Encounters x317 - Want to Play a Game?

Summary

Podcast Summary: Two Girls One Ghost Episode: Encounters x317 - Want to Play a Game? Release Date: February 5, 2026 Hosts: Corinne Vien & Sabrina Deana-Roga

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Episode Overview

Corinne and Sabrina dive into the world of paranormal games—those infamous rituals and challenges that promise contact with the supernatural but often result in disturbing, inexplicable events. As part of their “Encounters” series, the hosts read listener-submitted stories about experiences with games like Red Door Yellow Door, Bloody Mary, Ouija boards, Queen of Spades, and more. Throughout, they reflect on the importance of following the rules, the line between curiosity and recklessness, and the pervasive sense of "something else" at play when dabbling in the otherworldly.

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Main Discussion Points & Listener Stories

1. Why People Play Paranormal Games (03:05–05:50)

• Sabrina expresses her passion for paranormal games, joking, "Everyone's gonna be like, demons. Sabrina loves demons." (03:13)
• The hosts reminisce about their college days, humorously contrasting their drinking abilities and their current low tolerance for partying.
• They note the abundance of Ouija board stories from listeners but lament the lack of other paranormal game experiences submitted to the podcast.

2. Red Door, Yellow Door: Breaking the Rules (06:30–16:41)

Story from Listener Via (They/Them, 21)

• Setting: Home alone as a teen; recurring unexplained footsteps, objects levitating, a haunted piano.
  • “…the doorknob to the laundry room is rattling for like 10 full seconds… then the door swings open, but no one is there.” (08:05)
  • Witnesses floating folders: “That stack of folders literally started floating in the mid air, mid fucking air, levitating.” (11:16)
• Red Door, Yellow Door game experience:
  • While guided by a friend, Via envisions a yellow door, a peaceful beach, then a sinister cabin with an "8ft tall, bald, gray-white… no eyes, no mouth… just a smooth nothing" suited figure.
  • Against warnings, Via plays alone later—feels touched by the entity, becomes ill, sees the figure in real life: “It was him standing in my doorway. In real life. In real life, waking life.” (14:25)
  • Only after properly “closing the game” with a friend does the haunting stop and symptoms disappear.
• Host Insight: The importance of intentions and closing rituals when playing with the supernatural.
  • “We say this with Ouija boards and for years we were so anti playing them. ...The most important thing ... is intentions and making sure you close out. Follow the rules.” - (16:13, Sabrina)

3. Bloody Mary and Midnight Zombies (18:53–29:43)

Story from Listener Soleil (She/Her, Calgary, Alberta)

• Soleil recalls a haunted apartment building and chilling childhood incidents:
  • Bloody Mary: At age four, plays the game with her sister and friend Alexis: lights flicker, they become trapped in the bathroom, a glowing blue hand with a red triangle appears in the mirror. Alexis disappears during the chaos.
  • Unsettling Tenants: Regularly spies a woman in a sari and others monotonously pacing the halls like zombies at midnight, never blinking. Parents dismiss odd happenings as childish imagination.
  • Soleil reflects on the building’s resemblance to notorious locations like the Cecil Hotel: “My version of the Roman Empire is that I think about ghosts and ghostly experiences about once a week.” (19:13)
• Hosts suggest the eerie neighbors could have been ghosts or participants in their own rituals and contemplate how a child's paranormal memories shape their perceptions in adulthood.

4. Ouija Board: Homemade Horror (31:23–46:57)

Story from Listener Elizabeth AKA "Bean" (They/Them)

• Moves into a dreary, shadowy house; unexplained phenomena escalate:
  • Hearing someone call out when the house is empty, masses of flies, pets reacting to nothing, younger sister’s disturbing night terrors/sleepwalking: “Sometimes she would turn to me staring but not seeing, and would speak the words. They're here. They're watching us.” (36:15)
• Ouija Board Session:
  • Makes a Ouija board with friend Natalie, contacts an entity named "Ka"—refuses to answer questions about its death, cuts communications when pressured. Research reveals 'Ka' is an ancient Egyptian term for a life force that “needs to be fed, even in death.”
  • Natalie breaks safety rules; is plagued by nightmares of a beaked figure with clawed hands; a violent “earthquake” occurs only in her bathroom, culminating in her family bringing in a priest for an exorcism.
  • Paranormal activity ceases after Ouija board is burned and house is spiritually cleansed.
• Hosts reflect on the tendency for “obsession” or recklessness to invite further disturbances—and the variety of manifestations within haunted homes.

5. Queen of Spades: A Dangerous Summon (48:25–73:43)

Story from Listener Elle (She/Her) & Friends

• As bored Midwestern teens, create a makeshift Ouija board and find instructions for "Queen of Spades" on the “Scary for Kids” website.
• Anya’s Ordeal: During a solo ritual, Anya sees herself in the mirror with a familiar but unknown woman behind her—a blade to her throat—while rules demand she never break eye contact. When the woman looks away, she escapes the game.
• Creepy aftermath includes:
  • Anya hearing a disembodied young girl's voice at night; both Elle and Anya compare recordings from a sleep monitoring app. Each device only records different, unexplainable sounds—the girl’s voice, banging, and sleep-talking conversations.
  • Electronic malfunctions and appliances infested with tapeworms; recurring sightings of a shadowy man in Anya’s house.
• Climactic Sleepover:
  • Friend Charlotte sees a man army-crawling across the floor and screaming “WAKE UP” in her face; a sleep app catches the audio, confirming her account.
  • Despite the terror, hosts and listeners speculate: was the man malevolent, or was he saving them from something worse (the little girl)? Closure comes via religious cleansing and burning of all ritual items.

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• “Lesson learned. Don't fuck around with red door, yellow door unless you want Slender Man's cousin popping into your house uninvited.” (Via’s story, 15:49)
• “Mirrors are also just portals, so who knows what was coming through.” (29:43, Sabrina)
• “I will go to my grave still remembering them. We never should have played. Nor should anyone else.” (Elle on Queen of Spades, 53:16)
• “Just as Charlotte described. No movement was heard, only the two words and a shout so loud it rattled my speakers. His voice was deep and hoarse. I can still hear it to this day.” (Elle’s story, 68:49)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Intro & hosts’ relationship to paranormal games: 03:05–05:50
• Red Door, Yellow Door story: 06:30–16:41
• Reflection on ritual rules & closure: 13:50, 16:13
• Bloody Mary & apartment haunts: 18:53–29:43
• Ouija Board / "Ka" entity & exorcism: 31:23–46:57
• Queen of Spades & sleep recordings: 48:25–73:43
• “Wake Up!” sleepover incident & audio evidence: 66:36–69:33

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Tone and Takeaways

Corinne and Sabrina maintain their signature blend of humor, skepticism, and empathy throughout, playing off one another’s fears and excitement. The stories collectively reinforce several core podcast themes:

• Curiosity can be dangerous: Many stories end with listeners realizing they’d gone too far and only found peace once rituals and objects were banished.
• Rules matter: Both hosts and storytellers stress that breaking or ignoring the stated guidelines of these games increases risk and worsens supernatural harm.
• The importance of ritual closure: “Follow the rules” and always close the game—the only way to keep entities from crossing over or attaching.
• Paranormal phenomena go beyond explanation: From corroborated audio evidence to independent experiences by multiple people, these encounters challenge rationality.

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Final Thoughts/Community Call

The hosts close by urging listeners to share their own non-Ouija paranormal game stories, emphasizing how such tales further enrich the “TGOG” ghostly community.

“So play your paranormal games, follow the rules if you dare, and email us!” (73:43, Sabrina)

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For the spooky and curious: This episode is a must for anyone intrigued by the dangers—psychological and supernatural—lurking in urban legends and childhood games.

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To submit your own encounter or be part of the community, reach out via the email provided in show notes or visit the Two Girls One Ghost website.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

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[A]

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[B]

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[A]

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[B]

Oh no. Did you find something else?

[A]

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[B]

Yes.

[A]

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[B]

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[A]

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[B]

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[A]

Very spooky. Hi. Hey there. This is my favorite topic.

[B]

Ooh, can anyone guess?

[A]

Everyone's gonna be like, demons. Sabrina loves demons.

[B]

Well, typically, that's the answer.

[A]

That's a good answer.

[B]

Well, first, this is two girls, one ghost. Two girls, one ghost.

[A]

And we are your ghostesses. That is Corinne. Hi, I'm Sabrina.

[B]

And if Sabrina were not to choose demons, what would the second guess be?

[A]

What's the one thing I'm always begging Corinne to do with me?

[B]

Play a paranormal game and drink. I did so much of that when we were younger with you.

[A]

I know. And also, I don't, I don't I've.

[B]

Tapped that much either. Even when we were drinking heavily. I was drinking heavily and you were drinking a drink.

[A]

Because I'm a lightweight. Oh my gosh. Wait, do you remember in college there was that thing to you would tally mark how many drinks you had? Yes, Corinne, I remember like freshman year.

