ON MY RETURN TO MY FIANCÉE’S HOME, A NIGHT THAT CHANGED MY ENTIRE LIFE…
The Nueva Ecija sky was misty, the air was cool, and the clouds were thin like a blanket over the rice fields. I held my small suitcase as I got off the last bus ride.

This was my first time visiting Lea, my fiancée, in her province. A “meet the family” visit before the wedding. It seemed normal, but there was something different. Whenever she talked about her mother — Aling Leticia — there was fear in her eyes.

“Mama… strict, quiet… like she was hiding something you couldn’t tell.”

But I didn’t think too deeply. I was used to in-laws with high standards.

Until that night. In an old wooden house, in the middle of a rice field, I learned that I was not ready.

ARRIVAL AT HOME
Lea was the one who greeted me at the gate. Wearing a jade-colored scarf, her hair loose. There was a smile on her lips, but there was a hint of nervousness.

“Let’s go. Mama is waiting for you inside.”

As we entered the house, I could smell the scent of wood and rice. There at the door, stood Aling Leticia — thin, small in stature, but with a look… sharp. It was as if she knew your secrets.

“Good evening,” I greeted as I bowed.

“Come in. Dinner is ready,” she replied shortly.

While eating, she asked me a few questions: my job, family, wedding plans. But each of my answers was met with a silent nod.

The entire dinner was like an interrogation.

After eating, I was sent to sleep in a small room at the back of the house. Lea was supposed to sleep in her mother’s room — “we’re used to being together,” she said.

Inside my room: there was a bed, a small table, and a gas stove. The surroundings were quiet, you could hear the frogs in the stream and the crickets in the rice fields. I gradually fell asleep.

THE FIRST NIGHT
Around two in the morning, I woke up.

I heard a soft but repeated moan. Not rude, not biting my lip either. More like hurt or trying to remember something.

It came from Lea and Aling Leticia’s room.

I sat up in bed, feeling my surroundings. But the noise didn’t stop — it only got deeper.

There were whispers. There was laughter. There was… labored breathing.

I was surprised, terrified. I approached the door. And before I could turn the gas stove off again, someone shouted — crisp, high-pitched, and familiar.

Lea’s voice.

“Mama! That’s enough! Don’t!”

I immediately ran. I opened the door to their room — it was already slightly open.

Inside, Lea was sitting on the floor, shaking, crying. Aling Leticia, standing in front of her, eyes wide, holding a small knife.

“Stop!” I shouted.

I grabbed the knife and took it from her hand.

She didn’t fight back. She just stared at me as if she had no soul.

Lea came closer, hugged her mother and whispered. Then, she turned to me:

“Please… go back to the room. I’ll explain tomorrow.

THE SECRET IN THE MORNING
The next day, Lea took me to the river behind the house. There, amidst the blowing wind and the echoing water, she spilled everything.

“Mama… she’s not like other mothers.”

“She’s sick. Not just depressed or traumatized.

Every night, sometimes she doesn’t sleep normally. Sometimes she wakes up, whispering. Sometimes… she carries a knife. But she hasn’t hurt anyone yet. Not yet…”

“Not yet?” I asked, worried.

She nodded, dumbfounded.

“When I was little, Papa had a notebook. He always wrote in it at night.

He died for no apparent reason… and from then on, the nights of fear began.”

THE TRUTH NOTEBOOK
One night, as I was packing to go home, I heard a voice again.

Not from the bedroom — from the kitchen.

When I came down, I saw Aling Leticia — in the middle of the kitchen, her eyes closed, muttering words I couldn’t understand.

She had an old notebook in her hand.

It fell. I opened it — and I read it.

“If you can read this, you might be next.

Our female lineage carries a curse.

Every third generation, a woman is guided by a ‘voice’.

I’m not sure if it’s a spirit or if I’m just crazy…

But when Leticia starts carrying a knife,

Don’t leave her alone.”

THE LAST GOODBYE

One morning, I woke up and Lea was gone.

She had left only a piece of paper on the table.

“My dear Diego, I can’t take you with me in this nightmare.
I can’t hurt or be hurt if I follow Mama.
Forgive me. Don’t look for me anymore. – Lea”

I looked for him in the neighboring towns. He wasn’t there.
He seemed to disappear like smoke.

