Thread by @alexisofswords

#UPVencounters, #scarystories & #urbanlegends part 5: The Screaming.

Some incidents in UPV are less known, less explained, with few knowing what they are or where they come from. While I have retold some more popular myths, some phenomena aren’t as popular because many —

dismiss them as something else or don’t bother to bring them up.

These include laughter coming from the deep woods, late at night, maniacal and evil. Whispers in the tree line, the crying, too. And, very rarely, you hear the screaming.

—

Now, when I say “screaming”, I don’t—

mean drunk college students belting out a slurred but very loud version of Bakit Nga Ba Mahal kita. Nor do I mean the screaming brought by that one, random, mid-sem breakdown (we are here for you).

No. The screams we speak of are the bone-chilling, tortured, painful screams.—

Screams so full of suffering that you would think someone was dying.

If you have ever seen a movie with scenes depicting hell, and you hear the screams of tortured souls? Yeah. That’s it.

Sometimes it’s one scream, and the gender varies, so does the location where you hear it—

But sometimes it’s a whole chorus of them. Like hundreds were being burned to death.

The story I am about to tell you is a shared experience between my group of friends at the time. It happens to all of us, at the same time, at different locations, thus I must first explain—

where we all were and what we were doing.

I must also note that I lived in Car-An’s dorm in Mat-y at the time, with a roommate. For anyone familiar with that dorm and UP at the time, you will know that Car-An’s is set aways away from the main road by a dirt path with very—

few lights, so it would be very dark. UP itself was also quite dark at the time, with streetlamps set far apart each other. To get home to the outer Mat-y dorms, trikes would drop you off at Box2 and you would have to walk or pay for a special trip.

This route required you to —

walk down lover’s lane, past KLC (where they say a white lady resides) up to the junction at RA and then down the Car-An path. No, the KLC guard box was not manned at this time.

You would literally be on your own.

—

As for where we were, I was halfway down lover’s lane—

It was nearing midnight as I had to stay late at CAS for Hinugyaw practice and to assist with cheering.

One other friend was at St Mikes, safe and sound. Two of us were walking to Car-An’s via Mat-y road and a couple more of us (CMS majors also coming from —

helping with cheering) were just ahead of me near RA. The last one was on their way out of their own dorm near Car-An’s to meet their gf who was also part of the friend group at Car-An’s since pauwi na.

We were all at different parts but if you know UPV we would still roughly—

be near each other, encircling a wide area.

But back to where I was. Halfway down Lover’s lane when I heard it. The screams of what seemed like the accumulated suffering of hundreds of people, men, women, children.

I stopped, heart pounding and turned around, trying to find—

the source but all I could see was a deserted UP dorm area and all seemed at peace. I listened intently, panicked, but the screaming had died down.

After composing myself for a moment, I willed myself to move, walking a little bit faster than before, telling myself that I was—

just tired and it was probably my imagination.

I would of course be proven wrong only a moment later when the screaming starts again. It echoed down Lover’s lane, people asking for help, begging, suffering. The screams seemed to come from the direction of St Mike’s—

Part of me wanted to run and see if I could help. Perhaps there was a fire? But I was also terrified of it being a different kind of attack and I was alone on the road.

While I was debating what to do, the screaming died down again and I continued my walk, shaking. —

It wasn’t long before I heard the screaming a third time and I had to break in to a run. It stopped and so did I, when I reached Mat-y road. I did have a phone but had no load, so my best chance to get safe was to get home as fast as I could and call for help there—

I was able to calm down at this point, probably because I was exhausted to walk instead of run. I did not hear the screaming again and I was able to safely get home.

Upon arriving to the room, half ready to collapse, I open the door to find that every single friend from the—

group who was out at the time was in my room. They had laid out foams on the floor, 2 guys and 4 girls in total squeezed into a tiny 2-person room.

“What are you guys doing here?” I ask, forgetting about the ordeal.

“Lexi—“ one of them hisses “lock the door and come in. Fast.”—

I oblige, too tired to argue and only now seeing their terrified faces.

“Sit down we have some scary shit to tell you.”

I join them on the floor. “What happened?” I ask, unsure what this was about.

“So when we were walking home, we heard the scariest screaming on the road.” —

“Like people were being burned alive and shit.”

The person speaking was a girl. “My boyfriend heard it, too and so did they.” She says, gesturing to the two other girls.

“Yeah, it was horrible.” One of them replies.

It’s at this point that I want to cry out of relief but also—

fear because I wasn’t the only one who heard it. “Did it sound like tortured souls of hell?” I respond.

Nods and words of assent are uttered, quietly. All of us were solemn.

The next few hours were spent talking about where we were, confirming that everyone heard the same—

thing, but at different places. We took turns describing the sound, but we all agreed that it sounded like a whole mass of people being massacred. The screaming struck fear in all of us, an uneasy air filling the little room.

We also speculated what it could be. If it was fire—

shouldn’t we have seen smoke and flame? If it was an attack, shouldn’t someone have called the police by now? We all agreed that maybe it was a place of conflict long past, souls who never found rest reliving their suffering and would investigate in the coming days. —

Needless to say, we had an impromptu sleepover as no one wanted to go back out into the dark.

Oh and remember the friend at St Mikes? We encounter her at CAS the next day during a class break. She approaches the mushroom and the first thing she blurts out is— you guessed it—

the same type of screaming which she heard while she was having a smoke on her balcony. No, we had not texted or communicated with her beforehand.

—

Curious as we were, we did ask around if there were any fires the previous night and tried to find records or accounts —

of any conflict or massacres in the area, perhaps even going back to Spanish times. Alas, there were none so we never quite found out what it was.

Over the years, I would hear anecdotes from people saying they would hear similar screams. Sometimes it’s just the screams —

of one person, sometimes a man or a woman. They would all come from a vague direction in the darkness.

Others tell us they would hear maniacal laughter in the forest instead, at 3am, coming from the deep woods where no sane person would be at that time. The laughter, they say—

would come closer, ever so slowly to the nearest window before being heard far away again in the next moment.

Sometimes it’s crying. Sobs of a man, woman, or child in the darkness just beyond the light. We have all learned to ignore it and just keep walking. —

If you’re like me who loves getting an explanation for things, we have tried to rationalize what the screaming could be. One suggestion was that it was sounds of a horror movie being carried out from one of the houses in the area.

We would disprove this, however, when one of us—

chimes in and confirms that the voices were asking for help. Asking for help in native Karay-a.

I never heard the screaming again, thankfully, but even now, when it’s late at night, I can’t help but feel anxiety. I never quite got over the horror of those screams, you see—

and I have always lived in fear that I would be unlucky enough to once again hear them.