𝗛𝗜𝗡𝗗𝗜𝗞 3.0: 𝗧𝗿𝗶𝗰𝘆𝗰𝗹𝗲

Tricycle

By:Artist Introvert

Our classes ended in a tiring long-day, however it also felt like a flash…

It was already evening, the coldness of the rain traveled down inside from fingertips up to all throughout my insides; fingertips…numb as if I were dead.

I am not sure if it was the breeze of the rainfall, my hearing was felt I was beside an exploding grenade, I barely was able to hear anything.

A minute had passed, I found myself looking into my phone, scrolling through the news about corruption in my facebook feed/wall. 

“Talaga lang? hindi parin natatapos itong corruption haistt.”, I said in my mind.

I was into the news…that screamed like a girl when my friend tapped my shoulder…

They all laughed at me…as expected. After bully and banter, we passed by the streetfood stalls…as we get closer and closer…a rather uncanny feeling climbed from my foot into my…fingertips….

As if things were happening in the past, it sent shivers into my spine.

“Deja vu?”

“Nostalgia?”

I asked myself, perhaps just because I was very tired?...I shrugged it off.

My friends called me to come closer to them, I was a meter away from them slow walker as I always was.

Or am I?...

“Strange…”, I mumbled.

I found myself again staring at my phone. I never noticed we were already at the waiting area for the tricycle in front of 7/11.

It was happening in an hour yet felt like a flash…

Another news popped up on my feed, I somehow still caught a glimpse of it, “accident?”. Before, my fingers shook in the cold, and made me scroll upwards.

As I was looking at my phone, somehow the uncanny feeling was here again…

I looked on my right, my eyes shook.

Where they’d gone. Huh.

A spark of light shines on my left side, a tricycle!?, peww…so there they were.

I thought I will be left alone in the area. The tricycle was loaded until a passenger an elderly stepped out of the cab.

I crouched inside the frontseat, the elderly was there standing still outside sobbing, “Nay?”.

Before I was able to speak-out a word, the tricycle drove off faster than I blinked. The elderly faded in an instant; For some reason the shiver of rather unexplainable nostalgia struck me once again but this instance it scared me. Eyes shooked…hands shaking…almost I dropped my phone.

Luckily my friends didn't notice. As I lifted my head, a rather heavy air filled the cab. 

Everyone went silent, sad…almost 10 minutes passed, still there were nothing. All of them were silent. Until one by one they dropped off to their houses.

I was the only one in the cab left, if that student behind the driver is counted then we are two left then…

It was still raining heavily, heavily and heavily as I got closer to Kalibo Arch.

My eyes were tired and sleepy, and my vision almost blurry. The only thing that kept me awake, the thought that obviously I must not sleep or I will miss my house…and the student behind me talking to herself…or me? she asked me question that was uncomfortably personal as if she knew me.

I tried to look at her face but my neck stiffed from the cold. I caught a glimpse of her in the mirror though it was wet from rain, and her face barely visible only her white long hair.

Out of sudden, a truck nearly hit us. We all three including the driver screamed. The driver shouted “Tumingin ka naman sa dinadaan mo!!”. After a few while we drove off again in the rain…

The rain continued to fall heavily until we passed a diversion. A sidelane light startled me, alerting me that I was in the front lane of my house. A relief in a slight second then numb…probably I am dead.

Because I almost can't feel my leg, arms, and my heart barely beating that It felt nothing.

I pulled my wallet, “lamig” I mumbled as I shivered. I bit the handle opener of my wallet to open it and pulled the ₱20 pesos out using my teeth, then off to my hand and to the driver.

As I stepped out of the cab the driver pulled my back, his hand were cold…so cold…my skin hair shook.

I slowly look behind me…I gazed from the foot for unknown reason perhaps I was too tired. Slowly And slowly I felt uncanny, and my chest went heavy as I looked…the tricycle that i rode into here went missing?!. The driver and the student were standing…beside me. I stopped midway but something was pulling my head into my behind, my neck snapped. It was indeed as I expected. They were there. I stepped back scared eyes shook wide as I stared at them, the driver and student wounded heavily and covered in blood, there was a guy in there back that look like me broken neck. 

I immediately ran past them and crossed the road. I arrived at the doorstep of my house, I still can't feel anything neither my heart was beating. I called and called…screamed to my full extent.

My mom opened the door, “Napano ka nak!! bat ang putla mo!”.

I couldn't speak a word as I was too scared and traumatized I simply rushed into my room door shut loud.

I found my self again, staring on my phone, A news popped up that shivered my spine once more, The accident that i missed earlier popped up The article said “Two student Passenger and a driver were found dead upon arrival, caused of death: Hit by a truck, the truck driver ran off the crime scene and was shot down by the police.“.

Outside my room I heard an elderly sobbing, I crawled out lightly and slowly. There at our dinner table. I saw mom in tears, she was dressed the same as the elderly I saw in the 7/11, beside her was the driver and the girl student staring at me straight into my eyes…

As I was standing there, everything came full circle, I felt uncanny because I died.

The truck did hit us. I came to the realization—reason the girl student knew me well because she was my long lost cousin, who died in the same tricycle accident 12 years ago.

It feels like and hour day yet also happened in flash…

*Story was a product of Writer's mind, a horror fiction.*

🖼️:Hannah Sichon, Junior Editorial Cartoonist