The Phantom of Baker Hall Theater

Chapter 1- An Introduction to the Phantom of Baker Hall Theater

The Baker Hall Theater is the oldest theater at the National University of the Philippines, alma mater to the most talented theater and movie actors and actresses in the country. It was built even before the Americans set foot on Philippine soil and had withstood two World Wars and the American and Japanese invasions. It was used as a headquarters for activist students during the Martial Law and was used as a prayer house during People Power I. This was where students watched the news coverage of the impeachment trial of then-president Joseph Estrada, and the place where students rejoiced when Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III won the 2010 presidential elections. With a building that had a legacy as great as this, rumors of ghosts wandering through the place are inevitable. One such ghost is the most feared of all, for many have seen him in person and have witnessed his atrocious deeds. He was rumored to have been demanding 21,000 pesos in cash every month from the university's chancellor, because if he didn't comply, something bad would happen, like the death of the university's most famous guard, Mang Mando, who was found hanging at the backstage of the Baker Hall Theater with fresh slits on his wrists. Because of that, the chancellor was forced to increase the tuition from 600 pesos per unit to 1,000 pesos per unit, just so he could pay the Phantom to stop him from killing anyone else. 

The Phantom is said to have haunted the Baker Hall Theater for 20 years. Various supernatural studies organizations have been formed to uncover the mystery of the Phantom. They have tried to take videos and pictures of him whenever the chancellor laid an envelope full of money at the middle of the stage (as per the Phantom's instructions), but the envelope just seems to disappear before their very eyes, even when all the lights in the theater are on. According to various eyewitness accounts, the Phantom wore all black with a gray mask covering his entire face, although some have claimed to have seen him wearing bandages on his face for some time, he eventually returned to wearing his mask. He also moved quite fast that not even the university's fastest runner can catch him, he just seemed to disappear in thin air everytime people have tried to catch or document him. He was also believed to live in the unexplored recesses of the theater which were inaccessible to anyone but him. University alumni often fondly recall hearing stories of the Phantom from their friends and professors.

But the Phantom is not a ghost, he's a human being, a rather cosmetically challenged one at best. He was the son of one of the univeristy janitors who lived in the secret passages of the Baker Hall Theater, and he was called Erick. His mother was a horribly disfigured beggar woman who won his father's heart, a university student then, by saving him from holdapers through the exposure of her face. They then went to have a drink with each other, and things just got hotter until Erick was born. His mother died in childbirth, so his father was forced to work as a janitor just so he could hide the fact that he had a son from his parents. Despite his son's looks, he loved him, cared for him, and he taught him how to read and write and do math. Erick was a very bright child and he loved reading his father's books on chemical engineering in the 'dungeon' of the Baker Hall. He dreamed of becoming an engineer like his father, but since his father didn't want him to be bullied by other children, he never sent him to school. 

Life for Erick and his father was going on well until a fight broke out between members of the university's top two fraternities made Erick experience human brutality at its finest when he got caught up in the fight while just coming back to the theater from a short night stroll. His father was a member of one of the fraternities involved, and upon seeing another opponent, one of the members of the other side dragged him aside and beat him up until he stopped moving. His brethren were unaware of this. His body was then thrown on the stage of the theater, where he was found the next day by the morning shift music professor. 

Something changed within Erick, for the father who loved him and never alienated him died in the hands of people who were mad at him for some reason. News of his father's death dominated the news headlines. His father's family came and buried him, but they never knew of his son Erick. The murderer was never caught, so Erick lived shrouded in darkness, waiting for a chance to take revenge for his father. He was just seven when his father died.

The chance finally came when some members of the fraternity were having a drink at the backstage of the Baker Hall Theater. The murderer was there, drinking and laughing to his heart's content, never feeling any guilt at all at killing a person. Hidden in the darkness, Erik, with a knife in hand, slowly crept to the area behind the murderer. Something unexpected happened, since one of the murderer's drinking buddies suddenly stabbed him in the chest with a knife. Turns out the murderer impregnated the guy's girlfriend, and he forced her to abort, which eventually led to her death. Erick was taken aback by the sudden development that he almost stumbled while retreating to the safety of the theater's secret dungeon. He was glad that he didn't have to kill him to get revenge, since someone else did it for him, but his father was dead and no amount of stabs on the murderer can bring him back. He lived in solitude for 5 years, living on the knowledge his father passed on to him.

The Phantom was not the one who killed Mang Mando. A jealous officer waited until patrol time around the theater to strangle him. To his surprise, he saw Mang Mando slit both his wrists with a box cutter. He was about to run when Mang Mando saw him and waved the cutter at him. Thinking that he was about to kill him, the officer quickly got around Mang Mando then strangled him with the rope that he was holding. He then hung up his corpse at the backstage to make it look like a suicide by strangulation. 

Erick never killed anyone during his whole stay at the theater. He just wanted to break the windows of the chancellor's office with rocks if he didn't comply. The deaths that happened because of non-payment were mere coincidences, but everyone believed they were the Phantom's doing.