Xmas Eve Gone Wrong

It was another busy week for Louise as “the quarantined independent daughter slash slave” of the house but she was not having any of it. She grabs her phone and quickly taps on the Twitter app that she frequents during her spare time. As she had expected, there was another post about the miraculous wish-granting tree in the nearby mall. It read: “Another batch of Prada and Louis Vuitton, coming right up! ✨”

Before she could hit the like button, her mother let out another resounding command for her. Every week, she is assigned to do many tasks in her house and though she hates it, she has no choice because her parents are giving her a place to stay. She was supposed to go to boarding school for her college life, but it seems like those plans are delayed because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. She grunts and sighs. “Coming, Mom.”

She could already tell what her Mom was about to order from her, so she already came out of the room wearing her mystery outfit. Louise is one of the popular kids in school and as much as she wants to wear her fashionable outfits when she visits the mall, her current predicament just won’t allow it! She dons a hoodie, baggy pants, and fake eyeglasses to complete her disguise. When she arrived downstairs, the grocery money was on the table.

Louise takes the car keys with her and starts turning the engine on. The mall was just 5 minutes away from her house so she doesn’t need to worry about reaching the house at the expected time of 8:00 PM for the yearly Noche Buena. After all, she is also assigned to prepare the food which is why her Mom already beckoned for her to leave the house at 3:00 PM so that there is enough time to cook the meals and make the desserts.

By the time she arrived at the mall, it was 3:05 PM. She is only given 50 minutes to collect the Noche Buena ingredients plus the groceries for the family’s daily meals. She needs to be at home by 4:00 PM so she better get moving! As she was making her way towards the supermarket, a bunch of people were blocking her path. Apparently, the wish-granting tree was along the way. Her conscience told her to focus, but she got distracted.

Instead of lining up to enter the grocery store, Louise ended up lining up to get a chance to make a wish. “Imma worry about it later. I can finish collecting the items in 30 minutes anyway,” she thought to herself because she was trained to be the family’s slave since she was 18. As soon as it was her turn to write down her wish and hang it on the branches of the tree, she quickly picked up the pen and started writing so as not to waste time.

“I don’t really know if my wish will come true, but that would be awesome if it did,” she thought to herself. There were rumors that the higher you hang your paper slip, the more likely your wish was going to be granted. Louise was planning to take her chances. Luckily, she’s a tall girl with a height of 5’7 so it was pretty easy for her to reach the highest branch and tie her slip. She chuckled to herself, then suddenly her surroundings started to change.

“Where am I?”

The DJ turned up the volume and her heart was beating loudly. At the right corner, Louise’s friends were sitting and taking shots of vodka. They called for her attention asking her why she was just cluelessly standing in the middle of the dance floor. Louise excused herself for a moment so that she could visit the bathroom. As she gazed into the mirror and observed her reflection, she squealed and jumped for joy before anything else. Her wish came true!

That night, she decided to let go of her worries and party with her friends. It is indeed a mystery on how she arrived in the bar even without having plans to go there and how she managed to get a hold of the designer clothes. She wanted to savor the moment before she was going to be dragged back into reality. With help from a dormmate, she and her friends were safely transported back to the dorms at the break of dawn.

Time passed by really quickly and eventually Louise was informed about her friend group’s plans of having a vacation to Boracay. She was really excited for it and couldn’t sleep the night before the trip. She thought about contacting her family to inform them about her whereabouts but then she realized they probably didn’t care anyway, so she just shrugged it off. Finally! An opportunity for her to enjoy life and she wasn’t going to let it go to waste.

Louise and friends boarded the boat bound for Boracay. It was a very sunny day and there was no high tide. A perfect day to enjoy, relax, and have fun at the beach! The day went by normally: they went island hopping, swimming, playing games, and partying with strangers. It was almost as if COVID never happened. “This HAS to be a fever dream. I’m sure of it,” Louise spoke to herself. She found it weird how there was no school and no worried family.

After they ate dinner, everyone decided to call it a day and started going up to their hotel rooms. When Louise arrived in her room, she instinctively turned to check the time. It was 8:05 PM, which somehow reminded her of the time she arrives at the mall and the time she starts moving towards the supermarket. Now that she was unable to do that THIS FRIDAY, she realized that something was really off with the world right now.

“June 13, 2025”

And then it hit her. The wish she made at wish-granting tree! She still remembers as if it just happened yesterday. At this point, can she still recall the wish she made? She has no idea anymore, but she has the strong urge to check on her family all of a sudden because she remembers that she was unable to fulfill her task of shopping for Noche Buena. As her fear rises, she is unable to sleep properly until the next day.

The first thing she did the next morning was hop on a ferry back to Cebu. Before she left, she decided to leave a note for her friends to read, stating that she has some important business to attend to and she has to leave immediately. On the taxi ride back to her house, Louise passes by the mall and decided to visit it just to check on the tree. She can still remember the exact spot where she tied her paper slip, so she reached for it with haste.

Written on the paper was still the wish she made on that 24th of December 2021, however at the bottom was another text which had unrecognizable handwriting. The words read, “Wish granted. In exchange, you will no longer have connections with your family.” The message fueled Louise with anger. She was not gonna fall for that prank! She ripped the paper into shreds and threw them at the nearest bin before calling for another cab to take her home.

Arthur, Louise’s younger brother, can be seen at the front yard performing an experiment. He has grown so much over the span of 4 years. The last time Louise was still in contact with him, he was still playing with his toys and watching TV. She got out of the taxi and approached him. But then, to her surprise, the words her brother spoke were totally unexpected and came out as a shock to her to the point that she was brought to tears.

“Art, don’t you remember me? This is your Ate Lou!”

“I’m sorry miss, but I really don’t have any recollection of knowing you. Please leave, you’re disturbing us and our neighbors.”

At that exact time, a black sedan approached the residence and out came Louise’s parents. Instead of the usual familiar looks, Louise was given looks of confusion. Her parents were looking at her as if she was a stranger rather than their own daughter. She approached them hastily and started bawling her eyes out asking for an apology and asking them if they remember her. Unfortunately, they gave the exact same reply as Arthur.

Finally giving up, Louise had no choice but to leave her own home, her own subdivision. More tears of sadness rolled down her swollen eyes and she felt an unexplainable pain in her chest. She truly regrets the decision she has made and if she could turn back time and reverse her actions she would do it without hesitating. However, it was too late for that and what’s done is done. Her mistakes ruined the life she was supposed to cherish.

She is no longer a part of her family’s Christmas Eve, their Christmas, and most importantly–

Their past, present, and future.