Close Encounters

I have been living in a dormitory somewhere in Malate for nine months now. Like public schools and pre-war buildings, dormitories also have a lot of stories to tell--stories that involve the sixth sense and unusual encounters with people who used to live.

I have heard a lot of stories as such since elementary. It is of general knowledge that almost all public elementary schools have urban legends that say they all became cemeteries or hospitals sometime in the past, which made them very nice habitats for spirits and other creatures that require what is called the third whatever (the third eye, third ear, third nose...). I have studied in a public elementary school that used to be a WWII hospital (true story) and our classes are held in gabaldon-type schoolhouses, which are basically old, creepy, high-ceiling classrooms with long and creepy hallways.

Being inside this classroom can be very traumatic for a lot of reasons. This was my fourth grade abode.

Don't walk around here too much during early mornings or late afternoons if you're an imaginative kid. You don't know what you might see. ;)

Spending six years in that institution, however, did not give me any share of creepy stories. My classmates have testified that they saw white ladies, black ladies, red ladies, green ladies (girl scouts? LOL) and weeping ghosts of all sorts. When I was in second grade, my seatmate pointed to the broken capiz window that leads to the storage house and claims to see a hanging body inside. Peksman mamatay man, cross my heart hope to die. I said, "ay oo nga no" when until now, I firmly believe that the hanging body is nothing but a piece of white cloth tied around the busted light bulb.

It wasn't until high school that I encountered (or so I think) the third kind myself. We were in our AdChem class and we were stressed from the academic work, the heat, and hunger. Our classroom is connected to another one, and the storage room for laboratory stuff was there in between. While my seatmate stares at nowhere, something caught our eyes--a floating lady wearing a white filipiniana dress. At 11am. Without any school program being held. In the storage room for chemicals and test tubes. Does that make sense? For us, it did not. Soooo...

I shrugged that experience off. The gal did not do anything to me so I don't care whether I saw her or not. I do not claim to have a third whatever, but recently I had an unusual experience here in the dormitory.

I temporarily live in an area where stray cats and rats as big as cats abound. When there are banging on walls and noise outside, I already assume they are the ones to blame. However, there was this one time that I was alone in the room and I was on my desk facing my laptop. I heard constant thuds on the wall and the noise seems to be coming from inside the room, as if someone is hitting something against it. I did not pay attention, then I felt the weight of footsteps, as if someone is walking behind me. Again, I did not pay attention. To tell you the truth, I found it unusual--but I was too engrossed in crying over a Thai movie that I totally ignored those supposedly creepy stuff.

It all finally made sense earlier when my roommate (and future sister-in-law) Ate Avon shed some light regarding the whole thuds on the wall, walking behind me thing. Turns out, there is a ghost kid playing around the room--our room--during afternoons. The thuds on the wall, they say, is him hitting it with a ball. Awesome.They say there are more than five of us in here. There's also a dude wearing a barong and the playful kid I mentioned earlier. Stories of doppelgangers and moving mirror images are also usual. Gosh, this sounds somewhat like Silent Hill 4.

Do I believe in these beings? Not really, until I see them. And when I do, I'll probably think that I'm just too hungry that I am starting to hallucinate. Haha. But well, if they are true, then I can live among them. After all, they were once alive. Just don't share with my bed, please.