Manggahan Festival, Nueva Valencia, Guimaras Islands
The wizened Dark Moon stealthily uncurled herself with a gnarled sigh of relief from the suffocating bondage of the wicked Sun. She dexterously painted the night in complete darkness. It was a void that cuddled in silent witness to the stillness and madness of the night. Some madness which forever remained to be beyond the academic grasp of a mortal’s domain.
Two brothers strolled hesitantly albeit courageously through the thick blanket of forest. The older of the two, tucked away in secret the scampering beats of his frightened heart. He did his utmost best to ignore the warning rustles of skeletal branches.
There is nothing out there… just your wild imagination again playing tricks in your mind!
Jose, the older of the two repeated the mantra like a broken record. He tried to convince his mind to keep itself afloat amidst the sea of fearful anxiety from the macabre treasures hidden by the dark of night.
In order to distract his cowardly mind away from the tidal wave of trepidation that was about to engulf his whole physical being, he pretended to leisurely swing away with his trusted stick. It whipped against the cloaks of spindly shrubs swaying connivingly with the gleeful gust of the wind. The wicked shrubs hindered their path towards the safety and comfort of home.
The younger one gripped tightly with all the minute strength of his tiny palms the small plastic bag containing their hard-earned prize money of 5,000 pesos from winning the mango-eating contest. His tiny tummy now fully distended consumed a record-breaking 15 kilos of mangoes in less than five minutes.
Luis the 8-year old boy whose tattered slippers could barely protect him from the twigs of needles on the ground whispered.
“Kuya, I-I am s-s-scared….” He steadfastly clung to the side of his protector
“Shhh…” Jose warned him in an undertone, his mouth barely a slit that feebly attempted to cut through the tension of fear in the air.
The forest was eerily hushed without a single melody of mirth from the birds except for the harsh cackles of sinister branches slicing through the suffocating blanket of unease.
Snap!
A twig cracked a few inches on their right.
The boys froze in their tracks. Their feet imprisoned by the shackles of terror. Their hearts were about to explode out of their chests in dreadful anticipation of the source of the ominous sound. It maliciously broke their artificial bubble of security.
Snap! Snap! SNAAAAAP!
The twigs cackled like wildfire now. Whoever was stepping on them didn’t bother anymore to conceal itself. It already ruled out the two boys as fragile preys already served on a gourmet of silver platter by the merciless forest.
And then…
That dreaded whisper in the dark.
Tiki- Tik – Tiki- Tik..
They had been warned time and time again by their grandparents, parents, teachers, friends, and everyone.
There is a demonic creature called aswang roaming around, devouring human liver. If you heard its deadly croon..
Tiki-Tik-Tiki-Tik
The nearer it was the farther the aswang and the farther it was…
The croon of doom started to sound very far away, which meant…
Two pairs of petrified eyes stared straight into the unknown blackness, four frozen orbs of vision suspended in abject terror.
A shaft of obscure light wielded in protest as it illuminated from a star high above the heavens. It parted the curtain of darkness of the forest.
Inches away from them, disguised by the thickness of the treacherous trees, hunched a
a twisted knot of long spindly leg. It chillingly emerged between the thick shrubs. The leg was so grotesque that what could have been considered a foot was contorted to face backward, slathered by a concrete appendage of black sharp talons.
It was the longest millisecond as the boys’ hearts skipped a long resounding beat. Their brain tried to logically make sense of the grotesque appendage that emerged in the forest.
Jose’s innermost intuition of preservation and concern for his younger brother suddenly kicked into high gear. He pivoted in a flash, so fast that he kicked up a whirling tornado of dead leaves on the ground. His right slipper cried in surprise as it sailed through the air and landed inches away from his source of terror.
RUN!
His mind ordered him. And run he did, as he gripped at his brother’s wrist like searing metal of lava wielding into flesh. His brother’s tattered slippers splintered like loose petals into the wind as his feet dangled in the air like a marionette. He was unceremoniously dragged by the mere speed of Jose’s flight of terror.
The Dark Moon whimpered in protest at the barbaric butchery that was about to occur. Hissing bells from the duplicitous wind drowned her feeble attempt of protest.
