nosleep

When I was 3, my family migrated to the US. We lived a comfortable life, and I had a happy childhood. My parents were a bit superstitious, so we had a few strange traditions, and they would always tell me stories about the kapres, aswangs, manananggals, tikbalangs, tiyanaks, and the like.

Filipino monsters always seemed scarier to me than Western ones. It might be because whenever my parents talked about them, they made it sound like they had firsthand experiences with the creatures. They probably just did it for dramatic effect.

We moved back to the Philippines when my grandmother got sick. I was only 16 at the time, and I had to readjust to a new way of living. She died three years after we moved there, but we decided to stay. My grandmother lived in the province, so everything was completely different from what I was used to.

My neighbors would always go back into their homes before dark. There were no town curfews set in place, but they did it anyway. I was taught to say ‘tabi tabi po’ anytime I passed by an anthill or a big tree. Whenever my friend visited, he would yell ‘tao po’ at the door. We weren’t allowed to sweep the floor at night. Basically, there was a long list of things we should or shouldn’t do.

I never really understood why everyone found these things so important. I just followed along out of respect, but I wouldn’t necessarily call myself a believer. So when I finally moved to the city for college, I was more than ready to live a life without all the weird superstitious beliefs.

That was a few years ago. I recently graduated with a degree in marketing. I also met my fiancée, Myra, in college and I was finally ready to take her home to meet the family. I had no debt, and I already had a job lined up for when I got back to the city. Life was good.

“Are you sure they’re gonna like me?” My fiancée asked as we were driving to the province.

“They’re going to love you, baby. There’s nothing not to love,” I reassured her. She gave me a soft smile in return.

Myra was born and raised in the Philippines. She’s never even left the country. We were extremely different, considering I was pretty Westernized. We disagreed on a lot of things in the beginning, but we eventually found some middle ground as we got to learn about each other more.

She was more on the conservative side, so a lot of the things I was used to bothered her. Let’s just say when she found out I watched porn, there was a lot of screaming — and not the good kind. Maybe a bit of the good kind when the fight ended. But we got past all that and got to a pretty good place. I was proud of how much our relationship grew.