[B]

It was disgusting. My body, I think is like built to be an alcoholic in the amount.

[A]

Of tally marks you had was insane.

[B]

Yeah, I know. My tolerance increased very, very quickly. It was a bit scary. And now I don't drink hard liquor at all.

[A]

Like literally no. Never.

[B]

Outside of espresso martinis, I don't think I've had like hard alcohol in maybe three or four years.

[A]

Sometimes when I'm like bedrotting alone, I just like in my mind, no, in my mind I'm like, man, it'd be fun to like just go out and have shots with a girlfriend. But I'm like, but I don't want to get out of bed and who would I do that with? And also in theory, it's like the act of it. That sounds fun.

[B]

The idea of it.

[A]

The idea and like the like energy behind it. But the actual action itself sounds miserable.

[B]

Right? We're only in our early 30s, but like truly the body, the soul of 60 year olds, the body of a 30 year old is very different. Like the reaction to alcohol is just so different.

[A]

Well, you don't have the same situation that I do, but when you have parents like me and you're around them, they act like the 30 year olds and I act like the 60 year old.

[B]

I do not know how your parents have the energy to do and party the way that they do. I do not know either. Your mom when we were in Nashville was so fun.

[A]

Oh, she's just like a ball of energy.

[B]

Yeah, she's life of the party. I feel like she was coming up with the ideas of where we're gonna go. We're all gonna think karaoke. We're riding bulls, we're doing this, we're doing that. And we're just.

[A]

No, like, before going to events, I have to tell her, like, I'm leaving at 10pm you can stay, do your thing. But when 10pm Comes and I'm a ghost, it's because I've left.

[B]

Yeah, you have to check out.

[A]

And she, of course, always puts up a fight, but I'm like, respect my boundaries. Anyway, how did we get here?

[B]

Paranormal games. Here we go. The game of life and the game.

[A]

Of death and contacting the dead in a obscure, wild ways, which also, I have a bone to pick with everyone who's listening. We don't have nearly enough of these stories.

[B]

We really don't. I'm actually shocked. We have a lot of Ouija board stories.

[A]

So many Ouija board stories.

[B]

But like a true, like, elevator game.

[A]

Have you played the picture game? Have you played the 11 mile road game? We've talked about so many different paranormal games. I was even, like, searching, like, what's like, the Red Door yellow. Well, which actually, I did find that one. But all I know is that some of you bitches who are listening, you have more stories.

[B]

We know that you have.

[A]

We know that you've played, we know that you've dabbled. So send us those emails. Okay. I did find one from our listener, via or via. And it's called I played Red Door, Yellow door Alone.

[B]

Alone. Geez, that takes some real bravery. Was it by choice or did no one want to play with me?

[A]

I think by choice. So there are a couple of stories and then we'll get to the Red Door, Yellow door. Hey, Corinne and Sabrina. My name is Via. They them. I'm 21 and I just started watching your podcast on YouTube a few weeks ago, and holy shit, I'm obsessed. Thanks. I've been binging the episodes and feeling like I finally found my people. I've gone back and forth on whether I should send in my stories because, like, maybe they're not that intense. But fuck it, here we are. I figured, worst case, I overshare with my two spooky Internet besties. So hopefully you kind of enjoy my kind of boring stories.

[B]

They're not boring.

[A]

I'm telling you, they're not.

[B]

Sabrina's reading them.

[A]

I'm reading it like, you're the one person I'm not mad at. You're the one person I'm not picking up on.

[B]

But you need to stop being mad at yourself.

[A]

Yeah. Okay. So all of these stories happened when I was around 14 to 16 years old. The first one is called the one with the piano. Okay. So I was home alone. My dad left for work around 4am he used to drive two hours each way before COVID but now he works remote.

[B]

Two hours.

[A]

Damn.

[B]

That was my dad's commute.

[A]

The 45 minutes today was a lot. Yeah. My mom and sister had gone grocery shopping and had been gone for about an hour and a half. So I was just home alone doing homework and chilling in my room. I'll give you a quick layout of the house. The garage leads to the laundry room, which connects to the kitchen. From the kitchen, if you turn left, there's an archway that leads into a hallway. My room is dead center in that hallway right across from the pantry.

[B]

Perfect for midnight for snacking. Yeah.

[A]

My sister's room is to the left. The bathroom is on the end and my parents room is at the other end. Off to the right of the kitchen is the living room and another archway with a piano in the living room. So I hear the garage door open, the door from the laundry room, and I immediately jump up because I know that means that someone's home and that I should help with groceries. So I walk into the kitchen and I sing sanghi, saying hello. And then I freeze because the doorknob to the laundry room is rattling for like 10 full seconds, like someone is trying to come in. And then the door swings open, but no one is there. I fucking sprint back to my room, sit with my back against the door, absolutely silent. And I hear the laundry.

[B]

You're back against the door. I feel like that's so much worse.

[A]

It's like keep it shut.

[B]

I know, but what if they're on the other side just listening and then they can slip their fingers beneath and tickle your butt.

[A]

Heavy ass. Footsteps start to walk through the kitchen, down the hallway, past my door. And then the bathroom door creaks open. I see the light flicker on and I hear the toilet flush. Then the footsteps go back through the kitchen into the living room and the piano starts playing.

[B]

What did it play?

[A]

I'm curious.

[B]

That's what no one ever tells us. What song? What's the song selection?

[A]

I only know Twinkle Tinkle, Little Star because I learned it on Oemi's little baby piano.

[B]

It's a thousand miles.

[A]

Wait, is that.

[B]

No. What? Is that a Cosmos? Yeah. Yeah. If I could. Yeah. Okay. I second guess myself just like you were with this email.

[A]

I'm frozen. I can't move. This is not some little bump in the night. This isn't one incident. This is like a full on. Something is in the house and now is playing the fucking piano. Now the footsteps keep moving around the house and it feels like it's just wandering, chilling, maybe checking out the fridge, having a snack, who knows? Finally I get the courage to whisper, call my mom and say I think there's someone in the house. She says they're almost home and when they get there they can't because the door is locked. I didn't lock it, I hadn't touched it. It literally swung open by itself. Earlier I saw it. My sister had to crawl through her bedroom window to get in and of course no one was inside.

[B]

Yeah. Are you sure though? Like I would be so scared that someone was in the attic or like in the walls because it doesn't seem.

[A]

Like it's like a one little like, oh, there was a sound. No, like there's someone fully like. But she didn't. The door opened and she didn't see anyone. Yeah, no one was there.

[B]

God. Ghost intruders.

[A]

Terrifying. And also I'm curious if that happened other times. And I know there are ghost stories in this house, but that specifically is.

[B]

So yeah, I feel like there has to have been some paranormal activity.

[A]

The second story is also when Via was home alone. It's called the floating folder from hell. Another day I was home alone. Why is it always when I'm home alone? Never ends well. And I went to grab food. As I was leaving, I passed the kitchen table where I had some school folders and papers stacked and I shit you not, that stack of folders literally started floating in the mid air, mid fucking air, levitating. I gasped loudly and the second I did, the folders slammed down onto the table like someone smacked the crap out of them. I noped the hell out of there, ran back to my room, posted up against the door like I do, like a trauma burrito, and waited there in silence until my mom and sister came home. So this is like. Yeah, it's happening.

[B]

It keeps happening.

[A]

Alrighty. Now, when I was like 15, I watched a video, I think it was Sam and Colby or some spooky YouTuber where they played Red door, yellow door. Basically one person lies down with their head in the guide's lap. The guide rubs their temples and everyone but the subject chants red door, yellow door, any other color door until the subject is in. I played with my best friend Emma, who is also 15 and our little sisters who were 13 and 12. Emma was my guide and I was the subject. They start saying red door, yellow door. Any other color door. Red door, yellow door. Any other color door. And I saw.

[B]

No, that would be you. You would be the subject.

[A]

No, I kind of like chanting. I'll do both. I'll do either. I saw a white room with a yellow door, so I went through it. And I was at a beach with a tree house. It was super peaceful and fun. And then I saw a cabin by a lake. Brown, with a green roof and red trim surrounded by redwoods. It felt off, but of course I walked toward it anyway. I looked through the window and I saw him. He was not human. He was 8ft tall, bald, gray, white skin, no eyes, no mouth, no features at all. Just a smooth nothing.

[B]

So Slenderman.

[A]

And he wore a red suit jacket and black pants. Slenderman dressed up a little bit. His fingers were long, too long. I instantly noped. I told Emma I want out of the game. And we ended the game. We were all kind of shocked, but just went and played Minecraft until everyone had to leave. Then night came after they had left and I, being dumb as fuck, couldn't get this out of my brain. And I decided. What did they decide?

[B]

To play again.

[A]

To play it alone. You are absolutely not supposed to do that. But of course I did.

[B]

Like why? Like why, why?

[A]

And also, how do you get yourself back in there? Oh yeah, maybe you could have some like a repeated saying.

