Red Wine

8: Retreat and Reflection

Once a year in the academic calendar of a private Catholic school, each section of every grade level will have at least one day dedicated to a "Retreat and Reflection" - an entire day wherein you reconnect with your roots as a Catholic, to reconcile with the Lord, and to socialize with your peers in a spiritual level. The elementary version of this will just be an entire day at one of the function halls, but the high school version would be spending an overnight trip away from the city, usually at a dedicated 'retreat house' or chapels.

What I don't get about it is - if these "Retreat and Reflection" activities were meant to strengthen your faith and to reflect upon yourself as an individual, then why did it always have to be done at a very eerie location? Honestly ever since reaching high school, I began to envy the elementary school kids; the function halls of the school felt normal, but here I am now, two hours away from home, and I don't even get to share a room with my closest friends.

"If you feel scared, then that just means you lack faith" my ass. I've been devoting my entire life to this religion like a dog loyal to its owner, what else do I need to do to not fear these retreat houses?

Whatever, I might just well savor what remaining time we have in this haunted place. Each room is shared by four people at random in order to maximize the 'socializing' aspect of the activity. Like I said, the three other people with me weren't even close friends - as a matter of fact, I've never interacted with these classmates outside of group projects. While it's strictly prohibited to roam around the retreat house after lights are off, these three roommates I have planned to roam around for a bit to get some snacks and drinks at the dining hall.

Of course, I know this is just their excuse to lessen their punishment if they were ever caught, since their real plan was to wander around the hallways or even visit the other rooms. My roommates don't expect me to join, as I'm one of the more passive people in class, but you know what - fuck it. If being scared of sacred yet haunted places means I lack faith as a devout of the Lord, then I shall break the rules to test this so-called faith.

Our teacher usually does one last round of checking in all of the rooms before he goes to sleep himself, but once that is out of the way, we give it another several minutes before slowly heading out of the room. There was still laughter echoing in the hallways, though it's likely just our other classmates who are still awake - probably doing the socialization part of the Retreat and Reflection. Oh, how I envy them.

We did our best not to make too much noise until we got to the dining halls, which were located in another building where we came from. It was midnight when we did this, and all the hallways and even the outside of the retreat house were dark. There were lamps around the area, but you can tell that the lamps were old and that it barely illuminates anything, even if there were at least ten lamps present. It was even darker at the building where our destination was - understandable, since one one will be eating at the dining halls late at night.

Grabbing a few snacks from our snack bags on the counter as well as our water bottles that they asked us to leave there, me and my roommates began our illegal adventure within the perimeters of the retreat house. I wasn't joking when I mentioned that it was dark as shit all over this place; only the front of the retreat house has lights, while the garden and patio at the back barely has anything. This is also where the nun's quarters are, the ones who own and take care of this place, and even the lights outside their quarters were completely off.

Next, we stumbled upon the chapel. Its doors were completely open for anyone to walk into anytime, as it was kept lit by fake orange lights that were supposed to emulate flames of a candle. The vibe felt like one of those haunted houses in theme parks, considering that the walls were made of stone, it adds further to the scare factor. For some reason, ever since we left the chapel area and supposedly we're heading to the reception area to lounge for a bit and eat our snacks, I couldn't shake off the feeling that we were being followed.