Written by Gab Lagmay

You see, after the uwian traffic subsides Ateneo becomes a paradise for joggers or bikers. The campus has a great road system connecting the different buildings and the terrain had a good mix of uphill and downhill paths. By 5PM, the cars in the road are replaced by jogging or biking athletes, students, priests, and faculty including one of my teachers back in grade school.

This teacher of mine was an avid biker and knew his way around the campus’ “secret routes” that would test your legs, whether you are running or biking. After a stressful afternoon of checking Math quizzes with little to no answers, he decided to go biking. He timed out a bit later than usual and so he began biking at around 6:30PM – just when the orange-blue sky slowly shut its eyes.

He went on to try out a route that would lead him to a seminary downhill from the campus’ main road. The San Jose Seminary wasn’t entirely known for not having ghost stories and as he deviated from the main road going downhill, things started to get eerie. Teaching in the campus for quite some time already, he wasn’t new to it. However, the way the trees swiveled and brushed against each other, as he recalled, felt different – as if the hisses of the leaves were warning him.

He was on a downhill path and he had to go through the whole road to turn around at the end of it. And so, in the seminary’s small rotunda he biked around and proceeded getting back uphill to the campus’ main road.

As he made his way up, he felt that another biker was a couple of meters behind him which he found unusual since he knew he went downhill alone. Of course, while biking, he had to look at the biker so he slowly turned his head and saw that the biker behind him… was him.

He pedaled uphill with all that he could only to look back and see that the biker behind him was doing the same thing and the only difference was that his doppelgänger had a smile. He pedaled, and every movement his leg made felt like a ton. The smile slowly turned into a grin, and the grin turned to a laugh.

He pedaled, didn’t look back because he knew the one behind him was getting closer. He pedaled and the uphill road felt like an eternity. He pedaled, and he still heard the laugh. He pedaled and the laugh turned into a chant. He couldn’t hear it clearly, he was too fazed. The biker continued to laugh in between the words of the chant.

He finally heard it, “Pater noster, qui es in caelis…”