The misshapen creature who was previously detained by the shadows now slowly emerged from the bushes, salivating copiously, drunk from the thrill of the hunt which was about to begin again in every phase of the Dark Moon.
It appeared to be once a remnant of a beautiful woman, with its long matted black mop of cobweb hair plastered on the left side of its face like a morbid infant hugging its disfigured mother. It revealed only half a pair of red-rimmed eyes, burning suffusedly with inflamed hunger for human liver.
Its nose flared halfway to the top like stripped desert plains and clamped down at the base with serrated fangs. Its fangs rabidly dripped with liquid hunger descending into sharp needles. Its sole purpose was to tear flesh, inflicting excruciating pain on its hapless victim. Four long distorted spindly limbs reminiscent of disgruntled branches sprouted from its hunched shoulders and hips. The distorted limbs finished off into terminal extremities inverted into masses of contorted black talons that could tear through flesh as easily as knife slicing through water.
It raised its flared snout and sniffed the air primitively. Its olfactory radar led it to glance curiously at the ground to inspect a residue of the older boy’s scent on the sole slipper that landed with a thud a few inches from the morbid entity. Its razor-sharp canines grinned wickedly, appearing instead as a snarl.
IT IS OPEN SEASON AGAIN!
It crouched its spindly body excitedly to gain momentum for the killer lunge.
Liverrrrrrr
It cackled with gusto!
It was about to lunge itself into the air cutting the distance between itself and the two boys who sprinted nervously for their lives.
But then, the disfigured predator suddenly froze in its tracks.
The thrill of the hunt superseded by its very own instinct of preservation. It raised its flared snout to sniff the air once more in the opposite direction but failed to detect any scent of danger. With an unexplained sense of unease, it blinked its red-rimmed eyes with several clicks of its optical lens to conduct a reconnaissance of the area. Its superior lens was a thousand times better than any man-made telescope.
It came up with nothing or no one in sight except the two panic-stricken boys tearing through the thick bushes like possessed bees. They were getting smaller by the second as they started to disappear from the creature’s line of sight.
A few kilometers shy from where Jose’s lone slipper rested in peace, a wild boar heartily munched on chunks of fresh grass.
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Chomp! Crunch! Chomp!
It crushed the green chow with gusto mixed with a dash of moisture from the still-air and a sprinkle of texture from dirt. He happily lazed his belly on the thick blanket of his gastronomic smorgasbord.
He ate so much he burped a little bit of glass bubble into the thick blanket of air. He snorted before listening to the melodic stillness of the night to lull himself to sleep. He heard a faint scuttle of feet in the far distance but it was too insignificant for him to care.
Unbeknownst to the chubby creature, a wisp of pitch-black mist wafted, slicing through the suffocating stillness like a smoldering sword. It advanced relentlessly towards the slumbering wild boar.
Propellimg stealthily like harried turbine, gliding under cover of shadows; eyes locked on the prize ahead as it flitted past resistant bushes and lingering barks. It drifted gracefully like a light-footed ballerina skipping daintily on a puddle.
It continued to sail onward until it resolutely halted inches away from the satiated wild boar. He was oblivious to the incoming threat from the mist creeping steadily forward like an agile panther, stalking its intended prey with the great ease of an experienced predator. His eyes whizzed back and forth like ping pong balls beneath closed shutters, chest heaved evenly, splayed in total abandonment against the backdrop of the liberated forest.
The mist seemed to smile and nod its head, as if assured that the wild boar was dead to the world. It proceeded to march like a hungry General until it was directly above the wild animal.
Lo and behold!
It magically condensed into a female Dreamweaver, skin an impeccable shade of porcelain alabaster. Her cheekbones glazed defiantly at the cloudless heavens. Black iris peppered with flecks of amber crystals, glittered like cat’s eyes. They pierced intimately through the gloom beyond.
She sorely lacked a vertical groove on her upper lip in order to be labeled unequivocally as human. Her midnight blue gothic dress clung to every curve of her body in lace sediments. The long train that tapered at the bottom was made of a softer tulle as it bellowed in the air.
