“Don’t step on joss paper”, “come home early”, “don’t go swimming”, “say excuse me”. My grandparents and parents would remind me of this every time hungry ghost festival comes round. I have no recollection of this, but apparently this tale I’m about to tell made me quite the legend amongst my neighbors. I was 12 years old and living at Blk 627 Bedok Reservoir Road. Back in those days, the kampong spirit was strong with the community. Different families would take turns to organize an outing for the neighbourhood kids. One of these outing was a BBQ at East Coast Park, and as you might as guessed, this took place around the 7 month hungry ghost festival. It was around 5pm, I remember. While the adults were setting up the pit, the children were on the beach, being children. Being the gung ho one of the lot, I always had to have a one up on the rest of the kids. So when someone kicked the cheapo plastic ball into the sea, I was the first to swim out to get it. The more I swam, the further the ball went, until my feet were no longer touching the sand, and you could feel the difference in water temperature. That’s when I felt the cold wrapped around my ankle and tugged me downwards. Gently at first, as if my foot got trapped in a floating plastic bag. I started to get a little uneasy and wanted to swim back. But then the grip tightened and started pulling me downwards. I had the chance to take one full breath before my head went under. I reached down to untangle whatever it is that was pulling me and I felt fingers around my ankle. Close your eyes now and run your fingers over the back of your other hand, and observe how it feels. Distinct knuckles and fingers. That’s what it felt like. Except it was slimy. I screamed on instinct but water only filled my lungs even faster. I didn’t know how long I was in the water or which way was the surface anymore. The salt water stung my eyes. I just thrashed around blindly.