Do you know what a Kapre is?
The term came from Arabic. (Kah-preh) Which translates to “Captured/Enslaved. An entity that manifested itself during the horrors of slavery that transpired during the Japanese occupation in the Philippines in WWII. Kapre are well known as a gigantic humanoid and had a dark skinned, red-eyed feature. It is believed that this being came from African slaves that were abused and murdered then soon buried through all over the Philippines.
Tonight, I’ll tell you a tale that’s more sinister than that.
It’s a story about a young man figuring out his own ways in the world until he saw the “thing” that’s lurking in the dark.
This creature may be unfamiliar to you but to me, this has always been the nightmare of my dreams.
I call it “Jana”.
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There I was in my teenage years, living the life every teenager. Dropping out of high school on my first year was the best decision in my life. You see, I was bullied in gradeschool.. For being always sick and being fat.
I was never the type to stand out and maybe that’s the reason I never got to know anybody well.
Having to move into a public high school changed my life forever. But this is also the start of my own haunting.
You see, entities that inhabits beneath the earth tend to get attracted to innocent creatures. It doesn’t matter what they are, what does matter is what would lead them in diabolical possession.
Here in a small town of White Florida, there’s a saying with the older folks that “Teens are the ones likely to be possessed by demons”. Being the teenager that I am at 12 yrs old, I was always scared of ghosts and seeing apparitions. But that never happened.
It was something far worse that showed up.
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It was my old home at *redacted * San Antonio ST.
There we live in a small hut. A literally Kubo at the time, but wasn’t too shabby. It was a simple life actually the only the you need to look out for here is the dark.
When my uncle bought this land some 30 years ago, people would often encounter entities that were beyond facts or entities that hasn’t been discovered yet.
One thing for sure. They show up in the darkest of nights.
Boy they sure love the dark I tell ya. It ain’t something you can see for yourself when you look at a dark corner.
But you can tell there’s them.
Staring back at you.
One peacefully quiet night, My mom was preparing for dinner while I was playing out a game called “Dragon Nest”. It was in the early 2013’s. Busy as I was, I got called by her to do some of her bidding.
She wants me to feed our dog Chank.
This was before dogs in the country had mandatory leash. So they pretty much roam everywhere they want at the time.
Now our dog Chank was a very peculiar dog.
He never comes home unless, it’s time for dinner.
Here in our small town, he always and would always get all the female dogs impregnated. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was the reason behind the growing population of stray dogs in our community.
But I gotta say, he was one loyal dog. If there ever was something lurking outside our home, he would just jump out at the man and bite him.
No warning barks.
If that ever that word exist. It’s exactly just like that.
No barks, all bite.
Roaming around one night, he went home to fetch some food. My mom heard him scratching over the door again so she called for me to get some food for his dinner.
Food scraps.
Okay. If I was a dog having foods scraps for dinner? I wouldn’t stay at home too. But that’s like life here in the Philippines. We use dogs for security, not a pedigree for show.
Y’know this dog is very brilliant, he could just fetch some chicken from the hood and nobody would suspect a thing. But on that particular night, he chose to stay.
Specifically, in front of our doorstep.
-“Chank!”
-“Where you buddy”
I was calling out for him at the dark. Just to let you know, this part of the town had issues with illumination. They got less light bulb going around here than houses. So yeah.
Finally after a few while I heard some small footsteps walking on the dirt. Sooner than later his figure started showing up.
-“Hey where’d you come from buddy”
-“You getting all the girls lately huh”
I liked talking to him like date. Seems to cheer me up whenever he tries to come forward and wags his tails so wildly that it might fly-off somewhere or hit somebody with it and leave a mark.
-“C’mere man”
-“Got you some food to eat, now you don’t give it to pussies like last time. It’s chicken this time”.
Delighted, my dog devoured it like he’s been gone for days.
I was just about to head back. Right beside the luminous rays of light coming out from our neighbors.. I saw a figure.
A small figure of a child that’s really familiar.
You know that doll chucky?
That description is an understatement of it.
2 and a half feet in height, Curly white hair wearing a one piece hilly Billy-type costume, the skin complexion is as dark as the darkest black I’ve ever seen. As if it’s absorbing the light around it.
It wasn’t the scary part. What really shook me was that, all this time it was staring right at me. At the very moment I was feeding the dog and throwing some quirky remarks at him. It was… listening.
And when I stared back, it run. Faster than it’s two little legs would take. It’s like seeing a Goddam horror movie. But the only difference is that, I’m the victim this time.
In shock, I decided to reason with my self. So I chased after it until I lost it somewhere around some clearing in the woods. I even remembered that that figure was actually the same height as my 2 years old niece Jana.
So I called out her name.
-“Jana!”
-“Sweetie, it’s me your Tito”
After a few moments of waiting,
There was no response. It was all silent.
I was about to head back but then I saw it’s head peeking out on a tree a few meters in front of me.
Having a closer look, it looks like a baby with red eyes and it looked mad angry as it’s eyes was straight out glaring at me ready to pounce. At any moment.
From then and there I ran. Being a big kid at 5’7, I was still screaming for my mom.
Snot on my nose dripping as a hurriedly try to get back inside the house.
My mom was inviting me for dinner but when she saw me her complexion became stern.
-“Lou, what happened?”
In a panic, I just ran passed by her without saying anything. Entering my room, I covered all the windows and lit up all the lights.
“Ma, itang Chucky atsu ya!”
(“Mom, chucky is here!”).
It wasn’t a warning, but it’s literally running on-and-off just outside the window! It’s like a never ending marathon of small footsteps stomping and jumping around as if there was a playground in that place.
The footsteps stopped around midnight. Pretty much I was shaken up and didn’t bother looking to check if it was still there. I didn’t man-
I didn’t know what it was.
The silence was so terrifying I stayed up all night.
Only falling asleep til it was morning.
The next day, I started telling the neighbors about it.
They told me, they did heard footsteps just right outside their windows too. Now my neighbors sleeps at the 2nd floor of their house. Yet they still heard it. Now it just means it was pretty loud for small footsteps.
It was toying with us. My Nana said:
“Long time ago, this place was the nests of all enchanted creatures”.
“But there was a great fire started by people who were devote Christians that considers other entities as devils. Soon enough, their hate becomes hostility. They burned all the trees along with it, themagical creatures that resides there got caught in the great fire”.
“There was a moment of stale silence after the fire died out. But night after night there has bee gradually rising encounters with dark furred and dark skinned entities that shares the figure of both man and beasts”.
“From that day on, this land was cursed. Cursed by the entities that haunts this land”.
-“Is there no way of stopping their hauntings Nana?”
I asked but I only saw her swaying her head in defeat.
From that day and onwards, every night. I’d hear foot steps outside my window.
It never stopped until we moved out.
-Fin