People who seem to have charms and powers because of their beliefs.

It all started when it was reported that our world would end in the year 2000 because some people said it was a prophecy and they were seeing signs that the world was really going to end.

So almost all the people here in our area panicked especially the elderly. I was only seven years old at the time but I still remembered and knew everything that was happening.

There was a man who claimed to see the future and pretended to be like Jesus Christ, so many people came to him to be saved when the judgment came.

They sold their animals such as buffaloes, cows, pigs and others. They left their houses and farms and went there to the person I'm talking about to live there too.

If you were born before the year 2000, you must have caught up and watched a documentary by a reporter on a TV channel here in the Philippines about people who dig the ground to make a tunnel and inside it they will make a house or an evacuate area in case the end of the world will happen.

Many people used to live here in our area at that time and only a few families were left including our family who said that no one else could save us but only the Lord Jesus Christ himself.

No matter how scared my parents felt they never really followed through and went where my uncles and cousins ​​went. Although we also prepared and planned what we would do in case what they say is true. I know my parents are not afraid for themselves, they are afraid for their children especially since we are still small.

We first discussed that when the end happens we will go to church together to pray and then God will take care of what will happen to us.

There was no television in our area at that time and if there was, it was very rare and only the rich and those who lived in the city or in the towns.

I still remember that our area did not have electricity lines and radio was the only source of information from the area, so it was very difficult to know what was really true and what was really happening in other places.

Our Barangay then seemed to be a dead place like the ones we see in movies where no one lives in the houses anymore. And even if a thief is no longer a thief because they might be thinking about what else they will do with their money if the world ends.

Until what they said was the appointed day of the end came, one day in the year 2000.

The whole area was so quiet at that time that even the birds seemed to feel the atmosphere. As children, we were just playing in our yard with my siblings when suddenly there was a very strong earthquake, which I could see in the trees and coconuts that seemed to break one by one and the ground seemed like wave. Our parents immediately called us and we went to a place and we sat on the ground and because we knew then there no something to be fall to us so the we stay on the ground.

We were all very scared then and we were also thinking that everything will end there because the world will end.

We saw on the mountain that the big rocks were rolling, we could actually see it because our Barangay where we live is close to the mountain. But that earthquake suddenly stopped, and we are still thinking what will happen next because the first thing that happened that was said in the prophecy has happened and there will be more that will happen that will rain fire like what happened in Sudom and Gumura that God rained fire and brimstone. But I didn't know about this at my young age.

We didn't leave our place with the whole family together and almost an hour had passed so we stood up one by one and looked around. It's just another strong earthquake and the world hasn't ended yet. It is said in the Bible that the Lord Jesus Christ will return for judgment without anyone knowing at an unexpected time, so I am sure that no soothsayer can predict when that time will be.

A few months or years passed and people gradually returned to our area where they lived with their families.

Others seem to regret why they believed because they wasted the times and they defeated by the fear that caused them to go back to zero.

We noticed them especially those who are of the right age because they already have tattoos on their bodies and they are not normal tattoos because they are not easy to read and if its can be read, they are difficult to understand because it was written in Latin words and some of them are wearing necklace with a pendant of a triangle with a one eye. Most of the men also have long hair because their leader has forbidden cutting their hair.

I don't know if they joined a cult?

Until everything is back to normal.

Because they reached a few years in the place they went with the person who became their leader, it seems that what they did when they were with their leader became a permanent thing. Every full moon they gather, all their members must attend especially those who already have positions in their group.

And they have something to do when they pray, their belief in God still remains because he is still the one they worship through the Catholic religion.

In that gathering, one of their members was joined by a spirit that they said was a member who had died and is currently in the afterlife, not in hell and not in heaven. It is said to be a place in the afterlife that is between heaven and hell where it seems that the people who died who were part of their group are still living like here on earth.

Jose Rizal also said that he is one of their members and that he sometimes joins their members every full month when they have a gathering.

Thanks for reading my beloved readers!

Since I am already busy at work, I will write the sequel of my story later and publish it for tomorrow.

Have a good day!