Goodreads asked Kamil Ali:

What mystery in your own life could be a plot for a book?

Kamil Ali At age fifteen, I had an encounter with the paranormal, when I attended the funeral of a deceased relative.

I stood over her body lying in the coffin and dared myself to do the unthinkable.

She had not liked me in life but this had not dissuaded me from an attempt at a spiritual connection in death. I gave her the opportunity to prove me wrong.

Too scared to glance at her eyes, I focused on her forehead and asked her to become my 'guardian', omitting the word, 'angel'.

The night of the funeral plunged me into terror-filled nightmares, which kicked off bizarre and frightening occurrences for the weeks and months that followed.

A dark shadow pressed its presence on my back and haunted me from the corners of my eyes during my waking hours, culminating in horror-filled nightmares, whenever I failed in my desperate fight to stay awake.

Fear of ridicule caused me to bottle up my outer-worldly experiences. Each attempt to cast her off invited severe reprisals. She became bolder and more vicious in her anger.

At the edge of sanity a few months later, I rode my bicycle to her grave and confronted her with threats of damnation to hell from the church, if she did not leave me alone.

I rode away from the cemetery with a sense of escape from her malevolent clutches.

I slept for twenty-four hours and awoke with a renewed sense of wellbeing.

She has never bothered me again.

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