D O N O T L I E

This question took me aback a bit. I wasn’t really afraid of anything, or so I thought. So I struggled with it. It took me a few moments. I really, really thought of it. I kind of cringed at the answer, but it was my truth.

“Something horrible happening to my little brother.”

No movement from the ouija board. Seconds turned into minutes as I kept my hand awkwardly placed on the planchette. Then, finally…

T H A N K Y O U

S E N D E L E O N O R A

Welp. I obliged. I thanked the spirit for its time and decided to climb down from the treehouse, where my friends were waiting. I passed on the spirit’s message, and told Eleonora that it was her turn.

—

Martin, Kev and I spent what must’ve been fifteen minutes standing outside the treehouse while Eleonora was up there. We’d pulled drinks out of our bags and were discussing my experience with the Ouija Board so far. Both were incredibly surprised when I told them that the spirit was asking me questions.

“What kinds of questions?”

“Generic stuff, like my name, favorite food, etc.” I answered.

“Weird.”

Both Kev and Martin seemed a bit thrown off by it, but I was excited.

We looked up at the treehouse as we heard the sounds of someone climbing down. Eleonora had finished her session. She looked traumatized.

“How was it?” I asked her.

“Weird. All it did was ask me questions.”

“Questions like…” Kevin asked her.

“My name. My favorite hobby. My uh, biggest fear. That one took me a while to answer.”

Kev turned to me. “That is a little bit eerie.” he said. I agreed. Didn’t look like Eleonora was loving it either. But still - a spirit asking us questions? This had been one of the coolest, if not the coolest, paranormal experiences I’d ever experienced in my life.

Eleonora turned to Martin.

“It said that you were up next.”

—

Martin’s session seemed longer than the others. We stood outside, drinking, talking about the happenings so far, and pulling out the occasional snack.

“That was a little bit traumatizing,” said Eleonora.

Kevin pointed to her, and then up to the treehouse.

“Agreed, this is kind of messed up,” he said.

“Yeah, but that’s the point!” I responded. “We seek out spooky happenings all the time and we never get lucky, this is an actual legit supernatural experience. I feel like we have to take advantage of it.”

“Even if it’s asking us personal stuff? What does it want this info for?” followed up Eleonora.

I shrugged. While the “biggest fear” question was pretty weird, I didn’t feel too worried that a spirit knew my favorite food was or what my name was.

Our conversation was interrupted by the sound of someone climbing down from the treehouse. Martin had finished up his session. It felt like it’d been 30 minutes, which topped the rest of our sessions. We bombarded Martin with questions as he reached the ground. He looked more shellshocked than Eleonora did.

“That was pretty fucked up,” he started.

“What did it ask you?!” I asked enthusiastically.

“My biggest fear,” Martin responded. “It’s weird but, it felt like it didn’t like my answer to that one. It almost seemed annoyed.”

“Huh… so was it just silent for a while after that?” I asked.

“No… it asked me way more things after that. What the happiest moment of my life was, who I was the most jealous of, what my biggest life dream was, all that stuff… It was a lot of questions. Then, finally, it just wrapped up with “Thank You” and that was that.”

Martin turned to Kevin.

“You’re up next.”

Kevin turned to all of us, “Here goes nothing,” he sighed and started climbing up to the treehouse. We watched him make his way to the top.

For the first time in the evening, I had a knot in my stomach.

—

Only five minutes had passed since Kevin first went up, but he was already climbing down. He was shaking his head as he made his way down the ladder and to our group.

“Fuck that” said Kevin.

“What happened?!” we asked him. He just shook his head.

“That shit is dangerous. We need to get the fuck out of here, ASAP.”

I’d never seen Kevin like this. He was uncharacteristically shook.

“You have to tell us more. What did it ask you? What did it say?” but Kevin ignored all of our questions. He started packing up his bag.

“You guys can play with fire if you want, but I’m out of here. I suggest you guys come too,” he said. I watched as Martin and Eleonora started packing up as well.

“I had bad feelings throughout this whole thing - I think we should leave,” said Martin.

“Guys, what the hell?! Just ‘cause it’s unsettling doesn’t mean we have to pack up. We can just hang out up there and do something else,” I said back.

“This doesn’t feel right,” said Eleonora. I watched them as they all took a few steps away from the treehouse and towards the forest.

“You coming?” asked Kevin. I stood my ground. Kevin just shook his head and started heading out on his way.

“Suit yourself.”

I had no idea what could have possibly happened up there that would’ve shook him this much. He had already started walking as Martin and Eleonora pleaded with me to come with them.

I said no.

Begrudgingly, they all left.

You’re probably wondering - wasn’t I scared? Especially now that I was alone?

The answer was yes. But, something in my soul told me that I was up next. I’d spent my whole life waiting for something that was truly supernatural to happen, and now it was in front of me. With my fingers jittering, I climbed up to the treehouse as my friends departed.

—

It took me a moment to pull together the bravery to put my hand on the planchette. The candles were still lit. The setting was just right. Finally, I spoke to the spirit again.

“Why are you asking us all these questions?”

Nothing, for a few minutes. Then, my hand moved with the planchette, slower than usual. The answer:

T O C O N F I R M M Y S U S P I C I O N S

“Confirm your suspicions of what?”

Movement from the planchette on the ouija board:

O N E O F Y O U I S N O T W H O Y O U S A Y Y O U A R E

“What are you talking abou–”

I heard blood-curdling shrieks coming from the forest outside the treehouse. Like nothing I’d ever heard before. What the fuck.

The planchette was moving on its own now. I watched it go from letter to letter:

T H A T I S N O T K E V I N

H E I S C O M I N G B A C K F O R Y O U

R U N

…

And so I did.

—

The small section of the city I live in is generally known to be haunted. I think I know why.

It’s time for me to leave.