You could almost hear the resounding cracks of her bone as she stretched her sylphlike figure in midair. She reached puckishly for the demure stars with her long candle-like fingertips. The stars hid bashfully behind the protective arms of obscurity.
She slowly unfurled her smoky wings, flaps of raven mist more beautiful and intricate than that of an exotic butterfly. She cautiously tested its strength as it swirled against the humid air. She culminated with a wiggle of toes in the air, shaking imaginary cobwebs off dangling feet.
Limbered up, she surveyed the snoring boar below with a salivating smirk, already ruling out his sharp tusks as just a fascinating toy. Her smirk in the dark recesses of the moon revealed a flaw…a crack amidst perfect porcelain face.
A hot summer breeze blew dryly, coyly ruffling long dark wavy hair with streaks of indigo spilling generously to her tiny waist. She raised her nose leisurely and flicked her long train of dress gracefully as it tangoed with the warm breeze. She inhaled the hot and humid air leisurely as it created little damps of fiery coals inside her immortal lungs.
He stirred in his sleep as she crouched on all fours with smoky wings fluttering ever so softly directly above him. She sniffed his skin ardently, trailing the sweet scent all the way to his belly button.
Once located, her marble face lit up excitedly. Her smoky wings propelled her descent silently until they were face to face. Her amber-flecked eyes glittered ominously with hunger.
Amber crystals hardened and ricocheted around her iris like ferocious bullets—hitting and bouncing off each other like rabid dogs out for blood. They merged into a blinding prism. It unleashed an amber ray of light which lanced straight through the sleeping boar’s eyelids.
She craftily weaved pleasant dreams through the prism to banish him temporarily in a bewitching fantasy. She whipped out her long glistening forked tongue faster than lightning towards his navel. It dipped and pierced inside skillfully—sharper than a thousand razors. Her snakelike tongue embedded itself so snugly it did not even leave a single drop of crimson tears from the suave impact.
Unfortunately, her tongue was not spared from revulsion as the metallic taste of blood assaulted it. She shuddered from disgust before delving deeper to find the thing she craved the most.
That teeny tiny nugget of delicious mouthwatering sickeningly sweet essence.
Once tasted, she slurped it ravenously. A nugget of tinsel-gold coiled up like a serpent through her forked tongue all the way to her delicate lips.
She retracted her tongue with a Whoosh!
She chomped on the boar’s essence ecstatically with a Crunch!
It was as if she was rolling a creamy piece of chunky chocolate in her mouth. She tilted her neck and gulped it down with a flourish. She only extracted a minuscule portion of the boar’s essence, enough to sustain her until the next Dark Moon.
We wouldn’t want to bleed him dry of his essence, do we?
One corner of her mouth curled in a lopsided smile, amused at her own jest.
Meanwhile, the boar remained ecstatically trapped in the fantasy bubble of being surrounded in a buffet of assorted grass. He feasted and gobbled voraciously alongside his wife and babies beside him. His beautiful dream was courtesy of the power behind the Dreamweaver’s amber specks. They fulfilled his innermost desire via the umbrage of dreams.
Absolute rapture appeared on his sleeping face, addictively hooked in his own whirlpool of deep-seated longing, It was concocted to provide a distraction to allow the
supernatural being to feed from him.
The cut on his belly button where her tongue had been a second ago was so clean it sealed itself in terror.
But one measly drop of scarlet blood rebelliously swam its way to the navel’s surface. It was connivingly preserved by the tropical wind.
She humorously patted her tummy, pulling herself erect, feet still dangling in the air. She smacked her lips in appreciation of another successful gastric delight. She pursed her lips in distaste at the small drip of red gore clinging stubbornly at the tip of her tongue. She spat it out disgustedly, chased by a ghastly burp. She covered her mouth guiltily and glanced sideways to ensure nobody had heard or seen her incivility.
All of a sudden, her senses detected something, or someone, in the vicinity. Someone half human…
Dark
Disturbing
A bottom-feeding predator!