[B]

Can you play like a video or something? Yeah, like you had the experience though. Is it not enough?

[A]

It's not over. I went back in. And there I was again at that same cabin. But this time I was inside. Felt so wrong. I tried to shake it, but I couldn't. I made my way around the room. There were clocks and mirrors everywhere. And then I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned my head to see what is touching me. It was him. His hand was on my shoulder and it was cold. And not just like, oh, it's chilly, but it was so cold it hurt. Ew. It felt like a shock ran down my arm. And I'm literally getting that same feeling as I'm writing this. I immediately opened my eyes and ended the session, or so I thought. My head was pounding. I felt awful. I went to sleep and I woke up feeling even worse. My whole body was heavy. I sat on my bed with my door cracked. I got up and got ready for church. And I was fully prepped for church because my parents make Me go. When the door creaked open, I thought it was my mom or my dad. But it wasn't. It was him standing in my doorway. In real life. In real life, waking life. The next day, I told him to leave, that he wasn't welcome here. And eventually he disappeared. I still went to church, feeling like death. And when I got home, I begged my friend to come back and help me close the game properly. The moment we did see Follow the Rules, I felt fine instantly. My headache was gone, the pain was gone. My energy felt fine. The whole house felt better. It was as if nothing had happened. So, yeah, lesson learned. Don't fuck around with red door, yellow door unless you want Slender Man's cousin popping into your house uninvited.

[B]

Okay, So I. I looked it up as this was happening because I was like, is this like the normal entity that is seen? And I guess there isn't one specific monster, but often these shadows, shadowy entities like a suited figure or a beast. So Via saw the suited figure. Yep.

[A]

Ew.

[B]

But I hate that it followed because.

[A]

They didn't close out the game. We say this with Ouija boards and for years we were so anti playing them or using them. But I think the most important thing with anything when it comes to the paranormal, when it comes to opening yourself up to things that are otherworldly, is intentions and making sure you close out. Follow the rules. Yeah, but yeah, that's. Thanks for reading. I'm so happy I joined the TGOG community. Stay spooky Via.

[B]

I feel like so often when we talk about paranormal games, the fear when playing. I feel like Bloody Mary and Ouija boards. You have the thought of like something getting crossing over to our side and haunting you. But I feel like so many other ones, like red door, yellow door, 11 mile game. Like all these other ones, it's the fear of getting trapped in that universe, like in that world or getting caught.

[A]

By the entity and like dying.

[B]

So I was not anticipating at all this thing crossing back over because it feels so different when it's like touched them. Yes. Was walking through their home. Also look at the wikihow, the beginning of the wikihow video and how happy these cartoon people are to be playing. Red door, yellow door.

[A]

Oh, smiles giggly. Giggly.

[B]

It looks like meditation.

[A]

It's a fun thing to do with your friends at a sleepover.

[B]

It also looks like the mom is doing it.

[A]

Like, yeah, man. Well, it reminds me of what's like the. The game where you close your eyes and the person behind you is like crack an egg on your head.

[B]

Let the yolk drip down.

[A]

The yolk drip down. I do it.

[B]

I do it to Noah.

[A]

Spiders curling.

[B]

No people.

[A]

But then at the end, you're supposed to be like. You're on the top of the Empire State Building and like, oh, I think.

[B]

You got a New Jersey twist.

[A]

Oh, you didn't do this one?

[B]

No.

[A]

Okay, so you do all this, and.

[B]

Then it ends with cool breeze. Tight squeeze. Now you have the shiveries.

[A]

Maybe I'm combining two. But basically, at the end, so your eyes are closed, and you're at the top of the Empire State Building. And then all of a sudden, you get pushed. And there's supposed to be a symbolization of what color you see when you're pushed and falling. And there's supposed to be a meaning to it. And then also, there was the other one where you would lay down and someone would open up your brain for a quarter and, like, put sand in your head.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

And then when you got up, it was supposed to be super heavy.

[B]

I do remember that one.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Those ones are so weird. I still just like. Even the basic of, like, people using their fingers and trying, and you close your eyes and you try to say, stop that. Yeah. In the crux of your elbow.

[A]

In your crevasse.

[B]

In your crevasse. Some of that stuff freaks me out. Some of it, like, triggers my OCD a little bit. Cause I have a lot of, like, tactile things. Okay. I have an email called Bloody Mary and the Midnight Zombies.

[A]

I'm kind of obsessed with that combination.

[B]

Hello, spooky sisters and happy October 1st. This was sent September 30th of 2023. Oh, a few years ago.

[A]

Let's travel back in time.

[B]

I just listened to your 200th Encounters episode. And while I sit here waiting for my kid in the school parking lot, I figured this was the perfect time to tell you my story.

[A]

That is the perfect time.

[B]

I have no idea why I've been procrastinating all these years, but here it goes. Currently, in this present time, there's a trend going around on TikTok about the Roman Empire and how men often think about the Roman Empire at least once a week. Well, I would like to think that my version of the Roman Empire is that I think about ghosts and ghostly experiences about once a week. So there's that same. I live in Calgary, Alberta, which is an hour and a half away from the famous haunted Banff Springs Hotel.

[A]

I want to go to Banff so bad. Mm.

[B]

It'll be so fun.

[A]

That might be a 2026 trip for me.

[B]

And beautiful Ye.

[A]

Danielle and Cassie are like the are hosting like a film festival or like doing something with a film festival in Banff. And I'm like should go.

[B]

Ah, so cool. They just hosted something in Vermont too.

[A]

They're so cool.

[B]

They do so such cool stuff.

[A]

I love seeing our friends excel.

[B]

When you guys mentioned the hotel in the last episode, I squealed because I was married at that very hotel. And the night before our wedding, you bet your ass. I dragged my soon to be husband to the eighth floor to see the boarded up room, room 86 where a whole family was murdered.

[A]

Oh geez.

[B]

I can confirm that there is an empty space between door 872 and 874. But unfortunately none of the employees I asked wanted to talk about it. Too bad. Sorry. Okay. We live in a four story apartment complex that in hindsight I think were for low income families. But at the time it was paradise for me. We had immigrated from the Philippines, so I was delighted to see so many different kids from so many different cultures. There were dozens of kids in my building to play with. Years later we will learn that this apartment complex was and still is today a hub for crime and drugs as well as random fires in the basement of the building. And just a whole lot of mischief.

[A]

Like there's a lot of that that like maybe is more the neighborhood but the like fires coming from the basement, like you gotta random fires fix that.

[B]

Who's the pyro in the building?

[A]

Yeah. Or their bad electrical things happen.

[B]

Yeah. Oh, oh. I don't like to think about that. My parents worked a lot, so it was up to myself and my two older siblings to entertain ourselves while they were gone. One day in particular, my sister and I were home alone and we invited a friend over to come watch some TV with us. Her name was Alexis and she lived down the hall. We were watching a show, most likely the Unsolved Mysteries because at the tender age of four, I was super into spooky things. I love that I'm four years old. Let's watch Unsolved Mysteries.

[A]

And there's also a lot of like true crime in that.

[B]

There's a ton. When suddenly Alexis suggested that we should play Bloody Mary.

[A]

Why is it always an Alexis like that? Was my sister too.

[B]

Me being the child that followed my sister around everywhere, I thought, ooh, we're playing a game. And I decided to tag along. So let me set up the scene. Our 80s style washroom was small, dimly lit with a Matching pink fluffy toilet seat cover. Love a rug and floral towels. The light switch was located on the outside of the bathroom. And this is important for later. I remember going, terrifying. That is all my bathrooms in this house. We moved the outlet for the downstairs one inside, but we still have to do it for the upstairs bathrooms. I'm like, who did this? Like, why? That's honestly outside in control of crime.

[A]

For playing Bloody Mary and like, scaring the.

[B]

Scaring your kids.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I remember going into the bathroom with my sister and closing my eyes the entire time. I remember my back against the wall where the towels hung. I squeezed my eyes shut, and even though I didn't know exactly what the game was about, I just had this feeling that it was not good.

[A]

Yep, four years old.

[B]

Four years old. Go back to your murder mysteries. The game began with Alexis on the outside of the door, flicking the lights on and off and on and off while my sister recited the words to summon Bloody Mary. I remember once she was done, it was quiet and nothing was happening. My sister called out for Alexis but didn't hear anything. On the other side of the door. It became eerily quiet. Too quiet. And as if on cue, I slowly opened one eye to see something that I cannot explain starting to form on the mirror in front of me. A bright light. I quickly shut my eyes, and just like that, my sister was grabbing my arm. And the next thing I knew, she was banging on the door and. And turning the knob furiously trying to get out, but it was stuck. She calls for Alexis. And we could hear Alexis screaming on the other side of the door, promising she was not blocking the door. The door would not budge. Both of these girls, they're trying to open it from each side, but nothing. My eyes are still shut at this time, and I could sense the lights were turning on and off and on and off, over and over again. But Alexis swore she was not controlling the lights anymore. The light switch was just doing that. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, it gave way and we were finally let out. My sister ran to the living room sobbing. She told me what she saw, and to this day, it gives me the creeps. What she saw was a small blue hand in the corner of the mirror. It glowed brightly, and inside of the palm was a red triangle. What was weird about this was Alexis was nowhere to be seen when we got out of the bathroom. We assumed she just freaked out during it and ran home.

