Author's Note

One morning in the summer of 2011, when I was a 12 year old girl, my great-grandmother told me stories about her experiences during the World War II in the Philippines. Different experiences told and every word played out on my mind like a scrabble game. I can remember how every situations in her story were terrifying but the way she told it was somehow interesting.

She made sure that I had my imagination functioning when she described the tunnels beneath their house as a hiding place every night. She would hear loud vibrations above - trucks, tanks and even marching on the street. If she's lucky, that's the only horror she would hear. Unlucky enough, she would hear screams of sheer pain and cry for help from women who were seen wandering the streets due to different reasons. She cannot stomach the images above her on what was happening to the women.

As we ended our story telling session, I would back to our house and wonder what are the possibilities of living during that time? Was survival relied on luck?