It was not sleep paralysis. I am sure.
I wanted to open my eyes, but all I can see was darkness. I wanted to scream but I cannot open my mouth. I feel like somebody is pulling me out of bed. My hair is starting to raise. My goosebumps are everywhere. I started praying for the Hail Mary. I could not memorize. I started praying for the Our Father but I could not also memorize. I tried all the prayers I know – it was a mixture of English, Tagalog, and, Hiligaynon words in my head. I was able to open my eyes. I saw my room. I checked my phone, it was 1:48 in the morning. I went to my Mama’s side and told her “gina aswang ko guro Ma”, she brought me to her side and let me sleep.
Before falling asleep, I heard a bird chirping. And the window of my room had a tarpaulin which we place to stop the rain from coming started to flap.
I told her the morning what I heard and she said, “sya to.“
I don’t believe in supernatural beings but I respect people’s opinions on it. It has been more than a week since “aswang” stories are strongly circulating in the community. There is this one person whom everybody tags as aswang but nobody could confirm. Her initial is M.
M lives close to us. If I am to measure the distance of her house from us, it is roughly around 50 meters. But there is no direct pathway. You have to walk and pass the footwalk from here to her. Around 2-3-minute-walk.
My room had an empty area beside it. It is still our space, my Lolo’s room used to be there but my Tito sold his house. My Mama wanted to get that portion so we can use it to expand my room or restroom in the future. For the longest time, it was vacant.
The new owner of the house rented the place to a young couple (they were the most recent tenants). Let’s call them Jun and Joy. They have two children. The elder is 1 year old and the younger is a new born, just months-old while I am typing this post.
We could hear a loud noise every night but as someone who is a non-believer, I am shrugging off the idea that it could be something and kept on telling my Mama that it was just a stray cat.
Legends would tell us that aswang is a shapeshifter and loves pregnant women and newborns to little children so the community believes that M is after the kids or Joy.
Last March 16, 2023, Jun and Joy move out as they were able to build their own house in the neighborhood also. But they believed that M followed them. Joy’s father, let’s call him Berto would guard his grandsons every night.
On the night of the 17th, he told us that he caught M in a form for a pig. He chased the pig but eventually lost it. Also, our neighbor Gee corroborated the story and shared that she heard “oink oink” (pig sound) in the wee hours of the morning but she knows that nobody is raising pigs in the area.
My Mama told Berto that M will not visit again because she knows that somebody is up guarding the house. She told Berto “mga tatlo pa na ka adlaw sa mabalik”.
I never believed any of this. But the third day was today.
Also in our area, the water supply is a challenge. On days when Metro Water would have a small supply, people are staying up all night until early morning to fetch water. This is the time when the rich and people who has motorized pumps would be sleeping and a chance for the lower class to get water from a free-flowing pipe.
Gee, the same person above, with Jay, and Lyn, who are also our neighbors, were up all night to fetch water. The pipe is located in the front of the house rented by Jun and Joy. They all told us the next morning that there was a large dog that they cannot shoo while they are getting water.
The dog owner in the area is only me. My 4 dogs are sleeping in my room. There is no chance that the dog they saw was mine.
[to be continued]
