It’s a paranormal activity.

Yesterday brought devastation to many and, like a never-ending nightmare, proceeded dreadfulness in the aftermath. I have my own story. And to me, this was a real-life horror movie.

September mornings have hardly shown the Sun and yesterday was no exception. Morning was clouded with many shades of gray–all the gloomy and the dismaying. With my enormous red bag, and a pile of laundry, I waited outside Nakpil St. for a ride. The pavement was still drenched in murky waters from the heavy rain of last night. It started to drizzle. A water droplet landed on my nose. It smelled like blood.

After going to a laundry shop and a restaurant, I walked the desolate Service Road. The upcoming storm “Ondoy” may have caused this: less cars on the road.

You hardly see this. Few to no cars at all along Service Road, Roxas Boulevard.

As I walked in the lobby, a gust of wind blew and gave me an instant shiver up my spine. I needed to dry and I quickly found myself pushing the elevator button to hide myself to the cold wind before it swallow up my whole being. No one can bargain with nature’s fury.

4th Floor. The outrageous storm came hosing man’s every edifice. I look at the glass window. It only casted haze. The panoramic Manila Bay was missing in the midst of the storm. My blurry images instead reflected as ghost staring at me with a dark message, “Beware tonight!”

No class. Our prof called and somehow gave a good news. Some of my MBA buddies had it in their wish lists. It was granted and they went out the building straight away to avoid–to their thinking–the storm’s anger. Soon, we would all be trapped in one way or another.

So I was alone (or not). Sitting in my usual office chair, I busied myself with Internet and emails. Lunch time came and I passed. No delivery services. By some minutes of the afternoon, the rain tamed. I managed to go out for a nearby restaurant by 2:00PM and thought I could go home. The devastation was worse than expected. Transportation cut off, roads submerged in floods, and spirits jailed in hopelessness.

My options were to spend overnight in the office or battle the floods in every streets going home. I chose the former.

It was getting late and it continuously stormed the hardest. Still in my office chair, I was re-running the computer game, Huntsville. I suddenly sprang from my seat in shock. Text message alerts sounded endlessly awful like a distress signal. Someone has done a prank on me, cutting off cell signal from my phone for the longest time that all the messages came in then at once.

I still managed the nightly rituals before going to sleep. Office sofa was my bed for the night. I was too tired to think of all the devastating experience from friends and family read from those text messages. I suddenly fell asleep.

2:30AM, I suddenly awaken by a sharp stabbing pain in my chin. Something (or someone) has pricked its skin. Thick blood started to leach and I hardly contained it. For almost half an hour, my hands were stained with fresh blood like that of a killer using his bare hands to slaughter his victim.

Do you see that? A pimple? A rodent bite? A prick by some unknown being?

My own blood ran cold for me to get up or to peek at the glass window. I was awake the entire succeeding hour until I finally gave in to sleep. I have run out of blood.

5:30AM, I woke up. It was not a dream. I now looked at the blood-stained hands that dried up eventually. I hurried to a mirror and found the source. My chin was also blood-stained. I washed up immediately.

A rodent may have bitten me. Or a pimple may have probbably exploded. Or some paranormal activity may have caused it while I’m sleeping. Whatever, it’s all horrific.

The horrors of yesternight will move on today. Not only to me, but for so many others horrified by circumstances the storm “Ondoy” has brought in.

I hope we’ll find peace in prayer.

The kid with his dog looking out the Manila Bay, this morning. Do we see ourselves like this after a bad situation? Careless yet full of hopes?