LITERARY: The Crucifix (Excerpt from 'Decay In Her Bones')

By: Eric Paulin

"Tell me, what can you see in the picture?" Mr. Danilo Bernadas, Bobby's professor in Theology, was dearly asking his class that afternoon. Behind him, a huge poster was posted on the board.

One of the students raised a hand.

"Aquino." Sir Bernadas pointed his hands towards the nerdy girl in the third row.

"Yang and Yin, sir," she said without standing up.

"Correct. I know you are all familiar with this, right?" The entire class nodded.

It was Bobby's Theology class, which focused on the Sacraments. It was a course for lower years, but he was not able to take it on time, that was why he was taking it in his fourth year. As a consequence, his classmates were second year students, and that he was forced to take it with other courses. The class was a block of Marketing Management majors. Bobby knew nobody in the class. So, he was sitting at the back of the classroom by himself.

Yang and Yin. The international archetype for opposites; for two contrasting forces. I know where he is heading to, Bobby thought.

"Now, what if I took the black away, leaving the white behind?" Mr. Bernadas was continuing. He was soliciting answers from the students; a deviation from the traditional way of imparting knowledge. He was very well aware that it was an effective strategy to engage his students.

After some time, another student volunteered. Once called, he started speaking, "It will lose its essence. If let's say Yang will be taken away, Yin will mean nothing."

"Good point." Praising answers was required. "Vice versa. Yang is nothing without Yin. In other words, they are inseparable..." Mr. Bernadas let his last point hanging to emphasize what he was trying to say. Meanwhile, the students were wholeheartedly devouring over the lesson. The strategy was once again proven effective.

"Moving on..." Mr. Bernadas continued. For the next five minutes, he showed other different pictures showing inseparable pairs; things that cannot exist without the other.

Bobby's thoughts, however, were not solely on what was being discussed. He kept on coming back to what had happened yesterday and earlier that day. Although he had a lot of questions regarding his situation, he knew very well that the root cause of all these was the Bloody Mary incident. Looking back to the real reason why he did it, he only landed on the realization that it was his own choice. Yes, he was provoked by his friends, but it resulted from him being so firm about not believing in ghosts. Perhaps, although he was not fully aware of it, the real question bugging his thoughts was on how surreal things were during the past two days. Just before he saw the Bloody Mary yesterday morning, he was so certain that it wouldn't work; that he was just forced to do it in order to prove to his friends that ghosts aren't real. What was even worse was, even after that blood draining encounter, more unexpected apparitions had followed. Was it their own way of expressing their wrath on Bobby for not believing? Was he being punished for his lack of faith? And to sum it all up, would they hurt him? What did these apparitions mean?

Bobby remained clueless.

During the entire duration of this train of questions bombarding his skull, he found himself looking at the image of Christ on the cross; a miniature crucifix that hanged on the wall in front of the classroom. It was placed directly above where Mr. Bernadas was standing.

It was at the classroom's dead center, hanging by a screw on the central pillar behind the blackboard.

Jesus. Help me.

"...now, just like those pictures I have shown, our topic for today is one of the sacraments which is very much related to what we had listed this morning." Bobby finally got a grip back to what his professor was saying. He eyed the board and there were words such as inseparable, partner, equal, counterpart, coexistence, bound, etc.

"Today," Mr. Bernadas continued, "we're gonna talk about the sacrament of Matrimony."

Bingo! Bobby was right.

"Now..." Mr. Bernadas began.

Bobby said in his mind, He's fond of using 'now'. Teachers... cannot go without mannerisms.

"As I was saying," Mr. Bernadas said, expressing through weird hand gestures, "these words define this sacrament. It's the sacrament that unites man and woman with eternal vows. A unity so sacred, it cannot be broken. A unity with God as witness."

With this, Bobby thought of Mylene. He loved her very much he wanted to marry her as soon as they finish college, but he knew it's impossible. They needed to get a job first and save for their future because raising a family costs an arm and a leg. They needed to be ready for everything. Still, Bobby thought, it was Mylene he wanted to marry. Nobody else. Not even...

Something in the corner of Bobby's eyes pulled him away from his thinking. It was like when there is something out of place; it will inevitably catch one's attention even without the person looking at it directly. Bobby glanced forward, looking straight in front. There was Mr. Bernadas carrying on with his lecture on marriage, but it was what was above him that caught Bobby's attention.