[A]

What?

[B]

So what did the hand mean?

[A]

Wait, she just ran home? She's peaced out?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Are we sure Alexis isn't a ghost, right?

[B]

I've learned later on that triangles have something to do with demonic symbolism, but I can't really be sure. There were also many unusual things that happened in this building, and I'll save some for another time, but I will mention one more. There was a room two doors down that was seemingly empty as we never saw people coming in and out of it except during midnight. So creepy. Vampires getting off like an 11:30 shift every night, just like heading home.

[A]

Or they only left at midnight. Ooh, yeah, vampires.

[B]

You see, we had a rather large mail slot in the middle of the door. And me being a very curious four year old, I would open it up and I would peek through. From my vantage point, you could clearly see the outside to the hallways. And I would spy on that door in particular through my door. I remember how cold the air felt, the breeze that would brush up against my face. Every night, the door to that room would open and it would just be completely dark inside, so we couldn't see what the room would.

[A]

No one would be opening it. It was just the door would just open.

[B]

This is unclear. What I saw still freaks me out to this day. On this night, the door of the room slowly opened and to my surprise, a woman stepped out. I believe she was maybe East Indian based on the sari that she was wearing. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until she reached her arms out, kind of in this like zombie like stance, eyes gazing ahead, slowly started walking up and down the halls. She would turn around at the very end and repeat the same slow staggered walk, eyes never blinking. I would sit there and watch her go up and down and thought maybe she was sleepwalking. I couldn't be sure, but I just sat there and watched her the whole time because I was fascinated. And I was also really scared at the same time. Once she was finished, she would return and slowly turn the doorknob to the door, walk back inside, and as soon as she got past the door, she disappeared into the dark room. And then another person would walk outside and repeat the exact same motions that she did walking up and down the halls, arms extended. My sister and I both saw this many times and we could not understand what it meant until we brought it to our parents attention. They told us just quit spying on the neighbors.

[A]

Fair.

[B]

What if they were playing a paranormal game?

[A]

Oh my gosh.

[B]

I will say that this building sort of attracted a lot of odd characters. The police were always called. Once an unhoused man followed me around the lobby and would show up outside. Of people's doors, but somehow would never be seen on cctv.

[A]

I also don't trust the CCTV at this building if there's a lot of shady shit happening.

[B]

I don't even know why our parents trusted us to walk around the halls freely. Because if I lived in this building today, I don't think I would feel very safe. I remember watching the Cecil Hotel documentary on Netflix and the hundreds of people that lived in that hotel. Many had transient souls once occupying this grand hotel and thinking it mirrored a lot of the same characteristics of the building I lived in.

[A]

Interesting.

[B]

It's been over 30 years and yet I still think about this building. I recently Google mapped it and it looks awful. I still cannot believe people live there. I also decided that I should Visit it about 10 years ago and it completely was broken down. Decrepit windows boarded up, pigeons everywhere. Old smelly couches littering the outside of the building. Maybe it was always this way, but my innocent eyes just found it to be a place to explore.

[A]

Like, it's like an episode of X Files or Goosebumps.

[B]

Yeah. Thank you so much for reading. I truly feel like you gals are my pals. They wrote you guys, but I changed it to gals because it rhymes.

[A]

Gals.

[B]

Pals.

[A]

Gal pals.

[B]

I have been a listener since early 2019 and will forever be a fan. See you on the other side. Soleil.

[A]

Soleil. I love how paranormal your childhood was.

[B]

Oh my gosh. I know. But like, I agree with you. Like, this almost feels haunting of Hill House where it's like every character in this, every external character outside of your family, it. There is chance that they're not alive.

[A]

Then none of them are real.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like your whole upbringing is actually.

[B]

Alexis was a ghost.

[A]

Alexis was a ghost.

[B]

The unhoused man that just walks up and down the halls that can't be seen on cctv. Also ghosts.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Weird seance ritual. Zombie walking from the.

[A]

I'm also so curious what her sister thinks because they. How long is this together? Right? I know.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So, like, what are the. What's the sister's experience of the Bloody Mary and of like the neighbors and.

[B]

Like her memories of now? Yeah, well. Cause her sister was the one seeing more with Bloody Mary. Like fully saw the like, hand and the triangle. The triangle. But it is interesting because, like, the hand was glowing a bright blue and when Soleil opened her eyes, she saw a light and then got scared and closed her eyes again.

[A]

Part of me also wonders if Alexis was messing with them and was flickering the lights on.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Or if Alexis is a ghost.

[B]

Right. I was thinking that too. Or like if Alexis is holding the door shut, flickering the lights or whatever. That's mean and it's scary and it's like, not a fun.

[A]

But they're also young.

[B]

But they're also young. But it doesn't take away from the fact that there was something in the mirror for sure. Like, the bloody mirror still works.

[A]

I mean, mirrors are also just portals, so who knows what what was coming through. Yeah.

[B]

This episode is brought to you by IQ Bar, our exclusive snack, hydration and coffee sponsor. IQ Bar protein bars, IQ Mix, hydration mixes and IQ Joe mushroom coffees are the delicious low sugar, brain and body fuel you need to win your day.

[A]

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[B]

I literally was just drinking the the IQ mix hydration mix, the lemonade iced tea one earlier, and you were like, what are you drinking? And I was like, oh, so good. Lion's mane and magnesium. It's so good for you. Me?

[A]

Say that again. I've been loving the IQ Joe mushroom coffees. I because I'm trying to drink less acidic coffee in the morning, but the IQ Joe mushroom coffees give me that, like, perfect. Nice start to my morning.

[B]

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[A]

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[A]

My next story is a more Ouija board story. As in it is a Ouija board story.

[B]

It dabbles more on the Ouija board.

[A]

Ouija board. But it's paranormal. Paranormal game. Okay. It is from our listener Elizabeth, who we can also call Bean.

[B]

Bean.

[A]

They them theirs.

[B]

I love that nickname. Hi, Bean.

[A]

That's what I call Noemi. My Bean. Your Bean, Little Bean. And then Delfina's Turtle.

[B]

How did you give them those names?

[A]

I didn't give Delphi. Delfina's Turtle was from Johnny and Lexi. Oh yeah, so I follow that Ouija board session turned exorcism and maybe my friend took our house Spirit hello ghostly gals. It is time for me to send another email rather than draft my emails in my phone notes and never let them see the light of your device screen. Thank you for sending it. The first part of my email heading has always been known to me, but after listening to your podcast for the better part of a year, I have some theories that explain the second half of the subject line. So I'll start with the details, the mundane details about the house, and then I'll tell you the rest of the story. In 2012, my family moved into our first house, which is our own. It was really exciting to have the come up from the apartments and rentals to having a place that was truly ours. I was 14 at the time of this move and while I was disappointed we'd still be living outside of the town I went to school in, I was glad I finally lived close to a bus line that had access to a city instead of a single country road and culverts. Sometimes weird things would happen in this house and at the time they definitely creeped me out. But it's not until 13 years later that I really started piecing them together and started to question what was really happening. It was a pretty dark house because most of our sunlight was blocked by redwoods and even during the day it had and has my parents still live there, an eerie dusty glow to the inside. Sometimes I'd be home alone and sense something watching me and I would turn to see our cat staring at the exact same spot that I felt the energy coming from.

[B]

Confirmation.

[A]

Trust your pets. Sometimes I'd be home alone and I'd hear my dad come through the garage door calling I'm home. Only to go out to greet him and to see that no one was there.

[B]

Ugh, I hate that.

[A]

But he would come home 20 minutes later. One time I left my room while my parents were out of town and my sisters were at my grandma's and I found dozens of flies swarming our house, clinging to all the windows in horrific writhing masses.

[B]

Yikes.

[A]

Barf. My baby sister, who is 10 years younger than I, so 4 years old at the time that we moved into this house, began having terrible night terrors when we moved in.

[B]

Oh no.

[A]

She would chew up from bed, sobbing and screaming, staring forward at nothing. Sometimes I'd be babysitting while my parents were out. And they taught me not to wake her up. Just let her ride it out until I could either get her back to bed or till she laid back down.

[B]

Wait, I just have to. So remember I was saying, like, two nights ago, Noah had, like, the worst night where he kept waking up and, like, screaming bloody murder.

[A]

Like, you had terror, too.

