Decay In Her Bones

CHAPTER 19

The first thing Bobby did upon waking up was to move his head from one end of the room to the other, scanning the room with cautious eyes. He savored his surroundings, considering every single dark object as a potential ghost. After a full assessment for any sign of entities, he turned on the light and did another round: the room was free of ghosts. Since the apparition of unexplained paranormal activities had become frequent, a strain of paranoia had tainted Bobby's routine, as if he expected to see something scary just by looking behind. In addition to that, he thought that if he would anticipate such appearances, it would hinder them from showing their selves. By the time he rose to a sitting position, his eyes were still watery from an abrupt awakening. After brushing them and clearing his sight, he made a third assessment of his environment.

A rooster crowed near.

The next thing he was made aware of was the feeling of thirst, followed by an extensive urge for liquid. Before standing up, he glanced at his wall clock which hanged on the wall adjacent to his bed and it said 4:04 AM. On any normal day he would opt to set for another five minutes snooze alarm, but today he ought not to be late. It was Friday, and Bobby needed not to be reminded that today was their Retreat and they would be going to Batangas, a place that excited him. This excitement, gladly, had temporarily erased the fear that was bugging him every waking hour. At least, it was able to hide it under a thin layer of enthusiasm.

As he was setting his feet down, they hit something hard and massive beside his bed's foot. It almost made him jump, until he realized that it was the huge pile of bags he packed the night before. It contained his clothes good for four days as well as other things that they were required to bring such as flashlight, a bottle of water, jacket, and a curious inclusion of a plain white T-shirt. In its front pocket were his toothbrush, soap, shampoo, deodorant, cotton buds, vitamins, and a couple of paracetamol.

The only things left to do were take a bath and eat breakfast, and then he would be good to go.

A passing of an hour found Bobby on his way to school. Since his departure that day was way earlier than his usual time of leaving, his father took the liberty of taking him to the highway. There he met Mylene and together they waited for a bus to pass by and collect passengers.

One benefit of riding a bus that early was that there were still a lot of vacant seats, so the two of them were able to choose their preferred seats.

As usual, Mylene sat beside the window.

To Bobby's surprise, Mylene only brought two bags: one back pack and one shoulder carry. He wondered how clothes enough for four days made it inside those two. Nevertheless, he had had no opportunity to talk to her much. She slept almost throughout the entire journey.

Bobby didn't take a nap, nonetheless. For him, sleeping was an opportunity for the ghosts to overcome him again.

When they arrived at the school, the sun had not yet made itself visible. However, there was already a purple shade slanting from the eastern horizon, providing a scenic outline of trees and buildings like an old painting of Manila's sunrise. Bobby had never experienced staying late at school, so it was his first time to see it dark except from the sharp lights that lined the walls of the four buildings that enfolded the quadrangle. Bobby imagined himself standing in the middle of a football field, only that it was full of other players which were the students lining up for registration. Bobby scanned the faces around him but none of them were familiar aside from Mylene and her half-closed eyes.

"Fourth years! Please fall in line properly for bag inspection!" Bobby heard somebody shouted. He looked toward its source and saw Ms. Alma Tamayo, a staff from the Religious Affairs office, sandwiched between two other male staffs, Mr. Jun Placides and Mr. Leo Zamora. The three of them were already busy checking the bags of the students who came early, who were still few including Bobby and Mylene. In addition to that, according to them, the staffs also had to check their waivers. Since the Retreat was compulsory, soliciting for parents' signatures was just an act of formality.