The tale you are about to read is an experience past and present. It is up to you, dear reader, whether you choose to believe these accounts. That said, it won’t even matter to me as I know they happened and that is all I’ll ever need.
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(Philippines) Some say the Visayan region have the most stories to tell when it comes to paranormal occurrences and while this is perhaps true, my account as a Mindanaon was much different.
I was perhaps four or five when I came face to face with night creatures. I remember running through the fields of my family’s plantation but never truly reaching the farthest wall for according to my grandmother you’ll never know what you might encounter and should you encounter an obstacle, would anyone hear you?
And so I didn’t go far, heeding her wish. Little did I know the unexpected would present itself close to home.
You see, there’s this Balete Tree (a Strangler Fig from the ficus family) and it was or still is — the biggest one I have come across even as an adult. This particular tree was enormous, tall; on the ground it is surrounded by wild purple trandescantia or Spiderwort. This tree definitely had a huge trunk and on it’s corner near a slope that nearly reached the side of a cliff to a river it had a man-sized opening that stood like a doorway. I remember, standing at 176 cm now, I stuck my head only to be greeted by an eerie hollow entryway.
Once, I shined a light in and discovered the hollowness branched out all the way to the top where no light could pass through and to what seemed like a bottomless end where I attempted to throw a pebble and never heard it drop. A good reason perhaps that flora grew in its path as any child could easily fall into who knows what.
I remember thinking the tree has not changed since we left for Manila when I was six, a year later after the event. The one long branch it has that pointed southeast still reached my former bedroom’s terrace.
Now, it was late in the evening and I was in in bed with my Mom when I felt there was someone else in the room.
I opened my eyes almost instantly and that’s when I saw it — them. They looked like humanoid cats to me, despite what anyone says.
Let me be clear that when I woke my Mom up she uttered one word, “Sigbin.” —as we laid there, I remember seeing more of them. In the ceiling, on the floor and walls; shadows lurked outside the capiz windows in the terrace as well.
Without a second thought, my Mom ran out to get a Santo Niño and laid it beside me. And just like that they were gone from our sight. For a few seconds at least. Because just as they disappeared, the sliding door to our downstairs living room slid open with a bang and according to my godfather who was staying in the guesthouse, there was something moving in the dark. He took out his gun (he was in the military) and fired a warning shot. Quickly, she switched the lights on and saw that there was no one there, the kitchen door was still closed and locked from the inside and according to his men who waited outside, no one ever came out. The whole house was then searched, no signs of anything or anyone. And so that event was put to rest.
It would take twelve years before I encountered one again.
I was seventeen at the time and was sleeping on a pullout bed. I had my feet propped up against the wall when I realized there was a shadow reflected on the bedroom wall sitting on the terrace bannister.
Call me crazy but I didn’t feel afraid then or would ever be, rather attached. I stood up and touched the shadow on the wall and felt nothing. So I opened the door to the terrace and sat next to it.
As I looked at my shadow from the outside. I felt the empty space where it would have been. I looked at the shadow again. I smiled and said, “Good night.” Then I went inside, closed the door, hopped onto the bed and propped my feet up again. I fell asleep looking at it as it began to playfully wag it’s tail…that was the last time I saw it.