1 Bulging Eyes

I was seven or eight years old back then, or maybe even younger, when I first encountered something supernatural. Well, maybe the first that I can remember. We lived on a province away from the capital, and our village are one of the furthest from the urban side of town. All my cousins who were almost my age or younger from the capital, went home to our province along with their families because at that time, my grandmother died of a heart attack.

We have a culture of grieving our loved one's death by having the coffin on the living room of our houses and having visitors come to look at the body, then offering some consolation to the family through words or financial help.

Our two-storey house back then was the original house where my father was born, so imagine how old that is, two or three generations, including me who is now an adult in early 30's-from my grandmother, to my father, to me.

In front of the house is a cemented portion leading to the main gate and the road, and the portion with just dirt, where several ancient trees were planted, older than me. On one side is the house of our neigbor seperated by jackfruit trees from us. Beyond the barbed fence on the other side, is the woods, very dark in the night and reported to have several creatures not limited to bats and snakes. It was even rumored to have mischievous creatures like engkanto and dwarfs. It only has a worn path which is used by some people leaving on the area beyond the woods far at the back of our property. Behind the house is a building for our cows, another for the pigs, a path to the woods, and the continuation of the said woods.

So as I was saying, I was with my cousins. We were too young to fully comprehend the loss of a family member. Maybe I was more ecstatic about having my cousins from the capital city, or that my grandmother was really strict and punishes me and my brother severely, so I was not that concerned about it, I could not remember exactly.

We decided to play in our yard, on the cemented area, in front of our house one night. Basically, the only light we have is the light from the living room where the adults were, and the faint street lamp outside in front. Even though the road is right next to the gate, there were no vehicles passing. It's a province, in the most rural part of the town.

Under such nights, kids in the old days, maybe around 1994 to 1995, enjoy playing hide and seek or a game of tag in the dim light of the night. I think it was eight or nine in the evening. Due to the funeral, the usual lights off for children was adjusted and some sparse visitors, mostly neighbors, come and goes. Some of the men, includng my father, were in the back drinking alcohol.

As I remember, we were playing a modified version of the game of tag. We call it Langit, Lupa (Heaven & Earth). It has a song for determining the 'IT' that will run to catch the others. Once you sing, each syllable corresponds to pointing to the participants one by one in clockwise or counterclockwise, and at the end of each song, you eliminate one member to be part of those that are safe until 2 are left. Either they proceed with the song one last time or decide to play paper-rock-scissors to determine the 'IT'. The additional rules to this game of tag is that the the 'It' cannot catch you if you are on a higher surface, which we designated as 'heaven'. Even when its just a few inches or centimeters higher than the ground or 'earth', as long as its obvious enough, it is considered as 'heaven' and therefore a safe zone. You can transfer from one safe zone to another as long as you go down the 'earth' and fast enough not to be catched by the 'It'.

The song goes like this:

Langit, Lupa, Impyerno (Heaven, Earth, Hell)

Im, Im, Impyerno (He-He-Hell)

Saksak puso, tulo ang dugo (Stab the heart, the blood drips)

Patay, buhay, umalis ka na! (Dead, Alive, get away from here!)

We were maybe nine participants. A set of four siblings, one of them a girl, another set of three siblings that are all boys, and me and my younger brother. One of my cousins became the 'It' and we immediately dashed to different safe sides of higher ground. Some went to the tricycle, some to the yard chairs lying around, some ran around. We mainly stayed on the cemented area of our yard. The dirt area was somehow painted with shadows of the trees, casting long shadows on areas that seem void but alive, but we did not care at the time as we were kids focused on the game.

Midway through the game, the 'It' changed 3 or 4 times already, I suddenly become aware of something in the shadows, in the dirt area, staring. Watching. Observing us. Me.

I suddenly stopped mainly of curiosity as a kid.

In the dirt area, there was one fruit bearing tree about three or four meters tall, our calamansi tree. Some other things you might see were different parts of a tractor, ropes for the cows, or wheels lying on the ground, since my father was a farmer by profession. On the slim trunk and roots of the tree, there was something, a shadow, that clings to it. It was looking at us, or me. I did not know why my cousins continued playing, not mindng that I already stopped engaging with them. Perhaps I was on higher ground so they did not try to 'catch' me.

The creature look straight at me from the shadows with those seemingly bulging eyes. At first I thought, was that one of the chickens we own? Or even the roosters? Or one of our dogs? Or a stray cat? The shape was wrong, the eyes are too huge for a chicken or rooster, it was smaller than our dogs, but more upright than a cat. Its like the shape of a thin, emaciated, child!

I tried to move from left to right, right to left, and those eyes followed me. I tried approaching it. It suddenly stood up, in two thin legs, its thin arms dangling down on its side, with a bulging head the size of a child's head, while the body was truly emaciated. Then it suddenly ran behind the tractors wheel, with two legs, like a human. It was maybe less than two feet in height. And it disappeared, like it went to another plane of existence.

I was feeling boggled but at the same time, I was beginning to realize something that I watched from TV. Did I just witnessed a demonic infant called "Tyanak"? They were said to be infants who did not receive baptism before dying. The hair behind my neck and arms were starting to stood on ends. Apart from that, I discovered all my cousins had already gone inside the house. I was alone in the yard for how long I did not know.

I ran inside.

I tried to describe the experience to my cousins but either they did not see anything, they thought I was trying to only scare them, or dismissed the story entirely. I did not share to any adults because I thought no one will believe and I might just get scolded by telling such stories in the funeral of my grandmother.

I think back now that I am 33 years old, no one would indeed believe me, either due to the ridiculousness of the story, or I was only a child imagining things, or for fear of the meaning of such an event in connection to the death of my grandmother, or the woods in the property. Now that I am an Christian adult, I discovered that it most likely a literal demonic spirit that showed up.

I inherited the ancestral house and the land where it stands, while my younger brother inherited the other side, the dirt area where the tractor and the cut down calamansi tree was standing in the past. In that side, my brother already erected his own house with the design from my late father. I never experienced seeng that 'thing' again. I do not want to. I do not want to see those bulging eyes again.