[B]

And it was always, like, he would wake up, like, right after. I was having horrific nightma all night of, like, I was. People were trying to harm Noah and I was, like, brutally murdering them. And it wasn't just, like, me, like, hurting them or punching them and getting away. Like, it was. The scene was being played out and it was very gruesome. And Noah would wake up, like, 30 seconds after screaming in terror. I watched our camera back to see because I was like, was he having, like, a night terror? Was there a weird noise in his room or something? Like, what happened? And the camera, like, glitches, like a moment before he wakes up weird. So I don't know. But it didn't happen last night. I didn't have weird dreams and he didn't wake up screaming bloody murder.

[A]

So next week, I don't know why you have nightmares.

[B]

My mom has been telling me I need to cleanse this house for, like, two years.

[A]

I can't believe you haven't yet.

[B]

It's like, truly.

[A]

Look at the jar. We have so much.

[B]

Every time someone sends us any sort of cleansing material, we have giant jars where we put all of the crystals and all of the.

[A]

You should do it on the new moon. Oh, that's a good idea.

[B]

It's been from, like, laziness and feeling like I don't have to. Like, it's a. It's a lot of space to cleanse.

[A]

Why don't we do.

[B]

And I'm like, why don't we slow.

[A]

Through a Patreon event where you.

[B]

Where we tour my house.

[A]

You don't have to do the whole thing, but, like, just be. Just like, set it up where you start it.

[B]

Like my apartments. It would take me like, 20, 30 minutes to cleanse it. That's why I'm like, oh, God, it's going to be a whole day event for me.

[A]

You can also just do a mental cleanse. Yeah, everyone mentally cleanse Corinne's home right now. Just a mental. Corinne's home is cleansed. It's all. That's all it needs. Okay, so Bean's little sister is having night terrors and sleepwalking. Sometimes she would turn to Me staring but not seeing, and would speak the words. They're here. They're watching us.

[B]

Oh, my God. That's terrifying.

[A]

I also had two bouts of sleep paralysis in this house, and I saw a creature at the end of my bed, pale and bony with skin stretched tight, watching me. Despite all of this, I was still in the Delulu and wished I knew what it was like to live in a haunted house, never piecing together that maybe mine was.

[B]

Oh, my God. The call is coming from inside the house. Yeah, that's like. Like this is seriously haunted. Well, it's also, like, see creatures like that in your sleep paralysis day.

[A]

Like, Bean's 14. It's the first time ever living in a house, like, not an apartment or, you know.

[B]

You think that this is what people say when they say there are house noises? Yeah.

[A]

Right. Takes a minute to put it all together.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

Or trying to, like, rationalize it in some way. Okay, so Now Bean is 16, hosting their friend, who we'll call Natalie for a sleepover. Natalie lived in an extremely strict Catholic home, so she was so excited she got to come to my house because usually I had to go to hers. I live 30 minutes away from our school, so we waited for my mom to get off work to take us and my sister's home. While we waited, Natalie looks at me and asks if we could use a Ouija board. Oh, typical Catholic. Like, repressed at home. Like, let's go to a friend's house and use a Ouija board.

[B]

Let's do the opposite of what they tell us to do in church.

[A]

I had no idea how we would get one, but she insisted we could do it ourselves and make one of our own.

[B]

It always starts this way.

[A]

Natalie for sure, had been reading, like, doing so much research on this and waiting, counting down the minutes.

[B]

The scariest Ouija board experiences are the ones where people just make them on a piece of paper or, like, cardboard, for sure. Back of your cereal box with your own blood.

[A]

So my mom took us home, but she needed to run errands, so she dropped us off at the house and took my sisters with her. While they were out, Natalie and I found a piece of cardboard in the garage. We looked up photos of Ouija boards and made our own. She looked up the rules of a Ouija on WikiHow, and we found white candles, filled a glass with water, found a small dish to fill with white salt. At least they're doing, like, all these precautions. Once we gathered our supplies, we stashed them in a room, knowing we wouldn't be able to play uninterrupted until we played with my sisters, ate dinner with my family, and yada, yada, we had to wait until late at night. So later that night, we set everything up. A few of the rules Natalie found stated the one, never play where you sleep. Two, never remove your hands from the board without saying goodbye. And three, never play alone. So with all of that, we started with our board made of cardboard and our planchette, which was one of those tiny little magnifying glasses that double as travel eyeglass repair kit. We asked, does anyone want to communicate with us? Nothing happened. At first, I would feel us accidentally nudge or pull the planchette while we were sitting, feeling the rough bumps of the cardboard, but nothing else until something else did come through. Natalie asked again, is anyone there? And we both felt the planchette glide to yes. And when I say glide, I mean as smooth as can be. Basically levitating. And keep in mind, prior to this, anytime it moved, we felt the bumps of the cardboard. We stared at each other in shock, and honestly, the look on our faces alone were enough to prove that neither of us had moved the planchette. Natalie asked the spirit's name and it said Ka. Ka. She asked how old it was when it died, and it said 19. She asked how it died and it immediately shot to no. But she asked again and again it aggressively pushed her to no. I asked Natalie to stop, but of course she asked again and the spirit said goodbye. Natalie immediately wanted to reopen communication, but I told her absolutely not. We had clearly offended the spirit and needed to take a break.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, it like, literally pushed you out.

[A]

While she was annoyed, I mentioned the word ka. It felt familiar to me, so we looked it up instead of playing again. Ka is an ancient term in Egyptian belief that represented a facet of a spirit. This part specifically represented the life force or power of animation. The ka is the part of the soul that needs to be fed, even in death. We read a few articles about this and wondered whose ka we had been talking to and if that was even possible. Later that night, Natalie asked to play again, even threatening that she was going to play alone if I didn't join her.

[B]

Oh, Natalie, what is wrong with you? Did you get possessed in this process?

[A]

The subject line is Ouija board turned exorcism, right?

[B]

I'm like, either she's desperate to make contact with someone that she's not saying who, or like that's her intention, or something has gotten the best of Her.

[A]

Yeah. So I agreed to play just because I didn't want to ignore the rules in my house. Now, this part is a little fuzzy, but we made contact with the spirit that again was calling itself Ka. Natalie kept asking questions surrounding its death, clearly pissing it off. And when it was about to hit no again, she took her hands off the planchette. I was so furious. I told her, no way we're playing anymore. And I demanded that we go to bed. So we lay down, me and my twin size bed and her on the floor. And remember that rule, never play where you sleep. Well, we never really gave it much thought.

[B]

I don't think I knew that rule. I feel like that's normally where you play.

[A]

No.

[B]

Like either in your friend's basement or like, I feel like on the floor of their childhood bedroom.

[A]

Yeah, but it makes sense, like, not to play in your bedroom. We didn't really give it much thought. And I didn't realize we played sitting on the floor in the exact spot that Natalie would sleep in. In the early hours of the morning, I was shaken awake. Natalie was staring at me, on the verge of tears. Terrified, she proceeded to tell me about the horrific nightmare she had. She woke up lying on my floor and felt like something was wrong. In the corner of my room was a dark, tall, shadowy figure. Its head was shrouded like a cloak and a giant beak was peeking out. Terrified, she reached up to pull on my arm and wake me up. And apparently I sat up and stared at her. But my eyes were not my own and I just let out the most evil cackle. Then two clawed hands shot up through the floor around her, digging into her torso, and yanked her down through the floor until she woke up.

[B]

Oh, my God. Hey. Well, don't fuck with the spirits on the Ouija board.

[A]

After calming Natalie down, we moved on. Or we tried to. We tried to forget the board. But I soon started getting panicked phone calls from Natalie after school that day. Our friend lived in a haunted house where her family had to make bargains with the spirits to keep peace in her home. So she advised Natalie on protective spells, incantations, and how to draw salt circles every morning when she would wake up. The salt circle was broken.

[B]

Every day I thought, how does that happen? I didn't think that that was possible.

[A]

The spirit's strong. Every day, Natalie saw the same spirit in the corner of whatever room she was in. Surrounded by shadows, its large beak pointed toward her.

[B]

I hate that it's.

[A]

Every night, Natalie had nightmares. She called me one night asking Me to use the board alone to try to talk to it, to try to ask it to leave her alone.

[B]

Wait, wait, wait. Like Natalie wanted. Natalie called, wanted Bean to do the Ouija board.

[A]

The Ouija board was still at Elizabeth's house.

[B]

Okay, Okay. I wasn't sure if Natalie was requesting to take the Ouija board themselves.

[A]

And while I really didn't want to use it alone, I could hear how scared Natalie was. This had been going on for days, if not weeks, at this point. I also couldn't help but think of how exhausted and pale she started to look every day, like something was truly sucking the life force from her. But when I tried to use the board, not much came through, and I didn't feel that same spirit anymore because it clearly had left with her or whatever horrifying thing that was already at Bean's house left. I'm curious if the house. Although Bean did say that still, to this day, the house has, like, a haze, like, a weird energy. Okay. So when I told her nothing happened, she demanded that I burn the board. I offered to bring it to school so we could burn it in a barbecue pit at the park after class, but she said no, she needed the board burnt immediately. So I burnt it in a metal bowl in my bedroom, which was a terrible idea.

