It's my fourth consecutive year of featuring scary stories of personal experiences I have with the paranormal. This year I have one scary experience that shook me out of my head for a few minutes, and the worst part was that it was in the most unpractical of situations considering that it was at a time when I was helplessly alone. The next is more of a story my mom told me about what happened right before the burial of my cousin who died on Good Friday this year. And the last one isn't really a scary experience, it's more of an encounter with a medium who has ESP or extrasensory perception, and we did a card reading and I had a lot of goosebumps moment during our conversation.
Whispers in My Ear...Again...but in Taiwan!
Okay, one of the worst case scenarios often dipicted in the movies is when a person is in their most vulnerable, like being alone and helpless in the middle of nowhere. This happened to be my case when I was alone...in a room...in different country...completely ALONE for the next four days. That was the annoying bit, that it chose to stike me at my weakest. Months ago I've been intently planning to go on my first ever solo adventure, but on training wheels, should I say it metaphorically. The destination was Taiwan, and the plan was that I leave the country with three other friends just so I can assure my parents that I wasn't alone...because you know, even at thirty I still need some sort of permission whenever I'm about to do something crazy beyond their control. So, in my head, my friends will be with me the first four days giving me enough time to get to understand the workings of the city before they all go home ahead, leaving me on my own for the next four days to do my solo trip, and in this process my parents won't have to worry about the thought of me being abandoned to fend myself completely on my own, in a foreign country, without anyone to run to half-way through the trip. BUT! That incident made me realize that I had made a genius decision, because when we were selecting a place to stay, my friends had been incessantly asking me if I'll be booking the same place for the whole trip or not; to which I decided that the night after they leave I'll be transferring to a homestay the next morning in another part of town so that I'll be with other people at least and not be so completely alone inside a unit 1161 kilometers away from home.
So...their flight back to Manila was at 3am on the 11th of April, and they had to leave the AirBnb at 11pm on the 10th...which meant that I'd be alone on the night that I'll be sleeping on April 10. That night, after I walked them to the train station and got back in the room, I have never felt more independent and empowered. Finally, after years of curiosity and weeks of crammed up planning, this was what it felt like to travel solo. The adventurer in me awakened. Everything felt normal and was in place the moment I returned from a night stroll. I was even brave enough to sleep with most of the lights off because we've been staying in the unit for three consecutive nights with nothing weird going on, well...except that the unit's bathroom has this huge window that can easily be opened from the outside and expose you while you were showering.
I slept soundly that night...but that was until about 7am when I woke up to the sound of a voice whispering in my ear something I couldn’t decipher. It sounded like a young teenage girl saying two words in some Chinese language. Just two quick words before fading out, and I found myself slowly opening my eyes to see that (THANK GOD!) it was already bright and early. I sat there silent and in contemplation as to what might have happened. I scanned the room with one brisk turn of my neck and found it completely empty. I didn't freak out as the voice I heard wasn't menacing, and I didn't really know the translation of her words, whether it was "Wake Up" or "Excuse Me" or "Get Out", but that incident resembled so much what I had experienced years ago, and it kinda unnerved me knowing that I had no one to run to. One thing that I was just so thankful for was my decision to move out of that studio unit that very morning because I had made a reservation at a different place. This kinda made me think as to whether travelling solo and staying in a hotel room or AirBnb alone would be something I wouldn't regret doing someday soon. I've stayed in creepier rooms, but there's a big difference when you know you're on your own.
Seeing the Severed Leg of My Cousin in Photos
As a brief back story, my late cousin Patrick was in a really bad state, he was on the last stage of his diabetes. He had lost his eyesight from complications, was in need of a dialysis three times a week, and had his right leg amputated due to a wound infection that wasn't healing for more than a year. Being a jokester, he had been telling everyone that he and his severed leg will reunite in heaven one day as his leg decided to go ahead a little earlier than him. He was well aware of how seriously close he was to his mortality, in fact when I bid farewell to him last January, he gave me a hug so long and tight, a knowing hug that it could be the last time we say goodbye...and thus it was. On March 30 of this year, after finishing his dialysis and before heading home from the hospital, he insisted to his wife that they take a detour to go to a chuch so that he could go and pay his respects to the lying statue of the dead Christ as what we Filipinos traditionally call as du-aw. A big deviation from his normal self as ha barely goes to church. There, as his wife had told, he wept and wailed with repentant tears as his kissed the foot of the santo entierro for a good long time, not minding the people who were giving him mournful and uncomfortable stares. After what seemed like a really long passing of time, his sobbing slowly went silent, turning to his wife he said, "Okay na, let's go home." His wife discribed his face as he said those words were peaceful, as if he had been comforted and the world was lifted off his shoulders. It was on their ride home, just minutes after the visitation incident, that his wife saw him gradually fall his head down on the car seat and realized that he had ultimately made his way home. He died right in the car.
