The tale you’re about to read is an experience of the 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 they will be remembered, not fondly, but still.
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Some say the 7th Region have the most stories to tell when it comes to paranormal occurrences and while this is perhaps true, my account as someone from the 9th 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 something similar happen, would anyone hear you?
And so I didn’t go far. Little did I know the unexpected would present itself close to home.
You see, there’s this Strangler Fig 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 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 was an opening like a doorway of sorts.
I remember, standing at 176 cm now, I stuck my head only to be greeted by an eerie hollow entryway. 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 the Capital, 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 shadows of humanoid cats to me, despite what anyone says. I woke my Mom up and grew pale as she uttered one word, “Sigbin.” —as we laid there, I remember seeing more of them. They were everywhere. Everywhere where the shadows could reach.
Without a second thought, my Mom ran out to get a totem, laid it beside me and just as quickly, they were gone from our sight. For a few seconds at least. 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, something moving in the dark that night. It didn’t appear to have any company, but it appeared larger than a leopard.
As he was in the military, he took out his gun and fired warning shots. Quickly, he 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 be acceptable, I suppose, to insinuate that the whole thing happened in a dream. But you see, my godfather fired and those bullets would’ve seemingly hit something; anything really. But the oddest occurrence was that it didn’t. The bullets were found pointing up, on the floor. Not grazed by the pressure from the gun.
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 feeling afraid was the least of my problems, there was a sense of familiarity as I stood up and touched the shadow on the wall. 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. I think.
Suffice to say, I grew up not ever seeing the creature upfront. I met a Santería practitioner once who said a creature strayed from it’s herd and had grown fond of me. I honestly found this creepy, I sensed even then that not being able to see the creature again didn’t mean it wasn’t there. The Babalorisha continued by saying, quite fondly, that I had one foot further across the threshold, further it seemed as I survived a a near-death drowning where I passed out and somehow ended up on the shore. No water in the lungs, not a scar on sight.
He described how when my senses tell me someone was watching me, the sensing was usually right and it wasn’t so much as being paranoid. Something was indeed in the room. At this moment, he recalled of the mother and child, the werehorse and the Maligno (a malignant) a memory, of other Shadow Folk, I had long suppressed.
To get these parts in order, we’ll start with the Werehorse.
I almost soiled my PJs when I saw the cloven hoofs walk the carpeted hall that led to my room. I remembered as much. Unlike most tales in Philippine Folklore, the one I saw towered the archway that led to the hall. The hair on my nape began to rise as it got closer. I knew there was no other exit. The windows had bars on them and even with my lanky physique, if I managed to get past the windows, where would I go? The garden was a far greater territory to other beings than our house.
I watched frantically as it grew closer with every step. It stopped by the archway and thinking that was the end of it because somehow I thought these things would just magically disappear in a whim; I pulled the blanket down to stare at it further and that’s when I realized the hand that was resting on vertices of the arch.
What followed was a darkened figure, too dark to even make out where the eyes were. I could definitely make out the shape of the face and the elongated hair, never mind the slight stench emanating from every corner of the room. Then one hoof stepped forward and I fainted.
Waking up to find everything was still the following morning was sort of calming. I walked over to where the hand would’ve been last night but there was only a slight handprint that seemed to dissipate as the minutes passed, soon I’d be staring at nothing and no amount of stench lingered that day.
In the back of my mind however, I knew this was far from over…
It was about four in the morning that I woke to find someone sitting on the daybed in my parents’ bedroom. My mother had just brought home my newborn sister and I took it upon myself to watch over her as they slept in. It was August and was a rather stormy one that classes had to be postponed and so I had plenty of time to be the doting brother that I was made out to be.
I’m not exactly sure why I woke, but the Babalorisha recalled that I somehow just knew that I should.
That evening was unbearably still, the heavy rain had begun to rest but there I stood looking down on my sister when I noticed a figure on my peripheral vision. There was a sense of panic in my chest, a panic that seemed to increase as I turned my head toward the dark figure that sat not more than six feet away from me.
At first, I didn’t fear its presence. I inched closer to get a better look as I called out to it. “Mom?” I asked and got no response. The wind instead blew a part of her hair but received no movement in return, I sat by her side and from her profile she appeared younger than my mother. That’s when I noticed she was holding an infant whose face I also could not see.
I panicked. Just minutes ago I was looking at my sister and now here was an infant who could may as well be her, but in two places at once?!
I ran to the crib and there she lay perfectly still. So who was—?
I saw her move.
Like in one of those horror films, the blurred peripheral image began to move toward me. I couldn’t move. I just stared at my sister and prayed this what a dream, but how could it? My subconscious spoke to me — when this has happened before? I didn’t want to think anymore. She reached out her hand toward me and inched closer. The seconds seemed to last forever so I closed my eyes, that’s when I felt her hand on my shoulder and all I could muster was a whimper. “A****” she called out.
“A****, go back to bed.” It was my mother. I opened my eyes with a sigh of relief and turned to face her only it wasn’t her. No one was there. My mom was still asleep and I was the only one awake that morning. I frantically looked around and saw nothing, so I sat down to calm myself.
I had awoken to find myself on the living room couch. How I got there was beyond me and when I told my Mom about it she said I’d been dreaming and sleepwalked through it.
Later that day as I walked our dog with the maid did we overhear a group of people mentioning the drowning of a woman nearby, she had washed up on the river about three blocks from our house.
They said she was pregnant.
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I was about nine years old when I joined Boy Scouts, it wasn’t something I wanted. I hated the outdoors and my parents would find any excuse just to get me out of the house.
The 4th Region was a fertile land of lush greenery and the mentors decided to take us way up the mountains where the trees grew tallest. I don’t remember much from that day except for what happened the following evening.
As always, after a gathering of sorts we were herded to a site where food was being served and I was, being the tallest in my unit, at the end of a very long line.
I remembered the moon being full that night, it appeared nearly orange.
I was standing beside a tall Strangler Fig Tree when I felt the hair on my nape begin to rise but this time it was accompanied by a deafening white noise as if the bugs in that forest grew silent. I sensed and feared a predator was afoot but I didn’t see anything.
Then the white noise stopped and I heard a creaking sound. I thought it was from the wooden pole that held our unit’s flag then realized it came from above. So I looked up and wished I hadn’t.
Like what I’ve mostly seen, it was humanoid in nature. Perched on a branch and I almost thought it was a much older scout playing a prank because I could make out his curly hair and the cargo shorts he had on. Until I realized the widespread wings behind it.
It didn’t move, except for the wings that seemed to go with the wind like when an eagle descends on a prey, that’s how the wings looked. I took a step back, and another, and another until I reached a clearing where there were plenty of people then turned my back only to gaze every now and then to see if it had flown away. It didn’t. It just crouched there.
The rest of the evening, people were having and I took interest in a game or two but every now and then would look at the exact same spot and it’d still be there.
By the time I had gotten into one of the quarters, I’d forgotten about the creature. Only when I laid myself up to the upper deck did I realize my window was facing the tree at about two hundred yards.
I took a binocular and looked into it, hoping it had gone but it was still there so I pulled the curtains. I didn’t fall asleep until about five in the morning. An hour later they woke us up and of course, the creature wasn’t there anymore.
We left that very afternoon. As we left I realized there was a caretaker on the grounds, he waved at us but I had the creepiest feeling that his gaze was directed at me as he waved goodbye. Him with his curly hair and cargo shorts.