The manga I was thinking about was Gyo:
This one gets kind of gruesome in terms of the art style at some points, but it still is kind of amusing to me. Also Kase you are a lot like me then; I'm thinking about paranormal type stuff like that quite often as well. It's my hobby I guess?
Otherwise I was thinking about it for a bit. There's very little that's actually truly scared me, if anything. I can't remember when I think back of a time when I was literally and actually scared by something. Disturbed maybe, but never
scared.
We'd always do stupid things that kids do, like go to the graveyard at night and such. My friends would always be too scared to get out of the car, but I'd get out and walk around. It's actually kind of beautiful, at least it was when we'd go, because most of the cemeteries were near rivers and in the right weather there'd be lightening bugs everywhere. It's quiet, and still, and I guess eerie but not really scary.
Not to mention thrilling. I LOVE the thrill I get from doing stuff like that. I feel more alive when I do I guess. Never scared, just "Oh wow, this is awesome".
Same thing when we'd go investigate old buildings and stuff. I remember staying at a friend's house in a very old, small town in the middle of nowhere. It was pretty much slowly petering out but there were still some old buildings from when it was a bigger town. One of them was an old church. We went at night but had no flash lights. I asked about the building and my friend said you could get in through the basement which was never locked. So of course we went. I couldn't get her to come in with me for ANYTHING but I went down those stairs and just waited 'til my eyes adjusted in the dark. It was kind of neat once I was down there.
We had some other experiences at her house another time in the same little town/village. That whole town was a bit fucked up.
I have LOTS of stories of going looking for trouble like that. And a few more stories of (maybe) finding trouble once in awhile. Like investigating an old house for a psychology project. Had a partner, and we claimed we were going to do a paranormal investigation, which our teacher allowed. But in secret I pitched my idea to him; I was going to experiment on how easy it was to influence others into believing places were haunted on my unsuspecting partner.
I went to the place alone during the day first. I wanted to be sure it was safe and that I knew the layout. It had been abandoned in a field for like 50 years. I get there, check the place out, and determine it's not structurally safe for us to be fucking around in at night. But just as I am leaving I swear I heard someone calling to me from upstairs, yelling down like you'd yell down to someone to get their attention. I stopped, took a picture, called back, but nothing was there. I've been back several times, never really had the same experience there. But, again... I have lots of others from other times and places, including my very recent Reiki I training, if anyone cares.
PS here's a picture of the house I was just talking about. These are the original pictures I took that year, scanned in from the prints I still have.
Here's the stairway at the front of the house as I was getting ready to leave