So, this is the very first story that I share.
To put it all in context, I was around 8-9 years old and I was a Christian. I was in Madagascar and over there, we have a lot of beliefs that can sometimes seem irrational.
We have people who openly pray to Satan, so it’s not something I’m particularly afraid of.
But being raised in Christianity, I had quite an offensive mind with all things paranormal, demonic and satanic etc.
For example, I pissed on a sacred place where one of the rules was precisely not to have the right to urinate in the place.
But that’s just the context, the story isn’t there.
Every Wednesday we went to church around 7-9 p.m. to pray. At certain seasons of the year it was already dark at 7 p.m., but with my friends there were many of us so it was always fun and quite easy to cross 2km in the dark. I should point out that we lived in a village where there were no streetlights and even having a torch was rare. But that night we had a torch.
During the way, there is a moment when you pass next to a forest but you don’t enter it, you just walk along it. It is a path that is between a 7ft wall and a forest.
We hear the sounds of kids coming from the forest screaming and we too being kids are screaming back.
During the day, it very often happens that we argue while shouting with other children who are behind the wall, these are children who work in agriculture and they protect themselves to avoid theft and looting which is very common in Madagascar.
So that night we’re just doing what we’re used to doing, until I remark “But wait, that’s from the forest there? It’s not from behind the wall anymore.. .”
At this moment we stop dead, and without speaking we look at each other, we were 4, and I added “And usually it’s daytime… Bruno is sleeping right now” (Bruno is the name of one of the children on the other side of the wall).
One of my friends laughs about it and says that we have to relax, it’s not just Bruno who is fun in life, he says “The proof, he shouts “Heeeeeey”, a child’s voice answers “Heeeeeey “.
There, several characters present themselves, one does not understand, another is curious, me, one laughs and the last is afraid.
I start screaming myself, I don’t know what I screamed but I screamed, and a voice answers, and my friends do it too, but, it doesn’t take long to notice that he there are several voices crying out. And after a minute we realize that each of us has different “echoes”, as if 4 children were shouting behind, paying attention to which voice is shouting, repeating exactly what we say.
I who am convinced that it is paranormal, I voluntarily shout a word but very badly pronounced, it was impossible to recognize what word it was, even my friends did not know, but the voice which shouted in return said it very clearly. And we tried to do that for 2 or 3 minutes to see if they really understood everything, but we were children so we were really just having fun with the voice of the forest. We were all convinced that it was children but we were intrigued because we didn’t recognize the voices, the village is quite small, we all know each other among children.
There are indeed houses on the other side of the forest but we do not recognize any voices.
At one point we are afraid of being late to pray so we leave, and on the way back, 9 p.m., it was certain that it was late but it was the perfect opportunity to confirm that it was good of the paranormal. The idea was to shout only once, if it responds with the right voice then it’s supernatural, impossible that the children have waited two hours ready to shout and especially that they are still awake.
Unfortunately we couldn’t test because my grandfather was coming home with us and we simply can’t shout at 9 p.m. when my grandfather, an adult, is with us. But one of my friends did it anyway, and of course, it answered, same voice, in a very reactive way, and above all very loud and very clear. We were all scared, we didn’t have time to think about it immediately, but only with hindsight we noticed that my grandfather was yelling at us as if he hadn’t heard the child of the forest answer.
That same night I dreamed that a woman had died in a tree trunk and that was what caused the screaming, but when I woke up I found that it made no sense.
And the following noon, we learned that a lady had died in THE same forest. And then I don’t know why my brain erased all memories after that moment.