by Celestine Trinidad

Illustration by Shai San Jose.

It was almost midnight. Isa unlocked the door to the church using the keys she had borrowed from the parish office that morning. “Borrowed” was maybe not the term the parish secretary would use for what she did, because Isa had taken the keys from his desk without his knowing while he was distracted with the papers for her mother’s funeral mass. She would return it after tonight anyway, so it wasn’t stealing.

Sharmaine Galve is an entrepreneur by force, a writer by passion, and an electric biker by accident. She has been a fictionist since high school, an editor-in-chief in college, and was first published in Philippine Free Press in the late 90s. She had been published in Philippine Graphic as well and won third prize for a short story on mental illness. She loves a lot of things artistic: books, movies, music, paintings and the occasional plays.

Sharmaine was published in Philippine Genre Stories Volume 1, Issue 3 with the story “Y” which was inspired by the “Nature vs. Nurture” issue. She recalls that the last time she wrote a story was in 2015 and she shares her return to writing stories through “DIFFERENTIAL” in Philippine Genre Stories 2023.

by Sharmaine Galve

Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

I suppose people think that when you’re diagnosed with anxiety disorder, with the prescriptions and certificate to prove it, your panic attacks would be loud, explosive, and a complete scene- stealer. You would be a puddle of water on the floor, crying at the sight of light and sounds and people peering over you.

But, you know what they say, that’s what movies have done for us. Perpetually giving us an inaccurate picture of things.

Of course, I may be wrong. Maybe I do look spooked during a panic attack. Dilated eyes, pale as an ordinary cloud unpossessed by rain, zombie-walking like I need brains rather than wanting to eat them.

But nobody has called me out for that. Nobody even knew I was having them until I softly say, “I am having a panic attack.” Then everyone panics.

Larizza Joise Macabulos, or LJ for short, enjoys gourmet cooking, fine wine, and, of course, scary stories. A lover of all things macabre, horror, coffee, tea, and music, she is a cult worshipper of Stephen King, Edgar Allan Poe, and HP Lovecraft. She graduated from AB Literature at the University of Santo Tomas, and her research focused on Gothic literature in the Philippines.  LJ hopes to publish a novel and  “Crimson All Over” is her first published work outside the university. 

by Larizza Joise Macabulos

How cold, she thinks to herself as she lay unmoving, listening to a stranger: Specimens collected, at the time of the post-mortem examination, are detailed in the following autopsy protocol. The decedent is one Rosaline Isabel Palermo, female, identified through facial recognition and dental records. 

She can feel her body being lifted, arms bent around to flex her fingers and joints: Rigor is absent, with livor mortis purple in color, distributed posteriorly. Records show that the subject is twenty-three years of age, unmarried, and of Filipino descent. Length is five feet, point two, with a postmortem weight of seventy kilograms. Eye color is unable to be identified due to injury.