I
When I was only five years old, I was playing on the palm of a young coconut tree. I stood on one of its large leaves near the trunk and bounced up and down as it bent under my weight and sprang back upward. While doing this, I suddenly saw a man wearing what appeared to be a white long-sleeved garment and white trousers. But when I looked at his face, I was horrified to discover that it could not be seen—he had no head. In panic, I ran as fast as I could toward our house, which was about sixty meters away from the coconut tree. As soon as I got inside, I quickly peeped through a crevice in the wall to see who it was, but there was no one outside. It was around three o’clock in the afternoon. The surroundings were clear and quiet, and there was no activity anywhere.
II
One night, at around 10:00 p.m. in 1995, I heard footsteps coming from the attic. I paid little attention to it and went back to sleep. Around midnight, I woke up and went outside to relieve myself. As soon as I stepped out of the house, the door suddenly slammed shut. I tried to convince myself that the wind had caused it, although there was no noticeable breeze at the time. After I finished, I walked back to the door. When I tried to open it, I discovered that it was locked from the inside. Left with no other choice, I climbed through one of the window openings to get back into the house. Incidents like this happened to me more than ten times. Two years later, the rest of my family moved into the house as well. My father experienced the same strange occurrences. One midnight, after coming back from outside, he angrily accused me of locking the door while he was out relieving himself. I told him that I had been asleep the entire time.
III
Another incident occurred in 1997. It was around 1:00 a.m. While I was sleeping on a table beside the window opening, I was suddenly awakened by a powerful tweak on my nose. It was so painful that the stinging sensation lingered for several minutes. I immediately jumped out through the window and picked up a stone, intending to strike back at whoever had attacked me. I was furious and suspected my cousin Jethro was responsible. I searched around the house, but I could not find anyone. Then it occurred to me that it could not have been Jethro. I had reacted instantly to the attack, and no ordinary person could have escaped my sight so quickly. Nevertheless, I confronted him the following day. He replied in Bisaya, “Unsay akong makuha sa pagbangon og tungang gabii aron lang magbinuang og tawo?” (“What would I gain by getting up in the middle of the night just to make fun of someone?”). I knew he was telling the truth. Although we often teased each other, neither of us would have gone so far as to inflict that kind of pain on the other.
IV
One morning in 2005, I arrived home from a bar at around 3:00 a.m. and went straight to bed, wearing only briefs, as was my usual habit at the time. My sleeping area at that time was in the attic, and I was the only person who slept there. At about 6:00 a.m., I woke up in shock. I was already wearing a T-shirt and a pair of corduroy shorts. What puzzled me even more was that I had stopped using those shorts for very long because they had become too tight for me and their zipper was broken. In fact, I thought I had discarded them years earlier. I could not understand where the shorts had come from. Moreover, if someone had dressed me while I was asleep, I am certain I would have awakened during the process. Yet I had no memory whatsoever of putting on those clothes or of anyone entering the attic that night. To this day, that remains the most mysterious incident I have ever experienced. After that morning, I became convinced that there was indeed a supernatural being in our house that had decided to play a strange prank on me.
V
One night in 2006, about a week after my father passed away, I was sleeping in the attic at around 11:00 p.m. when I heard heavy footsteps coming up the stairs. I could tell that the footsteps were moving toward the place where I was lying. I wanted to get up, but I found that I could not move. Overcome with fear, I shut my eyes tightly. As the footsteps drew nearer, I sensed that whoever was approaching was carrying a light. I could not tell whether it came from a candle or a kerosene lamp, but I was certain that the light came from a flame. My fear intensified when the light was brought close to my face. With all my strength, I struggled to move. In the process, I accidentally struck my foot against the bottom rail of the bed. The sharp pain lingered and seemed to help me regain control of my body. At first, I thought it might have been a dream. However, during the entire incident, I could clearly hear my sister and sister-in-law talking downstairs. My hearing and awareness were fully intact; the only thing I could not do was move my body. At the time, I believed that it was my father’s spirit and that he wanted me to light a candle at the burial site of his blood. Immediately after regaining control of myself, I got up and went there to light a candle.
VI
Another strange incident occurred in 2010. At around 10:00 in the morning, I was reading in my room while my mother was outside the house doing the laundry. When I went to the comfort room to urinate, I noticed a trail of muddy spots on the floor. It began at the main door and extended all the way to the comfort room, a distance of approximately twelve meters. From there, the trail continued toward the back door, which was about seven meters away. What puzzled me was that there was no mud outside either the main door or the back door. The muddy spots appeared only inside the house. Even more perplexing was the fact that there were no mud puddles anywhere in the surrounding area. When my mother came inside, she noticed the trail and asked me where it had come from. I simply replied, “I don’t know either. It just appeared there.”
VII
Another strange incident occurred in 2011, One morning in 2011, my girlfriend Nicole forwarded a text message to me. She was upset because she believed that I had sent her an offensive message the previous night. Nicole was not only beautiful but also highly intelligent. She had graduated as a summa cum laude in college, worked as an English teacher in the United States, and carried herself with dignity. She was sensitive to offensive language and disliked coarse speech. The message she forwarded was written in fluent and professional English, except for the final line, which had offended her. It read, “Shitam, magbayad ka,” which roughly means, “Shit, you should pay.” Deep down, I knew that I had never sent such a message to her. Nevertheless, I checked my sent items to verify, thinking that perhaps I had somehow sent it unconsciously or by mistake. After carefully reviewing my messages, I found no trace of the text that Nicole had forwarded to me. I told her that the message might have come from another source and that she had mistakenly assumed it was from me. However, she insisted that it had indeed come from my phone number. I then considered the possibility that someone in the house had used my cellphone and sent the message to her. But who could it have been? No one in our household could write such fluent English, and I never entrusted my cellphone to anyone. Two months later, I watched a television program featuring an elderly woman whose grandson had died in a drowning accident. She recounted several experiences that convinced her that her grandson’s spirit still visited her. One particular incident that caught my attention was when she said that one morning, as she came out of the bathroom, she noticed her cellphone vibrating on the center table. Then suddenly, it received a text message that read, “I love you, Lola.” She believed with all her heart that the message had come from her beloved grandson, whom she described as a kind and well-behaved child. Her testimony made me wonder whether a supernatural being could somehow send text messages and communicate in various languages. At that time, I was deeply infatuated with Nicole. Whenever she became upset with me, she would sometimes ignore me for days, a week, or even a month. Those periods of silence weighed heavily on my heart and often left me feeling miserable. I wondered whether the supernatural being in our house had somehow sympathized with my distress and become angry with Nicole on my behalf.
VIII
One midnight in 2014, a terrifying incident happened to me. I was suddenly awakened by a powerful wind blowing against my face, as fierce as a typhoon. When I opened my eyes, I saw that the windows had been flung open, as I was lying on my side facing them. When I looked up toward the ceiling, I saw what appeared to be the circular, fiery face of Satan. He was hovering near the left side of the ceiling, about four meters away from me. As he moved closer, I suddenly felt my soul being lifted out of my body to a height of about two feet. When I looked to my right, I clearly saw my own body lying on its side. Panic overwhelmed me, and I thought to myself, “Perhaps I am already dead.” Then I suddenly remembered Jesus. I immediately declared, “In the name of Jesus, get away from me, Satan!”. At that very moment, the violent attack suddenly ceased, and everything returned to normal.
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