The kubo

It's back! Midnight Stories will be posted throughout October to celebrate the month of ghosties and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night. Here's our next installment. Enjoy!

I was only seven years old when we moved into a kubo that used to be a playhouse for the landlady’s children. She had renovated it so that she could rent it out.

It was sturdier than the usual kubo, with the floor and some of the walls made of concrete. If a strong wind swept through the house, the nipa ceiling under the thin roof would tremble and leave little specks on the ground.

For a few weeks after my mother and I moved in, nothing was out of the ordinary. The place was quiet, so much so that as soon as night fell all we would hear was the rustling of leaves in the backyard, where the owner's dogs were. Sounds from the television would echo through our elevated bedroom as well.

One day, my mother was doing the laundry at the back of the residence and I was left alone in the living room watching TV. The sky was pale gray and there was little sunlight, but there was also not the smallest hint of wind. Still, I didn’t turn on the electric fan. I was too distracted, enjoying the weekend break from school activities. I got up from the couch to take the TV's remote control, which was on a surface next to several framed pictures.

A cold wind suddenly blew from my left, sending one picture falling to the floor. Then the wind disappeared as quickly as it came.

I picked the picture up from the floor. It was a photo of me and my mother during one of my recognition days in school, and was of course important to me, so I carefully put it back to stand with the other pictures. Just as I was about to go back to the couch, the cold wind blew once more—and a young woman wearing a murky white dress appeared before me.

Her fingers were curved into a fist, her stare focused on me. There was anger in her eyes.

The photo fell again, and I was about to pick it up once more to convince myself that I was just seeing things when the photo flipped itself upwards. The lady was still there—and I knew I wasn’t confused anymore.

She stood there for a second or two, then disappeared.

We stayed in the kubo for a few more months because we couldn’t find an apartment in the area, but I was not "visited" again. But I would always nag my mother: “Ma, let’s move out of this house already!”

Luckily, the house across the street from the kubo became vacant. We moved in immediately.

One of the landlady's helpers stayed in the kubo after that, and ended up begging the landlady that she wanted to quit. When asked why, she told us that at first, she would merely feel that she was being watched. Then she woke up in the middle of the night and saw a clear figure by the window: a lady in white, staring at her with bloodshot eyes.

Since then, the kubo house has remained empty, just a rotting storage area that no one wanted to live in anymore. — BM, GMA News