[B]

I literally released the spirits, melted the danger.

[A]

I melted the carpet and filled my room with smoke and somehow managed to convince my dad that I was just burning letters from a guide. And, like, this is, like, so teenager. Despite the drama of that experience and almost burning my entire house down, Natalie was still plagued by the spirit.

[B]

Dang.

[A]

Eventually, everything came to a head when she was showering one day and felt like an earthquake tear through her bathroom. Her shower curtain fell down, the toilet cracked, everything in the cabinets poured out. Her parents came running into the bathroom screaming for her, because they heard her screaming, and she was yelling about the earthquake. But here's the thing. No earthquake happened that day. The tremors weren't felt in the rest of the house. They were only felt in the bathroom. When her mom saw the damage in the bathroom, she demanded answers, and Natalie came clean. Her mom immediately ordered an exorcism through her church, and a priest came by and blessed her. And apparently after that, everything stopped. At the end of the school year, she moved away to live with her dad. But, yeah, I've been telling this Ouija board story for years, and I always felt like something terrible had happened to someone else, But I never thought that I knew what it was like to touch the paranormal.

[B]

Oh, My gosh.

[A]

But after listening to your podcast and hearing all the different ways the paranormal manifests and finally writing it all down, I see all these experiences side by side, and it certainly feels like something was living in that house with us. And on top of it, I think Natalie took it with her.

[B]

Geez. I'm so curious if Bean ever learned why Natalie was so obsessed with the death of the spirit in the Ouija board.

[A]

They must have read something like, natalie must have just been fascinated by death.

[B]

I know, but if you go by the rules of how to interact, it's like, don't ask about the death.

[A]

And the spirit kept saying, no, no, no, no.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

After the Ouija board drama, I didn't experience any of those other things. I did start to experience a whole other side of the paranormal, like premonitions and such, but there were no more ominous feelings in the house or swarms of flies or demons in me and my sister's room. So what do you think? Thanks for everything you do. I've loved becoming a part of your spooky community, and it's been a healing experience to listen to your show. Hope to see you on the other side. Elizabeth, AKA Bean. They. Them.

[B]

I mean, like, the swarms of. Just starting out the email with swarms of flies, like, it was something. And they're watching us. Like, you're definitely sleepwalking, Right?

[A]

Night terrors.

[B]

Oh, man. It's almost like the spirits there had a darker energy, but almost like, didn't want to interact.

[A]

Except for the fact that they were showing up in their bedroom.

[B]

I guess that's true.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And the night terrors.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But I like to. Yeah. In my mind, I was just like, oh, they just sometimes accidentally interact. I don't know. It's. I just.

[A]

Natalie, so. But I guess Natalie was asking for it not to say that anyone to be possessed. But Natalie wouldn't listen to any of the rules or follow boundaries.

[B]

This made me kind of think of the movie Talk to Me in a way where it's like you just become.

[A]

Obsessed with doing it.

[B]

Yeah. The obsession with it. And you don't listen to, like, everything. Yeah. The hand is there. I'm sure you can see it in the. One of the frames of our YouTube video. My brother got me the Talk To Me hand, and it actually is an incense smoker, so you can put, like, a little cone of incense or something and then light it. And I think the smoke comes out the finger.

[A]

And you can still also hold the hand.

[B]

You can.

[A]

And get possessed.

[B]

It feels a Little spooky doing it.

[A]

It does.

[B]

It's like your hand fits a little perfectly.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I wonder whose hand I'd rather hold.

[A]

Sven's hand.

[B]

I don't have a hand.

[A]

You have a.

[B]

No, there's nothing here.

[A]

Should we do the crevasse game with Sven? Yes.

[B]

Maddie. When am I touching your crack? This is called Queen of Spades. Hi, I just found your channel and I love it. Immediate subscribe. Oh, thanks for you doing Patreon. Totally my vibe. To my knowledge, this is the first time this story has ever been told in its entirety. My best friend and I experienced and remember the following events, and she has not spoken about it in years. Quick disclaimer. There are some similarities to other things that I've seen on Reddit and other external content, but that being said, this is something that I lived. This is my experience. So this happened back in 2014 or 2015? I didn't exactly mark the dates, but me and my friend were around the same age, so about 14 years old in 2014. 15 and 2015. You get it. Anyway, we loved having sleepovers and gossip and would sleep on the floor, watch scary movies, et cetera. And there were four girls in this story, including me. And I'm going to change the names so all pseudonyms. For privacy, you can call me Elle. The second girl we'll call Anya. She remains my closest friend to this day, and we rarely speak about these events. She's terrified that her current home will be similarly affected by whatever we summoned.

[A]

And it's been like 10 years. Yeah, 11 years. Damn.

[B]

The third and fourth girls, we'll call Charlotte and Marnie. No longer in contact with either of them. Some background. All of us girls were raised in Midwest America, basically raised nowhere, and were brought up either Catholic or Christian.

[A]

Raised nowhere.

[B]

I try to rationalize our stupidity by saying that the following events were just our way of acting out. Please know that we acknowledge the reality of this shit and do not and will never participate again. Okay, cool. Thanks.

[A]

That's the way you learn. You do something stupid and you learn to never do it again.

[B]

Well, and if you're 14 or 15, like, that's the classic. A classic time to do it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay, so a little bit of character context here. Marnie didn't always hang out with us every single weekend, though she was welcome and a very lighthearted presence to have around. Generally, she spent a lot of time on her phone, had tons of friends, she was not one to take things very seriously, and she really liked to joke and maintain high group Energy. Charlotte was very chaotic fun. She loved to prank us. She thought it would be funny to record on her phone for laughs. So she'd like do stuff like push someone into a pool or scare the shit out of them. It was just something you came to expect from her. It was pretty harmless funny most of the time. And usually Marnie would chip in on these antics in the given month. I had slept over at Anya's house maybe two or three nights. We were always really close. She was just the sort of person that you click with in life and I am very lucky to have her. When we were younger, we tried to make our own fun and we would just be super bored. I don't know how we found this particular website, but over time we came to frequent it. I never forgot the name, but for authenticity I just looked it up. The website is called scaryforkids.com.

[A]

I think we've talked about this.

[B]

We have.

[A]

When we did a Paranormal Games episode, we're like, this just exists.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Every single game and like the rules and how to do it.

[B]

Yeah, terrifying and yeah, scary for kids. Scary for kids.

[A]

Straight to the point.

[B]

So in summary, the website once contained directions on how to complete numerous scary games ranging from very innocent child games to some soul selling games at crossroads, shenanigans, you know, the whole gambit, right? Like choose your own adventure. Here we played the light hearted game, Bloody Mary type games. Had our fun, but again, eventually we would get bored and we wouldn't be caught dead buying a Ouija board, not with our parents. So we made one, obviously, because look at where we are. Obviously just a permanent marker, a piece of cardboard, a coin acting as a planchette. And yeah, we were in business. Anya and I used to use it alone. Sometimes Charlotte, Marnie or both of them would be there as well. The coin would move and it seemed like we were always convinced that someone else in the group thought that they were being funny. We would point fingers, we'd laugh and then we would find something else to do. Absolutely no precautions taken, not even saying goodbye. Oh, gosh, they write bottom of the intellectual ladder type activities, you know?

[A]

Well, also, especially if they've done this so many times over and over and never said goodbye and nothing bad has happened.

[B]

Like, just like they're not learning, they're.

[A]

Not making a mistake in learning, you.

[B]

Know, and probably not even thinking that they made an authentic week or it's just like for fun.

[A]

This is fun. Yeah.

[B]

A different night when it was just Anya and I, we decided we'd go for it and play one of those dangerous games on the website it was called Queen of Spades. It had a bunch of warnings and if this then that type of precautions, geez. Anya played it alone because the instructions said it was a one player game.

[A]

Anya.

[B]

So I sat in the back corner of her room, keeping quiet.

[A]

Wait, you just sat there watching her play? I mean, I guess that's better than her truly being alone.

