Redemption from curse

It was a long time ago. There was a place called Athens in ancient Greece. Athens is not an unfamiliar name to those who delve into history. More or less everyone in the history of the world has heard of its name. There was a small village in Athens, surrounded by mountains. In that village there was an old house in a forest. The house had been empty for a long time. It was a secluded mountainous area and the environment was surrounded by forests. However, even if there were no people in that house, the house was livable. It was such that if you wanted, you could clean the house and live in it.

The owner of that house, despite his best efforts, was unable to rent out his house to anyone. There was a lot of gossip in that village about the house, which was nestled in a secluded forest surrounded by mountains. Once, a peace-loving gentleman, unable to control his greed, rented the house for a few days to spend his vacation. But the next morning, the villagers found the man's body lying on the balcony of the house. At first glance, everyone took the matter as normal, but some of the people there who saw the man's body found the incident unusual. Even after death, there was an unusual fear in the man's eyes. It looked as if the man's eyes had been pushed out.

A few days after this incident, a soldier rented the house. He had recently returned from a war and rented the house for peace of mind. The man was incredibly brave. The man didn't die, but the experience he had of spending the night in that house was truly terrifying. As he was about to go to bed at night after eating, he heard the sound of something metal rubbing against each other and got out of bed to search for the source of the sound. Following the sound, he opened the main gate of the house and tried to look outside. He couldn't see anything properly due to the lack of light. In the light of the fire burning on the balcony, he saw a gray, human-shaped figure slowly approaching his house. The figure's hairy body and face were invisible. As the figure came closer, the soldier saw that it was an old man with his hands and feet bound in chains. The soldier now realized that the noise he had heard was caused by the figure walking while in chains. The figure, sensing the presence of the soldier, began to hum strangely. As the soldier held the torch high to get a better look at the figure, he saw a kind of mumbling sound coming from the mouth of that terrifying-looking old figure, and streams of fire were flowing from its eyes. Seeing all this, the soldier could not bear it any longer. The soldier did not die of fear, but he lost consciousness and fell to the ground. The next day, the soldier immediately left the house after regaining consciousness. After hearing everything from the soldier, panic spread throughout the village. Even during the day, no one from that village would set foot near that house. The house was labeled a 'haunted house' overnight.

The house's haunted reputation spread around, and since then, no one has wanted to rent it. Finally, the owner of the house wanted to sell his house cheaply. But who would buy it? Who would come to die at the hands of a ghost as a hobby? After much searching, the owner of the house found a buyer. At that time, a famous philosopher expressed interest in buying the house. Philosophers usually prefer secluded places. They love to analyze everything with logic and argument.

This philosopher had heard of the house being slandered by the people, but he didn't really believe in anything supernatural. The philosopher decided to buy the house. He would dispel the irrational belief in the fear of ghosts among people. He went to the owner of the house and told him about his desire to buy the house. The owner of the house had found heaven in his hands. He had assumed that such a haunted house would never be rented or sold. So, upon hearing the philosopher's offer, he immediately sold the house for a nominal price. Philosophers do not want to believe in anything that cannot be seen with the eyes, touched with the hands, or understood with the heart. The philosopher was a lonely man. He took all his belongings and moved into the house he had just bought. He had to do all the work himself because the house had such a bad reputation that no servant was willing to do any work, even if he was greedy for money.

It was a summer day. After a long day of hard work, the philosopher was quite tired, so he ate a little bread, meat, and coffee at night and threw his tired body on the bed. There was an old-fashioned window near his head. He kept it open. It didn't take long for the cool night air to lull his tired body to sleep. Suddenly, he was awakened by a strange noise and discomfort. When a person is suddenly awakened from a deep sleep, it takes time to come to his senses. It took the philosopher a while to understand the situation. He strained his ears and tried to understand the strange sound and discomfort. After some time, he realized that the sound was more like the sound of something metal rubbing against each other. Perhaps the candles in the house had gone out due to the wind. The room was filled with darkness. The sound was indistinct. It seemed to be coming closer and closer from a long distance. The philosophical gentleman slowly opened his eyes and looked. Only the sky was visible through the window near my head. The sky was indistinguishable. The color of the sky and the color of the room had become one. The philosophical gentleman, without getting out of bed, continued to try to understand what was happening around him. The air in the entire room had become still, creating a suffocating, stuffy atmosphere.

As time passed like this, and the darkness slowly receded, his gaze suddenly turned to the door of his room. He saw a vague shadow figure, shackled hand and foot, floating in the air, moving through the door of his room towards his bed. The philosopher was still lying on the bed, pretending to be asleep. The statue's eyes were blazing with fire. And the statue was waving its hands, trying to say something. The philosophical gentleman did not have much faith in anything supernatural. For the first time in his life, he was caught in such a situation and was overcome with a strange sense of wonder for a moment. He tried to understand, was it true that there was something supernatural or was some evil person deliberately dressing up like that, knowing that he lived here alone?