And thus, on the day of his burial my mom was taking photos of his coffin using her iPad, and she said in one of the shots she noticed a white mass in what seemed like a leg just standing right beside the coffin my cousin. Being a trickster that he is in real life, he made sure he was able so scare my mom bad even in the afterlife. What happened was that my mom didn't even notice that she had taken a paranormal photo until another person pointed at her saying that what had appeared in the frame was that of a severed right leg similar to that of the deceased person. And when she captured that photo and she was asking around to confirm what she was seeing her iPad suddenly hanged and she couldn't close the image or delete it. She kept complaining that for the entire day, her iPad wouldn't budge that she had to turn it off, but every time she turned it back on the same image would pop up on her screen. She said in a desperate attempt, because she couldn't stare nor use her device for two days, she called out to the spirit of Patrick to quit his antics because my mom is a real scaredy-cat when it comes to anything paranormal. After several attempts and pleading, the image suddenly just disappeared, and mom said that she could no longer find the image in her photos, and she was able to use her iPad normally agian. Too bad, I really wanted a copy.
Tarot Reading Experience
I'm not new to having my fortune read with a tarot card, I've had mine years ago from an old lady who regularly visited my aunt because she was a fan of the cards; I also had another reading in high school by one of my classmates who had interest in practicing his paranormal skills...all of which I had forgotten what was said about my fortune. In any case, last February we had a bazaar at BGC High Street, and one of their programs featured a booth for a free tarot card reading session. Of course I had to, because it's been years since my last, and it was at a time when I was about to leap for a major life decision; i.e. Chicken Studio...and most of all it was free.
The tarot reader was a guy looking like he was in his late thirties to early forties. He asked me to shuffle the cards three times. In the reading, I got three random cards from the deck for a general reading of my Past, Present, and Future...all of which I got suit of Pentacles. What are pentacle cards? They relate more on the manifestation and aboundance of material things, money, and whatnots. Which meant that I'm on the right track when it comes to the direction of my future plans. He also asked me to draw two extra cards from the deck for two bonus questions, one I asked about business...of course I got another pentacle sort of giving me a go signal to push with opening the restaurant as I was told that my luck, when it comes to starting something that related to money, was really really good. Aaaaand then came the second question about the "lovelife" part...well before even drawing a card I knew a possible good news was bleak, and unsurprisingly when the tarot reader turned the card and sort-of winced at the sight of seeing a bleeding swan being pierced by a sword right in the heart in reverse, I just had to roll my eyes. Oh well, there goes my love life. But one thing that struck me about what he said was that it's there, just lurking around my presence...but I shouldn't expect it to happen until after three to five years. Sounds about right.
Then, months after having my fortune read by some random stranger using old magical cards, I met another medium in a form of a woman who I had a common friend with. This time she brought out six decks of tarot for me to choose from...because she said that when she was selecting which tarot deck she'll be using for my reading they were screaming at her that they wanted to volunteer to come and see me for the tarot session. Because the tarot cards speaks to her she says as being a person with ESP. Unlike my other experiences who asked me to chose a card where I feel a heat signature coming from the most, and the other asking me to pick as randomly as I could, this time she asked me to hold each of the deck, observe, feel them and listen to my subconscious as which of the six connects with me the most. And so I did, I each bonded with the deck making sure we have our quality time before rejecting the five and going with the one that resonated with me the most...well...it actually came down to the pretty drawing that I liked the most, more of like my style of drawing is this children's book-fantasy-art nouveau style kinda art.
Before we started our session, she made a comment that sort-of caught me off guard, totally shaking me off my senses. She squinted her eyes and said, "Is your third eye open?"
"No" I quickly answered.
"But you can feel them?"
"I don't know...but I have a sensitive intuition." I admitted as I almost always have been on point with my intuitions.
She peered deeper into my eyes and implied, "You have heightened senses...you're about to be Awakened."
Now, having a slight idea what being awakened means as described by a friend who had experienced it last year, I had to ask, "Does that mean my third eye will open?"
To which she frankly and plainly replied, "Yes" like it was no big deal.
In my head, all I could think of at that moment was, "Oh shit."
And then we started our tarot session. Her technique was quite different from the others that I've tried. I had to hold and shuffle the cards as I thought up of a question I wanted answered. As long as I couldn't come up with a question I had to keep on shuffling the deck. The question that she required me to ask shouldn't be passive in a sense that the answer will also be passive. She said she hates hearing the most repeated question, "How will I find my soulmate?" because that is passive as there is no specific way of finding one's soul-mate, thus there is no specific answer to that question she explained. I looked to side...well...there goes one of my questions. So, there I was just shuffling the cards and the first question I just had to ask was about life directions.
"Am I in the right path of where I should be?" I asked.
She accepted that question, analyzed it and instructed me to take out three cards from the deck as means to answer the question. When I flipped the cards over I was astonished to see that what I got were two pentacle cards and a swords. And from thereon I got goosebumps as to how similar her reading was from my previous tarot reading just five months prior. To the questions that succeeded, how she placed her words as she told me, some of them she hears as whispers at each flip of the card was kinda eerie. Although some thoughts were either general declarations or open-ended statements, there were also specifics that triggered my hair strands to raise. It was nothing short of extraordinary. Our conversation reached to an end when I ran out of questions to ask. I basically only asked four questions I think...mostly pertaining to business and family.
At one point, while I was shuffling the cards and thinking of something to inquire, "Don't you wanna ask about your lovelife?" she kidded in a teasing tone.
"No thanks," I retorted with a quick flat smile. I wasn't about to have my hopes get stabbed again. Besides, we had common friends...the card reader who I want to ask about my bleak romantic fortune has to be a total total total of the totalest stranger. But now that I think of it, I may have a specific question I want answered..and that, might as well be the scary part.
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