[B]

Yeah, that's like. Even when I tried to do the Brian Weiss's like YouTube past life regression, my mom sat outside. Outside of my bedroom door on the other side because she, she was so scared I'd get like lost in the sauce astral plane or whatever. Totally planning to play next time we got a chance. The game was instructed to start at midnight. Always the room had to be dark and silent, aside from a single candle in front of the mirror. And no, I just looked up the game and the instructions I am seeing differ from my memory of what Anya and I were directed to do. So when we played, Anya drew some seemingly irrelevant shapes in red ink on her mirror. Rather than writing out Queen or Lady of Spades for example. By the way, I literally will never forget these specific shapes as long as I live. I will go to my grave still remembering them. We never should have played. Nor should anyone else. Anya sat at her vanity, closed her eyes and completed the instructions for the game. At which point she was to open her eyes and make a wish to the Queen of Spades who would appear in place of Anya's own reflection. From my perspective, she sat still in front of her vanity, just wide eyed, staring into nothing. I saw nothing out of place. Yet there in the back corner of her room, very much the feeling of an intruder. This massive weight of dread stuck watching my friend frozen in her reflection. She's not even blinking. I don't know how long we were like that. Probably no more than a minute realistically. But it felt like an hour at least. Suddenly, Anya shot up and smudged the red drawings on the mirror with her hand. She ran to flip on the light switch, sunk down to the floor next to me, pulling her knees to her chest. And after some time, she eventually told me what she saw. Her own reflection. Not the Queen of Spades as anticipated. She just saw herself, but with a woman behind her. Someone she thought she recognized. The woman held a sharp blade to her throat. Locked eyes with her in the vanity's reflection. So Anya sat still, maintaining eye contact, which is part of the game's instructions. You never break eye contact, no matter What? Even though this shit had already gone way off course, she held onto the only rule she knew until the woman briefly looked away. And in that moment, Anya got up and smudged the ink and did not look back. She said. It all felt so real, down to the sharp edge, the fabric of the woman's sleeve brushing on her shoulder. Predictably, it was around this time that Anya and I would start to hear things at night in my family home.

[A]

Great. In your home.

[B]

Anya would swear that she heard a young girl saying nonsensical phrases. I believe one of them was something like boom, pow. Boom, pow. Said very excitedly, like as if this girl was playing a video game. Mind you, she doesn't have any sisters. Oh, sorry. I said in El's childhood home. It's in Anya's childhood.

[A]

Okay, okay.

[B]

Mind you, Anya does not have any sisters. Her older brother is away at college. No one in the house would reasonably be awake for her to hear this, let alone doing all that weirdness in her bedroom. In many upcoming instances, I was back at my own house, which eventually would prove to Anya that it was also not me.

[A]

Poor Anya.

[B]

Yeah, like, you're, like, hoping, like, maybe your friend is just pranking you. Yeah, I heard weird noises as well, but more like creaking and knocking on the walls. I felt unsure at the time as to what had just happened. Or maybe am I just being paranoid? I don't know. In general, it seems like Anya and I never heard the same things, so I thought maybe she was pranking me and she thought I was pranking her. And we both decided to download an old app called Sleep Bot. I think it might still be available, but I haven't used it in years. Definitely not an advertisement, Just the fact we used Sleepbot. And I actually found a screenshot that is reminiscent, in sort of a PTSD sort of way, of what it looked like at the time. The app's intended purpose was to help you track your own sleep quality, though we wanted the sound and recording function, which is why we downloaded the app. The app would allow you to play back every notable sound that occurred while you slept. No idea if this still exists. There's definitely.

[A]

I don't know if it's the same, but there are definitely apps that exist.

[B]

People do it for snoring or sleep apnea or sleep talking, whispering and stuff in the background.

[A]

I hate it.

[B]

We would both open up the app before bed. It became our routine, and after a couple more sleepovers, we began to believe each other. Anya had several recordings of a young girl Speaking. Or rarely, what sounded like a grumbling of an older man seated just a little too far away to comprehend his words. I don't remember anything else that this girl said or if we understood it, but the voice recordings from her were frequent. Meanwhile, my phone would have been less than five feet away, but recorded nothing in those same moments.

[A]

It's literally like right there.

[B]

Yep. Static silence for me. All the same, I had recordings of random banging and knocking, but Anya's phone would not receive those. Even more off putting, Anya's phone would record these voices while mine is recording nothing but silence. And in turn, Anya would talk in her sleep, as if responding in time to the young girl. Ugh.

[A]

Ah. Like, what was she doing in the astral plane?

[B]

Her phone would not have a recording of her sleep talk. Mine would, but mine would not have the recording of the young girl. Outside of that weird shit, our sound recordings were perfectly synced. I recall listening together and realizing how.

[A]

Outside of the fact that they're not perfectly synced. They're perfectly synced.

[B]

Yeah. Outside of all the paranormal activity happening in the recording, everything else was normal.

[A]

Oh my God.

[B]

The dead space was matched.

[A]

Yeah. Geez.

[B]

There aren't really any words for the feeling. But we knew we were in some deep shots. Basically, Anya was significantly more afflicted at this time. Consistent nightmares, sleep paralysis, insomnia, losing time, etc.

[A]

Oh, geez.

[B]

Without being touched, the electronics in the house would turn on or off or even fry from the inside out. Beyond repair is all I knew. And because of this, we lost a perfectly good Sims 3 save file. No, we were devastated.

[A]

I'm so sorry. That's the biggest loss.

[B]

It's such a loss. That's when you know with paranormal. Really, you have a problem.

[A]

Yeah. You gotta fix this.

[B]

You're messing with your Sims game. Her mother had hung some dinner plants on display for years with no incident. Yet all of those started to fall off the walls simultaneously. We are not in an earthquake zone. Very rarely have we ever had small tremors in this area. Nothing significant.

[A]

Why is that so similar to Bean's story? The like earthquake.

[B]

Yeah. Feeling the earthquake going through the bathroom. Yeah. The kitchen blender was once randomly and visibly infested with tapeworms, even though it had been in use and adequately washed within the last couple days at most. Anya's dad was and is a health buff. Always making sure to have protein shakes or whatever. Yet when we saw this, Anya's parents threw it out. Blamed cheap manufacturing or something like that.

[A]

Yeah, it's cheap manufacturing. Causes worms.

[B]

It could have been the case, I guess, but that is not the thought that was crossing our minds for sure. Finally, a consistent route would take me and my parents past Anya's home. As we drove by, I would see the shadow of a tall man standing in the front room. I once texted Tanya asking if I could come over, figuring that I had just seen her dad in the living room so she should be at home. And she replied that they were all out at dinner. No one was home.

[A]

Also, the fact that it was like at the window makes me think that it knew that El was going through or going by at that moment, watching.

[B]

Oh, I saw that figure in the window. I saw it several more times, but I never texted Anya with that assumption again. I'm sure I'm neglecting several of the fun details. And after a while it became so normal that we would actually laugh about it. Rather without ever having lived there. It seemed like we both were picking up the Appalachia mentality. Like here's something. No you don't. Not sure what's better or worse for this enclosed space by the end, but to continue this, this had been going on for maybe six months to a year. The house wasn't consistent. Yeah, the house wasn't consistently chaotic with paranormal shit. Most days were just fine so long as you didn't venture out late at night. Anya and I stopped messing around with the paranormal after the Queen of Spades incident. And then one night, Anya, Charlotte, Marnie and I had a sleepover at the house. Probably had the power in numbers mentality with the genius plan that we came up with and confirmed it does not work on ghosts. Instead, this night resulted in the last paranormal event of note that I experienced in this home. And it was terrifyingly the most concrete. We were piled in Anya's front living room in the early morning hours. We had been at our frequented roller skating rink and always stayed until the midnight close. The living room had a full sized couch which Anya had sprawled out on. Marnie slept in the smaller couch slash love seat that met with the long couch at the corner and created this sort of like L shape with the two edges of the room. The TV was located opposite of the large couch against another wall. And then finally Charlotte and I were set up on the floor with our sleeping bags, with me located at the base of the large couch and Charlotte laying next to the TV stand for additional perspective. The small couch faced an archway with a view of a dark entryway and some walkways within the home. Anya's parents bedroom was across from this entryway and they didn't like the bright lights on because it would shine underneath their door. So because of that there were no lights on at night. Terrific.

[A]

Great.

[B]

Thankfully, Marnie was a paranormal skeptic, so it didn't really bother her to face that space. Charlotte also opted to face towards the archway. Didn't seem to bother her either. Of course, Anya and I chose to definitely face away from it. Anything to not directly engage with the liminal ghost space. Anya and I have always been night owls. I think that neither of us really slept easy since creating our perpetual creepy bs Figures that we'd both be awake late at night. I don't remember what was on tv, but we were joking and actively watching it for some time. Marnie and Charlotte had quickly fallen asleep and they had stayed snoozing. Eventually, Anya and I decided that we were never going to sleep with a show on, so we did need to turn it off or we were going to witness the sunrise. At this rate, with a sideways glance we both agreed to the dark and the silence that this would bring, along with whatever fresh hell this house was about to cook up for us. The feeling that.

[A]

The dread that they're feeling. They know that once the TV is.

[B]

Off and then when you turn the TV off and there's like that like staticky reflection. Oh, I wouldn't. I need my eyes closed before it turns off. The feeling that always hung over me when staying there became tangible instantly. Like a set of eyes drilling a hole on the crown of my head. I knew that if I turn around, I would only see pitch black hallways from the house. So I just shut my eyes until I could finally find sleep. I never saw anything while I was in that house. I only would feel a presence. I no longer bothered to look. It would only keep me awake longer. Before the sunrise came, we were all torn from sleep by Charlotte. She was shaking Anya awake, saying that she just saw a man in the house. He was watching us from the entryway. She was crying, telling Anya everything, when suddenly a noise from the room. Marnie and I were both awake now as well. Someone turned on the small end table lamp and we all asked Charlotte to slow down because truly, what the hell, Really, I think at least Anya and I were kind of sort of pissed. I've mentioned the pranking accusations a few times and Charlotte was pretty much always the source of that assumption one way or the other. So this was not.

