When Back In Time

GOOD NEWS. She was back.

The bad news, unfortunately, she is here in Visayas, specifically Cebu, where she was way back in 1892.

She was too far from her home in Luzon.

Luckily, she met someone. She didn't know if she was really lucky or maybe it's only a coincident or maybe she was only showered with dumb luck as she met her cousin here in Cebu for vacation.

Her cousin, who's 10 years older than her, pestered her with questions of why she's here in Cebu, why the heck Esperanza was wearing such filthy and ancient outfit.

Esperanza laughed with what her cousin said.

"I am serious Espe," her cousin said, "What are you really doing here? Are you alone? Where are aunt and uncle? Wait---you have a class now, right? Why are you having a vacation while you still have a class? And what's with your ankle? Why is it bandaged? Did you get yourself hurt? And holy shit---- you're thin. Why you're so thin? Haven't you eat well? Wait---- have you aged or... something? And good gracious! You smell! Don't you know how to take a bath, Espe?"

Esperanza just smiled.

Her cousin was stressed out when she learned from Esperanza's mother, after she called her, that Esperanza was not home for five days. Esperanza's parents were worried sick because of her disappearance.

Esperanza was frozen. She came back five days before the day she disappeared and time traveled to the past.

She went back on May 22, 2019, five days before her disappearance.

And now her parents were very worried. 'How could I do this to them?' she asked herself.

Elizabeth's cousin was fuming and let out words Esperanza wasn't familiar of. "We are going home, Esperanza. You hear me? We are going home, " her cousin said.

Esperanza was dragged towards her cousin's suite in a hotel. While they were walking, Esperanza noticed something strange. Every people she met talked in a different language. It was not like the language she recognized as the Cebu's local language, called Cebuano. This language was different.

Esperanza shook her head. She must be imagining things. She just tired and hungry who needed some food and sleep.

Inside her cousin's suite, she finally took the longest bath she could have. Finally, she could use a shower, shampooed her dirty hair and scrubbed off all the filth on her body.

Afterward, she ate all the food she ordered. And when she was full, she sat on the couch, feeling satisfied.

Tears came out from her eyes without warning. She wiped it with a smile. Finally, she's back. 2019, her time, her home.

Afterward, she slept like a log.

The next day, she woke up at noon. After some preparations, she and her older cousin checked out from the hotel and embarked in a ship sailing towards Luzon.

When they were finally there, Esperanza noticed it more. She found it odd.

Everyone was speaking a different language. The language seemed familiar, liked she heard it before.

Ah! She remembered she heard it before from a T.V. cartoon series.

When Esperanza heard a woman called her friend and saying, "Hola amigos!" Esperanza remembered the cartoon series "Dora the Explorer".

A boy behind Esperanza talked to his mother and answered, "Sí mamá."

As what Esperanza recalled, Dora was using the Spanish language. Why the heck people were talking in this kind of language? If she remembered, not all Filipinos knew how to use that language.

She turned towards her cousin, "Why suddenly everyone knows how to speak Spanish?"

Her cousin looked at her, frowning, "What are you talking about Espe?"

"Uh… isn't it weird?" Esperanza asked.

"Why would it be weird?" her cousin said and spoke in Spanish.

"What?" Esperanza asked.

"I said, Spanish is our first language. What happened to you? Did you bang your head somewhere? Why you suddenly don't understand me?" her cousin said.

"Wha---then, what happened to our language? Filipino?" Esperanza asked.

"Filipino? There's no such thing as Filipino language. We, I mean, the people in the Philippines are called Filipinos, it's not a language," her cousin explained.

'What?' Esperanza thought, 'What the heck is happening?'

She thought to herself, she must have not recovered well. Was she still sleepy that's why she's hearing these weird stuff?

Esperanza asked her cousin about what happened to her friend Maria and asked if Maria was okay.

"Maria?" her cousin started, "Who is she?"

"Maria, my friend. You know her. She's my neighbor as well as a childhood friend. She's your friend too," Esperanza said.

"Maria?" her cousin asked, "Never encountered someone like that. And you never had a friend named Maria. Are you sure you're okay? You seem remembering false memories or something."

'What's going on,' this thought popped out from her mind. Why her cousin could not remember Maria?

Esperanza asked her cousin how did Spanish become Philippine's first language. She kept insisting it on her cousin until her cousin gave up.

Her cousin told Esperanza that the Philippines now was under the Spanish Regime. It's now one of Spain's states.

"How did this happened?" Esperanza asked.

"After the Spaniard's colonized us for 400 years, they gave us to the American for the meantime."

"What do you mean 400? We were only colonized for 333 years," Esperanza defended.

"Uh, nope! We're under their regime for over 400 years. Then they gave us to the American for the time being. Then the Japanese came and almost slaughtered us. But thanks to General Alfonso we're saved."

"General Alfonso? Who's that?" Esperanza asked.

"A Spanish man under the order from the highest personnel in Spain. He saved us from the Japanese with his troops."

"What happened to General Mac Arthur?" Esperanza asked.

"Never heard of him before."

"I shall return?" she asked.

Her cousin replied, "What?"

Esperanza's heart started to beat faster. What's going on? This is not normal. This is insane.

"Are you thirsty?" her cousin asked, with a worried look on her face. They went to the nearest vending machine.

"You know Espe, " her cousin started, "I think you should rest----- I mean, you need. It will help to clear out your mind."

When Esperanza's cousin produced coins from her pocket, Esperanza noticed something weird. She took her cousin's coins and stared on each image carved on 1 peso, 5 peso, and 10 peso.

"W-who are they? I don't recognize them. Shouldn't all our coins have the images of Philippine's ultimate heroes?" Esperanza asked.

"They are our heroes."

"What? What happened to Apolinario Mabini and General Juan Luna in our 10 peso coin? What about Andres Bonifacio in our 5 peso coin?" Esperanza hysterically asked.

"Give me that, " her cousin grabbed the coins harshly from Esperanza. "What are you talking about? Who are they anyway?"

"How about Jose Rizal in our 1 peso coin? He's our national hero. Why he is not here," Esperanza frantically asked.

"Because---- whoever this Jose Rizal was----- he is not our hero okay. Neither those people you mention. What is happening to you Esperanza? Why you don't know the men on these coins? Don't you know the Spaniards were our heroes?"

'No. F.u.c.k.i.n.g. Way,' Esperanza thought to herself.

She did not understand. Why was this happening? Why?

Her cousin bent down and picked a soda can to buy on the vending machine. When her

cousin was about to insert a coin, time froze.

Everything stopped.

A hand held Esperanza's shoulder firmly,

angrily.

"Cheating your way, eh?" a familiar voice whispered.

And then suddenly time moved backward, faster.

"NO! no, no, no, no!" Esperanza screamed as all her efforts were wasted as time continued to go back to the time she once escaped.

Back in 1892.