George had always been told his birth was bittersweet. Towards the end of his mother’s pregnancy, she became seriously ill. It was feared both she and George would not survive.

Indeed, at the stroke of midnight, before George’s birth, his mother sadly passed away. George had remained alive -just barely- and was able to be delivered.

Despite this, George was, for the most part, a happy, healthy child. His maternal grandmother, however, felt he had a connection to ‘the other side’ as she called it. She was a spiritual woman who believed George’s soul may have been mistaken as passing on with the death of his mother. This meant George was caught between different realms.

Most people dismissed the idea as a desperate attempt to attach meaning to George’s mother’s untimely death. Still, opinions started to change one morning when George ran inside hysterically crying after being greeted by his next door neighbour. George, only being 4 years old, tried to articulate what he saw as the ‘scary shadow people’ following his neighbour around.

It wasn’t until the next day when this neighbour dropped dead of a sudden heart attack that people really took notice. Some, in particular George’s grandmother, believed he was able to sense impending death.

Over time the fears of most faded away. After all, various people around George had died without George having any expectation of it. This included his own grandmother, who took ill and passed away without George seeing any sign on the shadow people.

George only saw the shadow people on a couple of occasions. Since his neighbour they all appeared following total strangers, meaning no one knew what happened to them.

Then one day, shortly before George’s 10th birthday, he saw the shadow people again. This time, they surrounded his father. George was too terrified to come near his father, who found the entire fiasco extremely frustrating. He angrily told George off for being so silly. Why should he expect to die now, when George had witnessed others die without seeing the shadow creatures? ‘Because’ George replied, tearily, ‘they went somewhere different. I think they know you poisoned mummy’.