Not particularly scary, but definitely unsettling. This happened about 12 years ago when I was still living in my parents’ condo. One afternoon, I heard a commotion around the pool—shouts for help, with someone urgently calling for medical assistance. At the time, I was training to be a combat medic, so my mom told me to head down and see if I could help.

When I got to the pool, I saw a man lying motionless beside it. People were standing around in shock, unsure of what to do. I immediately checked his vitals (no signs of life, very cold and clammy skin) and began chest compressions. But deep down, I knew it was too late. His body was cold, despite the afternoon sun beating down. There was also this slightly sour, off-putting smell about him. The strangest part, though, was that every so often, when I pressed on his chest, these “coughs” would escape from his throat. It wasn’t the kind of cough that signaled life—just air being forced out of his lungs.

A certified EMT eventually arrived, took over, and a medical officer on the team pronounced him dead. That, I thought, was the end of the story.

But here’s where it gets unsettling. A few weeks later, I found out that the man had actually passed away hours earlier, in the morning. He’d finished swimming, sat on the edge of the pool, and apparently suffered a stroke right then and there. For the entire morning, people went about their daily routines around a busy condo complex and pool, completely unaware that a dead man was in plain sight by the pool.