Ghost stories from Philippines

The Ash-Rot Choir

In the late spring of 2009, I found myself at a rural retreat center perched on the edge of a forgotten forest. The place was a converted convent, its walls...

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The Fern’s Bargain

It was during the summer of my sixteenth year that my family decided to escape the sweltering heat of Manila for the cooler climes of the Cordillera mountains. We settled...

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The Gown in the Window Seat

I was eight when my family flew to the highlands of northern Luzon for my lola’s burial. I had never met her, only seen her in faded photographs where she...

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The Lantern’s Reach

It was the autumn of 2008, and I was a freshman at a small coastal college in the Pacific Northwest. My older brother, Daniel, and I had been at odds...

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The Static Garden

The Gardner family’s ancestral home in the outskirts of Cebu was a relic of another era—a two-story wooden structure with a wrap-around veranda, creaking floorboards, and a garden that had...

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The Blue Line of Mothra Hall

In the guts of the old city, where the river stank of diesel and the buildings leaned like tired mourners, stood Mothra Hall. Its brick face was chipped, its windows...

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The Painted Lady of Ward Seven

The first time I noticed something wrong was the smell—a faint, sweet odor, like rotting flowers mixed with old perfume. It clung to the air of Room 204, a private...

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The Static Between Us

In the autumn of 2004, I was a junior at Ridgeline High, and my world was tethered to my father’s black Nokia 3310. He guarded it like a holy relic,...

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The Lantern Man

Three years after the funeral of my mother’s father, I found myself standing in the dusty vestibule of the old Ferris farmhouse, where my uncle Angus had just died. The...

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The Lingering Taste of Menudo

It was a humid February evening in 2011 when the power in our small town of San Ildefonso went out. The generator hummed in the background of the old hacienda...

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The Salt Wind Ward

The hospital sat at the edge of Barangay Malabinas, a skeletal concrete structure whose paint had long since surrendered to the salt-laden air. Its windows faced the sea, and on...

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The Hollow Lullaby

I never believed in ghosts until the spring of 2013, when my family moved into the old farmhouse on Redmond Road. We had rented it cheaply because the previous tenants...

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The Last Frame

Fourteen years have passed, but the memory of that night remains as sharp as a shard of glass. I was nine, a third-grader at a small school in Quezon City,...

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A Piece Of Hell Escaped

First of all, I would like to thank this site for publishing my first experience. That’s why I’m encouraged in making my next experience. As soon as I gained knowledge...

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The Narra Floor

It was the summer of 1997, and our house in the heart of Davao City was a relic among modern neighbors. Our two-story wooden structure, built from narra wood, stood...

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The Last Chart

In the autumn of 2010, I was a night-shift nurse at St. Jude’s Memorial, a private hospital in Cebu City, known not for its miracles but for the persistent rumors...

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The Three-Note Knuckle

It began with the job, as these things often do. I was a junior encoder at a logistics firm nestled in the industrial outskirts of Tarlac City, a humid sprawl...

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The Blueprint of the Hollow Halls

The house stood on a narrow, overgrown lot in the hills of Baguio, a relic from the American colonial era. When Amelia’s family moved in, I was still trying to...

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The Grain in the Walls

Margaret had always prided herself on her practicality. A retired librarian, she valued order, quiet, and the comforting weight of books. The old farmhouse she inherited from her uncle was...

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The Urinal Light

The night our world tilted, I was fifteen and sleepy, standing in the dark of our rented apartment on Mabini Street, not far from the rotonda. We had moved there...

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The Painted Door and the Missing Bolt

I’ve worked at the Meridian Textile Mill for the better part of a decade, and in all that time, the women’s restroom on the third floor has been a source...

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The Transference Ward

In 2007, my mother was admitted to St. Anne’s, a sprawling hospital with a reputation for its outdated equipment and overworked staff. She had a sudden stroke, and the doctors...

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The Moth’s Last Flight

When I was twelve, in the humid heart of Cebu, I thought love was a game of hopscotch and stolen glances. My lola kept a boarding house near the old...

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The Pointing at the Couch

When my daughter Elara was barely three, we moved into my mother’s house after my marriage fell apart. My uncle and his family had taken over my grandmother’s old place,...

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