Chaos Inside A Pen

Author's Note: Danag is spirits that once co-exist with mortals according to the Isneg Folklore in the Philippines. However, their co-existence ended when these spirits soon learn to crave human blood   It was the chilling wind of 5 in the morning that embrace my bones as I step outside for a jog. The surrounding is still dark but thin slits of light are slowly creeping from the east as I decide to take the familiar path that leads towards the green fields of our barrio. For almost 10 years of living in the city with every corner smothered with glitz and glamour, the sight of our village is still the one that my eyes yearn for. The simplicity of the houses that are not competing with their sizes and height. The trees that are more appealing the than the lifeless skyscrapers that look like an oversized tombstone at dusk. And most of all, the greenfield that makes you finally breathe life itself as compared to the stench of smog in the big city that chokes out the life in all of us. ...

  Arnold dreamed that he was in a garden with Emma.   They run across the acres of hundreds of flower-like little children savoring the years of their innocence. The breeze smells of life and all its zest and sweetness as they fling themselves in a bed of technicolor; dipping their body into the pools of petals with laughter that made the birds in the birds in the sky appear and dance above them.   It was the kind of dream that everyone, even Arnold, would wish will never end until something just shatter than a breakable wall between dreams and reality.   And for Arnold, that was when one of the flowers suddenly flaunt a red eye right in front of him the moment she looks at Emma. It gave him the look that will eternally haunt even on his waking life.   “Arnold? Arnold?”   Pain shot right through the skull or Arnold upon opening his eye with his heart skipping some of its beat upon his awakening. The first to greet him is their ceiling and the voice of Emma ...

For someone who works in an unusual time where most of the people are already dreaming with drippings on their lips, Arnold is one of those who can easily sleep soundly. The friction between his skin and the bedsheet is a natural sedative for him. No need for him to gulp several teacups or even the dead old counting of sheep.   But tonight, surprisingly his usually deep sleep was intermittently roused for an unknown reason; as if there is this unseen hand that shakes him at random and he has no choice but to open his eyes that are revolting against him now for easily giving up the much-coveted slumber.   The simultaneous shift from sleeping to being wide awake finally reached a conclusion when Arnold decides to rise from his bed when he heard a sound coming from their living room.   It was the voice of someone talking in a hushed tone. Arnold would consider it nothing but a fractal of his forgotten dream in the first place and yet after a moment, the voice becomes all too...

  It was a loud crashing sound the deafen the whole walls of Duquesa’s residence that pique the ears once more of their neighbors who are itching that morning to spun another tale and rumors in one single fabrication just to passed time.   All pause for a while swiping their phones as they focus on the voice of Arnold Duquesa in complete rage as violent sound intermingles: this time it was the sound of shattering.   “I told you, don’t buy any more of these goddamned plants! But what did you do? Tell me what did you, Emma?” The neighbor expects a slapping sound after the fuming question just like what they saw in those tear-jerking telenovelas after the handsome hulk found out that his girlfriend is enjoying a steamy night with his supposedly loyal best friend.   However, Arnold and Emma’s heated argument doesn’t concern any third party. Or at least a human third party.   “M-Maria is getting lonely. She needs more friends, Arnold. I don’t want her to get lonely.”...

  As the night went longer and darker, we thought we lost not only our precious game but even the sanity of Jonathan. After that encounter with the unidentified creature, I and Gilbert decide to camp right in the grove where we saw Jonathan losing all his wits and senses. We didn’t manage to go to the rendezvous point where we will camp together with other groups who unlike us, went to this forest for scholarly purpose of studying the endemic beast that dwells here.   Jonathan is utterly helpless and refuses to move neither an inch from the spot where we found him. He keeps on mumbling gibberish while cowering like a child getting cornered by the monster underneath his bed. The terror that struck has somehow stolen the last of his sensibilities as he began also soiling his pants    It was appalling to look but we can’t leave him like that in such harrowing condition. It took us an hour of consoling and calming him down before we can finally breathe in relief when he ...