A first cousin, who I haven't met in ages had coughing bouts and fever spells the same week I did. Her results revealed that she was Covid Positive on Sunday.
Another first cousin, someone I haven't met in a lifetime (lol), thought it was a simple case of allergies. She was sneezing and coughing until they thought of having her saliva-tested last weekend and the result came out - positive.
That is three in a week. Happened under different and peculiar circumstances, and I had a weird feeling that our misfortunes had something to do with the general cleaning I did in our old house in Santa Mesa.
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You see, that almost-century ancestral house never runs out of kababalaghan stories. From fair-looking beings greeting you out of nowhere to invisible entities poking you in the middle of the night, you name it and the tenants would likely tell it. When the sibling was still a toddler, she was delirious in one of her fever spells. The tawas session revealed that she was being toyed upon by the duwendes. A half-brother, who once lived in the farthest corner of the house dreamed of seeing shadows watching over him. He was sick of tuberculosis and needed to be isolated.
He recovered weeks later.
Despite its haunted reputation, everyone believes it's a lucky house. All children (those who enrolled at least) were able to complete their studies and lead better lives despite the odds against them. No one who lives in that house ever got seriously sick (at least that's what the elders and the current tenants say.) So I treat the house with reverence, and in my desire to bring back its better days, I may have inadvertently triggered the elementals who lay undisturbed in its deepest recesses for decades.
Desperate to understand the connection between my transgressions and the peculiar affliction that came down to my family, I was likely granted an audience. In one of my dreams, I was back in the same room I cleaned the week before. There was an assembly of shadows and I was asked to speak and air my side. I said that I thought of cleaning the house and putting lights in my mother's abandoned room to bring it back to its pristine form. In my thoughts, I wanted that place to shine, even host more tenants who might benefit from the house's generosity. I do not recall apologizing, but I knew that I spoke with selfless intent and that I conveyed my desire to become the custodian of the house. The shadows were silent. I do not recall feeling their wrath or anger. Meanwhile, I saw a bunch of children gleefully peeking out from the second floor kitchen's low ceiling.
Later on, I would learn from the caretaker that these assembly of entities were the same entities the tenants randomly come across when they tread along the unlit corridors.
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The next morning, I partially got my sense of taste and smell back.
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