The cross.

The crucifix.

The image of Christ's death.

Only, it was inverted ― like St. Peter who was crucified upside down. Bobby froze as if his soul had left his physical body right there and then. For him, it was the worst kind of bad omen that could present itself in front of someone.

"Sir!" Bobby heard someone from the class shouted, his hand pointing at the cross. Bobby turned and saw that all the other students had noticed it too.

Mr. Bernadas turned in a full swing to look at what they were pointing at, and there he saw it.

The inverted crucifix.

Acting on his instincts, Mr. Bernadas pulled the teacher's chair directly below the cross and stepped on it. He reached for the image and immediately swung it upright, back to its original position. Even if he did not look very religious as compared with the other professors handling Theology classes, he knew enough not to let instances like this pass.

He climbed down the stool, flattened his polo, and addressed the class, "Woah, that one scared me."

Even the students who were not very conservative when it comes to religion also felt bothered by the incident. Maybe it was a mutual notion for all to feel bad when they see such a religious icon in an awkward position.

Anyway, problem solved.

Mr. Bernadas did not make a big issue out of it and eventually came back to his lesson.

Bobby, whose focus went back to the lecture, fought hard to ignore the incident. However, he was having a strong feeling that it was connected to him; to his recent paranormal encounters.

He nailed his eyes on the image of Mr. Bernadas but an invisible force seemed to be pulling his attention back to the crucifix.

Unwilling to give in, he was unable to resist. Bobby shot a glance towards the cross.

All the hairs on his back stood.

Bobby suddenly had cold feet.

Both his feet felt numb. He could not move any parts of his body when he saw it.

There was something... or someone on the wall in front of the class. It was situated directly on top of Mr. Bernadas, like a giant frog sprawled across the wall. Within a millisecond, Bobby observed the features of the creature above. It had the stature of a man, a very skinny man, and very tall too. His skin was the blackest of black, but its texture shone smoothly through the illumination coming from the fluorescent lights. His chest was hairy, as well as his talons and his arms. Spread against the white walls were dark bony fingers protruding from his murky hands. They ended up in long, sharp nails that looked like small knives. His face was dark too, except for two blood red eyes that glowed with an evil glare, looking straight towards Bobby's own eyes. What really put Bobby at the edge of his seat was when he saw that the creature had a tail. A long, black, slimy tail that wiggled from left to right, ending in a small bun of spiky hairs.

Bobby knew enough to identify what it was.

A demon.

In a room painted white whose floors was covered with light colored tiles, the demon's ugly silhouette stood out in Bobby's vision.

The demon's glare unnerved Bobby.

It was his greatest effort to keep a scream from coming out. Through his peripheral sight, he noticed that nobody else in that class was reacting the same way he did.

It was just him who was seeing the demon.

He sat there, frozen, unable to move. The muscles in his face hardened, as if under a spell. The eyes of the demon never left him, but his hands started to move slowly... towards the crucifix.

His long, bone-like fingers stretched out in front of him and reached for the lower tip of the wooden cross. The demon pulled it up in a full three-hundred-and-sixty-degrees swing, bringing the cross back to its upside down position.

It was his doing all along.

It was him who did it a while ago.

It was him again who was doing it now.

After accomplishing his goal, the demon's black lips widened, showing a disorganized line of yellow teeth. It was still looking at Bobby, now smiling.

"Sir! It's upside down again!" This time, it was a girl who shouted, but at the very same instance, Bobby stood up and hurried across the room, towards the door.

Mr. Bernadas did not pay attention to the crucifix, but looked instead at Bobby, who was half running for the door. He got a glimpse of his face, it was paper white and he was sweating as if a pail of water was poured at him.

His student exited the room without a word. This surprised him, but he saw Bobby's facial expression and that was enough for him to consider that there was something wrong and that he had to let him go.

Maybe he's sick, but Mr. Bernadas decided, he had to talk to him after the class.

Inside the classroom, Mr. Bernadas repeated the same course of actions in putting the cross back to its proper position. He stood on top of the stool and reached for the cross without knowing about nor seeing the demon, who was directly in front of him. He was face-to-face with it, but only Bobby whose third eye had recently opened was able to see it.