The people of Western Visayas Region, Philippines, particularly in the provinces, a mythical creature they call it “AMARANHIG” (a corpse or a living dead inside the casket). That casket (not lying but a standing casket) keeps on chasing a target victim that once cornered; the victim will surely die because of strangulation to its neck.
A testimony of a city boy named Richard who wonders the river bed area in the province of Tigbauan, Iloilo Philippines. That is his first time to visit the place for attending a barrio fiesta, eating and having tasted two bottles of beer. Time flies rapidly
and not notices that the environment is getting dark while having a “Bayle” (a traditional group dances by the teens on which male are required to pay for dance entrance) and they all enjoy every minute they spend dancing with partners.
Then suddenly, a quarrel between the groups of teens broke up (normally happened in a traditional Bayle dance) so Richard and his company friends run away to avoid hit by a stray bullet or a friendly fire (because one of the participants there were already drunk while a girl won’t dance with him as the girl wants to sweet dance to other guy). That drunk gets mad because – according to him:
“That guy and I were and all of the boys there are all - already paid for the entrances”, so that drunk guy spend money and that girl won’t dance with him? What a waste of money if that girl selects whom to choose…
That drunken man again said:
“Attending on a Bayle dance while she has no right to select whichever guy partner to dance for”, as he kept on holding and aiming his eight shooter gun while firing 2 bullets at no set of targets.
While escaping quarrels and running on the river bed, Richard was lost and the only one running and starts entering to the woods and have a rest for a while. Richard’s hair on his skin starts to stand up and feeling frightening without a reason. Now he feels uneasy, seems that
a danger is on the way, and more frightening than a drunken man with a gun on that Bayle dance.When Richard turns back he saw something down deep in the woods, there is a moving unidentified big object and keep on moving towards him. As the moving object reveals in front of him, now Richard clearly see that what he saw about that moving object is a Casket with a corpse inside that keeps on jumping towards him and starts chasing him. Both arms suddenly extend and an attempt to grab Richard’s neck and the only option for Richard to defend himself is to run away on the opposite direction.
Whatever speed of running he does, still that casket keeps on leaping and seems faster than him, and Richard knows that within a minute, he will be caught by that mysterious dead thing.
Then Richard finally thought if:
“How about if I have to change course, how about if I have to cross the river, can that dead corpse inside a jumping casket follows me that fast?”
When Richard are already crossed the river (two feet water deep) and Richard steps above the river bank while watching if that mysterious casket could still follow him and take note what Richard found:
That chasing casket cross the river and that casket immediately fragmented to other mysterious creatures, it turned to a millions of worms and all are drowned (and that casket and corpse inside disappear). Richard found out that crossing the river is what makes this AMARANHIG very vulnerable and destroyed. No need for Richard to spread the news to his friends and all of the people there as none of them will agree and will only tease Richard that two bottles of beer will not make him drunk.