As he lay there, various arguments raged in his mind, he saw the shadowy figure, shackled at the wrists and ankles, floating in the air, circling his bed. Its eyes were still burning. The shadow figure was moving its arms and legs as if trying to tell the philosopher something. The room was filled with a sound like the moaning of a speechless animal, and as it moved its arms and legs, the clanking sound of the chains continued to make noise. A weak-hearted person would have died of fear by now. But when the philosopher saw that the shadow figure had not been doing him any particular harm for so long, he lay on the bed as he was, pretending to be asleep, and continued to observe the movements of the shadow figure. With a forest of beard and mustache on his face and a head full of rough hair, the shadow figure seemed quite hideous and terrifying. The unusually large fingernails were quite large and sharp. He did not believe in anything supernatural. He didn't believe that there were any unseen beings in the world. He believed that living thieves and robbers caused more harm to people than ghosts.

But now? What should he do now? While thinking of ways to protect himself from possible danger, the philosopher noticed that the shadow gradually began to retreat from his bed and eventually left the philosopher's room. Seeing the shadow figure retreating, the philosopher gentleman left his momentary stupor and got out of bed. Then he silently followed the shadow figure. The philosopher watched in amazement as the shadow figure slowly descended across the balcony. Then, right in the middle of the long courtyard in front of the house, it approached the forest and disappeared into the air in an instant. Many questions had sprouted in the philosopher's mind. Since it was late at night, he did not show much courage and went home to bed. He spent the rest of the night pondering the logic of what had happened.

As soon as the morning light broke, the philosopher gentleman went to the exact spot from which the shadow figure had disappeared the previous night and observed everything. But during the day, nothing seemed unusual to him. This house on the hill was quite far from the locality. Moreover, people did not come within the limits of this house due to its reputation as a ghost. In this secluded environment, the philosophical gentleman immersed himself in his own work. He almost forgot about that incorporeal and strange incident of the night and remained immersed in the world of books all day.

After dinner, he went to bed and remembered the incident of the previous night. But he did not pay much attention to the incident. He wondered what he had seen in his half-awake state due to excessive fatigue and worry. Although he did not fall asleep immediately after lying down, he fell into a deep sleep within a short time. Even though I dismissed everything as a fantasy due to my lack of fear, last night's events were repeated tonight. Even the next night, the same thing happened. For three consecutive nights, the same shadowy figure appeared, and the same movement of its hands and feet, and its disappearance in the same place in the courtyard, made the philosopher very worried. Finally, on the morning of the fourth day, the philosopher could no longer dismiss everything as mere imagination. He began to form a thousand questions in his mind and search for answers to them. He thought that the shadow figure was not harming him, that it was trying to say something. It was trying to explain something. And what attracted him most was the way that the shadow figure disappeared into the wind every night in that particular spot in the courtyard. The philosopher found that spot quite significant.

The philosopher did not stay at home anymore. When he went to the city, he first contacted the local magistrate. He told him everything. If it had been anyone else, the magistrate would have dismissed it as the delirium of a madman. But this philosopher was a very famous man. So the magistrate could not dismiss his words lightly. Without delay, he returned to the new house that the philosopher had bought with several workers. They started observing the exact spot in the yard where the shadow figure had disappeared for the past three nights. The workers started digging in several possible places. At one point in the digging, a worker's spade hit a metal object. Everyone, including the philosopher magistrate, came and dug in. After digging a few feet under the ground, they found a complete human skeleton, its hands and feet bound with chains. The chains were thick with rust. The philosopher stared at the skeleton in amazement. It was the skeleton of the shadow figure that had been trying to tell him something for the past three nights.

The philosopher never believed in ghosts. But after witnessing all the events, his astonishment knew no bounds. The magistrate was a religious man, and on his advice, the priest of the local church was called and the skeleton was properly buried according to religious rules. After the skeleton was buried according to religious rites, the shadowy figure never appeared in the house again. After this incident, the philosopher lived in that house for many days. He never saw anything else. He spent a long time searching for answers to what had happened to him. He also tried to find out the identity of the skeleton. Although no one in the village could say anything properly, the philosopher heard from a very old man in the village that the skeleton he had found belonged to an old slave who had worked in that house long ago. The owner of that house used to keep the old slave shackled in that way for minor offenses. Suddenly, the old slave was no longer seen in that house. The owner of the house reported that the old slave had run away with his valuable things. But many people said that the owner of that house tortured the old slave while he was chained hand and foot, and then buried him in a corner of the yard of that house, half dead.

Even after death, souls continue to come and go in this world. And if that soul is dissatisfied, it wants to appear to humans in a disembodied form. Perhaps that dissatisfied soul is looking for a way to peaceful escape.