THE NEXT SHOCKING
One night, in my own room in Manila, while I was facing the mirror —
I heard a groan.
And I didn’t know if it was from outside… or from myself.

When I looked into my eyes —
they were shining. Like his. Like Aling Leticia’s.

And in my hand…
a knife.

PART 3: THE UNFINISHED RITUAL

Months passed.

But the darkness inside Diego only grew stronger.

He could still hear her voice — not Lea’s, but something more ancient. Older. Feminine. Whispering in an unintelligible dialect at night. Cold hands on his chest while he slept. Shadows dancing in the corners of his vision.

Finally, one day, Diego packed a small bag and returned to the village.

He had only one goal: Find the root of the curse. And end it.

---

THE RETURN TO NUEVA ECIJA

The village hadn’t changed. The rice fields swayed under a gray sky. Locals gave him wary stares. Some whispered. Others avoided him completely.

He visited the house — now abandoned. Boards nailed over the windows. Dust thick as ash. But something inside still pulsed.

That night, he stayed in Lea’s childhood room.

And at 2:13 a.m., the whispers came again.

Only this time, they were clearer.

“Finish what was started… bury the fire… break the bone…”

The next morning, he went to the eldest living resident of the village:
Lola Felisa, 91 years old, blind, and bedridden.

When he mentioned Leticia and the journal, the old woman gasped:

“You should not speak her name.
The bloodline is marked.
The ritual was never completed. That’s why the spirit keeps coming back.”

Diego leaned in. “What ritual?”

---

THE STORY OF THE CURSE

Lola Felisa explained:

“Centuries ago, a woman named Lucinda lived in this village.
She was a healer, midwife… and powerful in ways that frightened men.
They accused her of witchcraft, burned her alive at the edge of the forest.”

Before she died, Lucinda swore vengeance — not through death, but through rebirth.

“She made a pact. With something… ancient.
That every third generation, she would be reborn through a daughter of her blood.
But a ritual was made to stop her.”

“It was performed only once.
The girl had to be bound, her hair burned, her blood sealed in clay,
and the ashes buried at the place of Lucinda’s death.”

“But…” the old woman’s lips trembled,

“The last time someone tried — it was Leticia’s mother. She couldn’t finish it.
She died before she could bury the ashes.
The clay jar… was hidden.
And Lucinda came back. Through Leticia.”

Diego whispered, “And now… through Lea.”

---

THE SEARCH FOR THE CLAY JAR

Determined, Diego searched the house.

He tore through the floorboards, attic, and closets. Finally, in an old wooden trunk beneath Lea’s bed, he found a sealed clay pot, wrapped in red fabric, buried beneath a torn photograph of Lea as a child.

He knew where he had to go: The edge of the forest — the place where Lucinda was burned alive.

Locals avoided it. They called it Gubat ng Dugo — “Forest of Blood.”

That night, under a red moon, Diego walked alone into the trees.

---

THE UNFINISHED RITUAL

He brought:

The clay jar

A strand of Lea’s hair (kept from an old comb he found)

A small knife

A bottle of salt

And a lighter

When he reached the clearing, the air turned heavy.
The trees fell silent.
Even the wind dared not pass.

He lit a circle of salt. Unsealed the jar. Inside — black ashes and a rusty bone.

He held the hair over the flame.

It burned slow. Hissing. Like a scream.

Then the whispers started — all around him.

“You dare erase me?”
“She belongs to me.”
“Burn yourself, as I burned.”

And then — he saw her.

Lucinda.

Or… what remained of her.

A woman with charred skin, face half-missing, eyes hollow and burning red. Floating above the ground. Screaming silently.

Diego stepped forward. Voice trembling.

“You don’t belong here. Your time is over.”

He poured the salt into the jar, sealed it, and dug a hole with his bare hands. Blood seeped from his nails.

Lucinda lunged.

But before she could reach him — he buried the jar.

There was a howl. A crack in the sky. The red moon split behind clouds.

And silence.

---

EPILOGUE: ONE YEAR LATER

Diego now lives in the city. Quiet. Alone.
He never found Lea again.

But he never heard the whispers since that night.

Sometimes, he dreams of her — smiling, free, barefoot in a field.

Sometimes, he dreams of Lucinda — screaming beneath the earth.

But he never forgets the message he carved on a small stone, left above the buried jar:

“Some legacies are born in blood.
But they can end in love —
If someone is brave enough to bury the fire.