The kampung alley behind Block 17 stank of burnt
oil and wet concrete when the power failed. Not
the usual flicker—this was a full collapse, like
the world had been unplugged. Mr. Lim, who ran
the fried mutton rice stall since ’46, felt the
air thicken. His hands trembled as he lit a
tallow candle. Then the stall beside him—empty,
always empty—shimmered.
He stepped back. The man who emerged wore a
faded blue shirt with a broken collar, no shoes,
and eyes that saw through walls. When the man
spoke, it wasn’t sound but pressure against the
eardrums: You owe me.
Mr. Lim didn’t speak. He just stared. The ghost
leaned into the counter, hand pressing flat on
the cracked tile where his own stall’s money box
once sat. A dent appeared—deep, unnatural. That
night, the ghost took his place.
By morning, Mr. Lim woke in the HDB basement,
tied to a pipe, barefoot, shirt torn. His left
hand bore a fresh burn: a crescent moon branded
into the skin. No one heard his cries. The
building had gone quiet, not from fear—but
because everyone else had already forgotten him.
He remembered the war. The year the Japanese
came. How he’d stolen rice from a dead soldier’s
pack, then buried the man in the backyard
without a name. He’d never told anyone. Not even
his wife.
Now, the ghost returned every dusk. It didn’t
eat. It only watched. And each time, Mr. Lim’s
memory sharpened—the smell of charred uniforms,
the weight of the shovel, the way the soil
swallowed the body whole.
On the third night, he tried to run. The stairs
led nowhere. The lift door opened into a wall.
The ghost stood before him in the stairwell,
pointing down.
Below, in the old drainage shaft, lay the
skeleton. Wrapped in a blue shirt, fingers
clutching a rusted spoon.
Mr. Lim screamed. But the sound didn’t leave his
mouth. It echoed from inside the walls.
At dawn, the power surged back. The ghost
vanished. The stall reopened. No one noticed the
new owner—a quiet man in a clean apron, serving
rice with perfect timing.
But when the rain fell later, the tiles beneath
the stall wept black oil. And the brand on Mr.
Lim’s hand pulsed warm.
He knew now: he hadn’t escaped. He’d become the
debt.
The stall still runs. The ghost still serves.
And the city forgets what it cost to be free.