She suddenly straightened up in the air to attune all of her senses to the sinister presence. She felt it stiffened. She could smell its body from a distance. It glistened with a very oily secretion that made it slippery to the grasp. She looked around, amber crystals glittering in the dark to locate the creature.
There!
She saw it!
The misshapen creature was ensconced like a cocoon on a bark of a titan of a tree 600 meters above, just 5 trees away from her. She focused the full glare of her amber flecks on the creature, illuminating it like a spotlight.
It recoiled and whimpered in fear as she stared at it in a bemused manner. She was bored out of her wits as it was more like staring at dead leaves floating on a pond.
The creature started to shake in terror.
“Hush!”
“Spawn of the bottom-feeders. Don’t ever cross my path again.”
“As if you do…”
She hissed.
Her stone-cold warning splintered the peaceful night like steel daggers straight into the hallowed ears of the creature. It trembled in fright and gave the slightest bow of submission to a force much much greater than it ever was.
She chuckled in disdain over another parasitic abomination created by the universe.
What a lousy mop of hair that disgusting creature has!
She noticed before splintering into mist. She ascended swiftly like an eagle infiltrating the heavenly ceiling of invisible clouds. She blended into the sea of eternal darkness and disappeared in an instant, as if she was never there.
Her name
Laya Marie Amber
A Dreamweaver
The wild boar roused from his slumber, hoarded with self-fulfilling dreams as he yawned lazily. He unhinged his jaw fully as his mighty tusks scraped the air, stretching his body sedately.
He sneezed with narrowed eyes staring suspiciously above, sensing something creepy occurred as he plunked his rear on the dewy grassy carpet. He instinctively looked down at his belly button, wheezing in surprise and abject confusion at the dried cake of blood.
His hair bristled ferociously in rage as he thrust his muzzle defiantly to the smirking moon and grunted and squealed furiously.
Tonight, his instinct whispered fearfully that something inherently valuable was stolen from him. He twitched his nose, sniffing the air disdainfully for any telltale sign of a fiendish foe as warning bells jingled in his head.
Failing to validate his unease, he strained the turgid muscles of his neck and squealed and grunted and squealed, piercing through the thick silence of the night. Somehow, his surge of angry rumbles dwindled into a whimper as he rendered himself hoarse from grinding his vocal chords to a pulp. Restless, he darted around in circles like a loose cannon.
But no matter how much of a tantrum he threw, he still had no inkling what was taken..
And never will.
Meanwhile, the disfigured creature uncoiled itself slowly from the protection of the titan wood. It descended like a seasoned surfer, landing on all fours on the grassy knoll.
It seethed in anger as it lost its opportunity to satiate its hunger tonight because of an unexpected interference from a very ancient supernatural being that had walked the Earth even before the beginning of time.
It raised its morbid head up into the sky and shrieked at the injustice.
Tiki- Tik – Tiki- Tik!
Circular shrieks of objection bounced all over the forest.
Hundreds of meters away, a couple woke with a start from their modest nipa hut when they heard the banshee-like shriek of the creature.
“Crisanto, the aswang is roaming around again!”
The frightened wife murmured in one breath as she sat and clung to her husband tightly.
“Shhh…”
Crisanto silenced her.
“It is far from us as the sound is near. It is always opposite. Remember I told you that? If you hear the sound near your ears, it means the aswang is far from us and if you hear the sound from afar, it means….”
He left his statement to die a natural death in the air.
“Don’t worry, I made sure all the doors and windows are closed and latched. We have the dried tail of a stingray to scare it away and my trusted bolo knife right beside me.”
He assured her, rolling out of their banig on the floor to show her the whip of the stingray tail and the bolo knife.
Crisanto’s wife breathed a hesitant sigh of relief and leaned back heavily against their banig. She covered herself with the blanket all the way to her head. She could not stop her hands from shaking in fright. She crumpled herself into a fetal position.
Crisanto hurriedly joined her on the bed. Before he closed his eyes, he whispered in his mind.
Diyos ko, please keep us safe. How we wish we can just move out of this terrifying place as we cannot live in fear all the time. But unfortunately we don’t have the money.
Please
Please
Please
Help us.