[A]

She's like crying and terrified. Yeah, and the lamp just turned on by itself.

[B]

I think they turned it on. Oh, she said someone turned on.

[A]

Oh yeah. I just imagine as someone being the.

[B]

Man, this was going way over the line. Nevertheless, we listened through her rushed words trying to explain that she saw a stranger watching us clinging to the alcove created by the archway at the entry of the room. And to be fair, street lights on the outside of the home are plausible to at least see a little bit so we weren't in total darkness the whole time. Meanwhile, we're glancing towards this now partially lit and totally vacant space that she's referring to. Not to mention you could hear a pin drop in the house outside of the sounds that Charlotte's voice was making. Of course, I'm somewhere between buying it due to recent horror house experience and just preparing for the most exaggerated eye roll possible. She continues explaining that she was making eye contact with a dark set of eyes belonging to a middle aged Caucasian man with short cropped hair. He was tall, he was slim, along with some in depth descriptions. I can't really recall that well. Overall it seemed like none of us knew anyone who fit this description. She elaborated on how this man steadily began to shift into view standing just outside of the archway. He didn't smile, he didn't make a noise, but rather he looked on edge, maybe somewhat hesitant I believe like he was walking on eggshells is how she described huh. Once he passed, like he was trying to be quiet. Uh huh. Once he passed the archway, he stood in place as he slunk down to the carpet and then proceeded to slowly army crawl to where Charlotte and I were located on the floor.

[A]

I'm so this is horrifying.

[B]

She could not move. I. I like literally have chills. This is not where I thought I was going. She said she could not move, she could not speak, she could only watch as none of us even stirred in our sleep. Worst of all, she said that he crawled up to her until he was face to face. She could feel his breath as he took a sharp inhale and screamed wake up. In that moment he was gone. She was free to move and observe all of us sleeping around her in the exact positions that she saw while the man was present. She leaned over my leg, shook Anya awake, and the rest is now what we knew at the moment. Charlotte told us this. Anya and I locked eyes, both of us understanding and having a question. I reached for my phone, she reached for hers. Anya hadn't set her Sleepbot app to record before she slept. I remember her looking almost distraught at this. She was the one that had to live Here, So it was understandable. To me, at least. I pulled my cell phone out from beneath the sleeping bag and I took a breath. The screen lit up and showed my Sleep Bot had been recording. Maybe there was something to back up Charlotte's story. Truly, I think both Anya and I kind of wanted someone else to experience what we had been experiencing. Even though that's pretty messed up. Charlotte and Marnie didn't know about Sleep Bot. They didn't visit Anya's house that much. They didn't really respond to the energy of the house when they were there.

[A]

And they were not there the night that Anya played Queen of Spades.

[B]

Right. But Anya had told Charlotte some stories, resulting in some less than funny pranks, of course.

[A]

Right. So I understand why they're like dubious of Charlotte.

[B]

So we were kind of keeping them out of the loop after that. So Sleep Bot kind of felt like a trick up our sleeve. Instead of the usual demonic voices. I would hear Charlotte and Marnie giggle beforehand, maybe waking up earlier, hatching the plot, unlocking her phone, recording a hilarious upcoming event, etc. I was probably smirking as I skipped through about an hour of the recording, hearing the tossing blankets, the snoring, all while Marnie and Charlotte were matching looks of confusion. And then I swipe up to a recording. A little past 4am the sound begins to play on the speaker. I click the volume up a few notches. Static filled silence. And then we all heard him.

[A]

No.

[B]

Just as Charlotte described. No movement was heard, only the two words and a shout so loud it rattled my speakers. His voice was deep and hoarse. I can still hear it to this day. The question that hung in the room was obvious. How did the sound not wake anyone else up, including Anya's two parents? The relevant sound recording finished.

[A]

And I so wish they still had this. Even though it's horrifying, I know.

[B]

And with what we knew, there was nothing else out of the ordinary. And that was that. I don't remember what, if anything, was said by us, but we definitely didn't sleep again that night. We just moved into the other living room with our blankets, turned on every light and put the TV on.

[A]

Okay. Cause at first when I think of this, me wanting to find some positive thing, but even though I know that's not what's here, the wake up is like, wake up, like something's gonna happen. And I think of like the terrifying moments where like cars drive through living rooms and like things like that.

[B]

Oh yeah.

[A]

But I don't think it was a warning. I want to wake you up and terrify you.

[B]

It is so scary though. Like him, the amount of effort it.

[A]

Took him to the army crawl.

[B]

Yeah, get over. Not long after, Anya told her parents about the website and the games, knowing that her mom would have the church send someone over to pray and to bless the house. And this is exactly what happened. The prayers and blessings seemed to help Anya and her family a great deal. And consider me a neutral party in this regard because I don't really assume shit about any of this and I don't align with anyone faith only that it was significant. But we burned everything that we used for that stupid game in her bonfire pit, right down to the Queen of Spades playing card.

[A]

What about the mirror?

[B]

I know that's her like whole vanity.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Added some holy water too for the hell of it. And I did continue to hang out and sleep over at Anya's house for the years. I still don't feel quite right in there. We agreed to give it all validation as just being a bad vibe and never touch any demonic ghost creepy shit ever again. However, for some time we wondered about the man that Charlotte saw, or rather heard that night. Yeah. Specifically how, in many ways, he was described by Charlotte as perhaps a military soldier. We found this interesting thinking about how soldiers can sometimes be portrayed and act as protective figures. We were grasping at straws here. Right? Well, probably. Definitely.

[A]

Well, you want to believe it was protective.

[B]

Yeah. Additionally, he didn't smile, he didn't act maliciously. He hadn't been heard or at least clearly on any prior recording. He snuck into the room just to wake us up. It was totally creepy in method, but in reflection, physically harmless. I suppose. So perhaps his intention was maybe just to shock Charlotte or to feed off of your fear. Yeah. Anya and I pondered for a while as to whether he was perhaps saving us from another entity within the house. Such as the little girl that was haunting Anya in her sleep. I think in the end, that was her belief. I find that most comforting in conclusion as well. But yeah, just don't mess with shit. It isn't worth it. From Elle.

[A]

Yeah, no, that's horrifying. I was just looking up the Queen of Spades game now and it does seem like it became really popular in like 2020. So I think some, like, iterations have changed. But you are supposed to draw a door and stairs with red lipstick on the mirror. But it's supposed to bring back, like the way that Elle described the. That Anya saw, like, a woman behind her. Yeah, it does say that there's Supposed to be, like a witch lady, an evil entity, but that also absorbs negative energy.

[B]

Interesting. But, like, she was holding a dagger to.

[A]

I know that part's horrifying. But then, like, afterwards, like, the little girl and this man are so different from what she saw in the mirror.

[B]

Yeah, true. I'm just glad that Anya had the. The thought and was able to, like, take the action in her fear of acting as soon as the woman looked away. Contact. Because what if she never did? Like, how long are you staying staring?

[A]

Anya would have become the lady.

[B]

It's so creepy.

[A]

It's so creepy.

[B]

And it's also like, El didn't see anything in the mirror. Felt someone coming in, like, felt an intruder.

[A]

I'm so curious, like, where's Charlotte and Marnie now? Because, like, they're not close anymore, but Marnie and Charlotte are off telling these, like, horrifying stories from their perspective. Like, one night I was having a.

[B]

Sleepover and something, like, crawled towards me and one girl was recording. It would be so confusing, too, to, like, as an adult, be like, oh, well, that was my memory. And then someone had a recording of it and then be like, well, were they pranking me?

[A]

Right.

[B]

Not knowing the history that these girls had in this house.

[A]

Terrifying.

[B]

Creepy.

[A]

So play your paranormal games, follow the rules if you dare, and email us.

[B]

I do. Girls one ghost podcast at Dream Mother.

[A]

I forgot about that. Yeah, it's also in the show notes, in the description on our website. It's literally.

[B]

Yeah, you can find it. It's not hard.

[A]

You can also get episodes one week early and ad free on Patreon or Apple plus subscription. But if you do join Patreon, there's so many other bonuses there, like book club, campfire stories, witch classes. Lots of fun things.

[B]

Yes. And our next book club will be in March, so if you join now, you'll have plenty of time to read the book. Yes. Shout out to Jamie and Emma for producing our podcast. Thank you guys for being on our team.

[A]

We love you and we love all.

[B]

Of you, and we will see you on the other side.

[A]

Very spooky.

[B]

Thanks for listening.

[A]

We love to hear your stories and your feedback. So we have a little survey for you. Please visit two Goggles fans to take our listener survey. That's the number two, the letter G. O, G Fans to take our listener survey.