Wandering Child

Before I continue with my story about the "suspected dwarves" lurking in our kitchen, let me share a recent experience that my officemates and I had on one of our weekend trips.

It was Friday, January 30th and the van that would take us to Subic was 2 hours late. We were supposed to leave Manila at 6 o'clock in the evening. So we left past eight already and even if we were furious with the driver being late, we were still excited with the trip. First hour of the trip was loud. We were laughing and chatting while listening to the CDs we brought with us. Second hour was mellow, since we worked earlier that day; we were already a bit tired so most of my officemates decided to sleep.

We were expecting to reach the resort around midnight, but since the traffic in Manila was so heavy, we were still on the road at 1:00am. We were now traveling on this newly built expressway pass Manila where the surroundings were totally remote. There were also barely any lights on some parts of the expressway since it wasn't totally finished yet.

I was beside the driver talking to my best friend behind me, when suddenly the driver said (in Filipino) "Whatever happens never look at the highway, keep talking to your friend". We were stunned and terrified! My friend just looked down, trembling with fear while I tried to recall what town we're at exactly and why this driver said this. I remembered feeling unusual before he said anything.

I was staring at the road and was puzzled why there were fogs on our way. And every time we pass a fog, I smell smoke. The fog couldn't be smoke because there wasn't anything burning nearby. If there were, I could have easily noticed it since it was literally pitch black if we turn our headlights off. It's also unusual if it's fog since as far as I know we were on sea level. Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know, fogs should only be found on high-level cold areas, and we were heading to a beach resort.

Acting brave and adventurous, I couldn't help but look at the road. I just told the driver not to worry since I don't have my third-eye open. But within me, I was hoping to see something. About 10 minutes passed but I didn't see anything and the whole time my friend and I were just quiet while the others were sleeping. The driver then talked and said everything was now okay.

When we asked him what was wrong, he said from the last 10 minutes, a translucent child has been crossing the road more than 5 times and it would almost hit our van every time, but then it would instantly disappear. He said he didn't stop because he already had the same experience in the past on the very same part of the expressway. He never bothered asking around but he suspected that a child might have been ran over in that area before.

I just wish this child could move on since his appearances could seriously cause car accidents.