MANILA, Philippines - Schools have been our second home, but when things get creepy it makes us think otherwise. In the spirit of Halloween, Philstar Campus is giving you five chilling campus ghost stories gathered from unfortunate students who lived to tell these tales. Think a story or two sounds familiar?
1. The young visitor
One evening, a group of students from a Catholic school in Rizal decided to hang out at a corridor in one of the school buildings adjacent to the church. The group was seated on the steps leading to a gated passageway connecting the school to the church's sacristy, where vestments, church furnishings and sacred vessels are kept. They were singing along to a guitar and having some snacks when they noticed a little girl standing on the other side of the gate, looking down on them. The girl wore a white dress, with a long collar that extended to the ground. It was already late at night and she seemed alone, so one of the students asked her who she was and offered snacks. Without warning, the little girl immediately ran away, as if from shock, and headed to the sacristy. The students, surprised, peeked through the metal gate and checked the little girl. On the other side, they found nothing but the door of the sacristy.
2. Can't sleep
A group of musicians were spending the night at one elementary school in one of the islands in Binangonan, Rizal. The musicians were part of a marching band, who were performing for the barangay fiesta. One night, one of the girls who was part of the majorettes woke up crying, to the surprise of the other members of the marching band. When asked about why she was crying, the girl pointed to the direction of her feet, and said someone was hurting her while she was sleeping. Other members of the group did not believe her story until she got up and showed them her legs. On them were red marks which looked like someone hurt her. The girl said an angry old lady with big eyes was looking at her and didn't want her to sleep, so when she forced herself to sleep she pinched her.
3. Chocolate
In a library of one of the big universities in Manila, a female student went inside to read the newspaper. There were very few people in the library that early morning, and she decided to sit beside a long table to read the news while eating a bar of chocolate. After a while, she noticed that a boy had joined him on the other side of the table, curiously looking at her.
"Hello," she told the boy.
"What's that?" said the boy, referring to the chocolate on her hand.
"Chocolate, do you want?" she said.
At this point the boy approached the student- not by walking to her- but by passing through the solid table.
4. Old student
At one school south of Manila, a student was making his way to his classroom when he noticed a student wearing a white polo and black pants. The student thought what he saw was another student from another school since the guy's uniform is different from theirs. He kept on seeing the guy after a few days and wondered who he was and what he was doing in the school building during those days. His curiosity was cut short when one day, the school administration decided to hang a photo of the guy on the wall of the school building, in memory of one of the former students who collapsed and died on the spot years before.
5. Left out
A group of paranormal investigators based in a university in Quezon City went to Laguna to look for an old house where they can communicate with a spirit. They were directed to one by a random sarisari store vendor who also takes care of an old, deserted house.
The group started communicating with the spirits in the house, and in an effort to talk to one, one of them volunteered to be possessed by one of the spirits just so they can communicate. To their surprise, the spirit started talking in Korean, which made the group curious as to what the spirit was talking about.
Days after, the group managed to find a Korean classmate who would be willing to translate what the spirit was saying. They summoned the spirit once again through a medium, and a conversation with the Korean translator revealed that the spirit was that of a Korean comfort woman, a 17-year-old girl who was forced into prostitution by the Imperial Japanese Army during the second World War. She was brought to the Philippines by a Korean soldier who fought for the Japanese, and she was made a sex slave, confined in the house. The spirit asked for help in returning to Korea, and said her mother and brother are waiting for her to return. She also instructed the group of students to leave the house, as the Japanese were already about to return. The group told her that she no longer has to worry about things since she is already dead. Upon saying this, the spirit left the medium's body immediately, ending the group's session for the night.