When terror strikes

I am a dinosaur waiting to die—with no grand plans but to cruise through the mundanity of everyday life. But sometimes, unexpected events can turn a seemingly ordinary day into a heart-pounding experience. I never expected I would be embroiled in a scenario where a local McDonald’s would be more than a place to eat but would also be a place of death—a place for me and for everyone in there with me to die.

The events leading to it were bland. I was with my mom and older sister, and we decided to eat at a nearby McDonald’s after doing our monthly errands. It was brimming with diners, and looking for a table took approximately 10 minutes. As the youngest, I would take everyone’s orders and queue at the cashier.

I do not mind waiting. It gives me time to shut down momentarily and fly on autopilot. I was in line at the second station on the right near the fire exit. It was cramped, more so because the lines were moving slowly. The station to my right (the one nearest to the fire exit) was barely progressing.

The organized chaos behind the counter and the rapid chatter at the tables were starting to overwhelm me, so I focused my attention on just one area. I vividly remember a man entering the fire exit, dressed in a thick jacket despite the heat and humidity of Manila. I focused on him because he looked suspicious; also because he was forcefully shoving people in line at counter one to go to the center of the establishment.

I was not the only one who looked. A middle-aged woman beside me did, too. In fact, she was the first to react when white smoke began to envelop the line at counter one. She was the one who screamed, joined by another, and then another, until I could no longer keep track of anything. I only blinked once, and people were already clamoring to escape.

It was then that terror had entered the establishment.

I remember hearing my mom screaming, calling for my name. I realized now that without hearing her fear, I would not have understood the severity of the situation. Call it a lack of survival instinct.

I held on to my mother while my sister grabbed me on the other side. I reached for the plastic bags in my sister’s hands for fear of dropping the stuff we bought. I cannot even remember what they were, but I remember thinking that if we lost them in the chaos, today would be nothing but a waste.

Everyone was trying to escape. We could not run because there was barely any space left to move. And the only thing I could do was hold on and think that any time now, a bomb would explode. Maybe a gunshot. Multiple gunshots from the suspicious man earlier. I was waiting for it. We all were.

Outside was even more crowded. There was morbid humor in how everyone was rushing to escape the dangers but the moment we reached the exit, every “victim” became a spectator, all eager to know the situation. Human curiosity superseded human survival.

As the smoke slowly dissipated and the panic more controlled, it became apparent that what had initially appeared as a potential act of terror was, in fact, a result of a faulty fire extinguisher.

My family and I laughed at the stupidity of the situation. And as usual, people moved on in a snap as if nothing had happened. I couldn’t wait to go home to tell our “near-death experience” to our family and friends. However, by the time we were home, my mother and sister had seemingly forgotten the event. There was even no media coverage of it. And I decided not to speak about it anymore—at least until now.

I have to be honest. I focused on the man not because I found his choice of clothing suspicious. He deserved to be scrutinized because my prejudice dictated it so. It was easy to typecast him as the villain when mass media portrays people who look like him as such. I dare not narrate how he looked for fear of further cementing dangerous stereotypes already pervasive in our society, but I dare you to imagine anyway.

Fear is easy to ignite and hysteria is easy to spread. We live in a society where anything and anyone can produce terror. You do not need someone trustworthy to convince you to be afraid—be very afraid. At the same time, our reaction to our over-imagination further inflates our suffering. And panic is difficult to control once we unleash it onto the world.

How many activists, journalists, and ordinary citizens were murdered because of their advocacies? How many were killed because someone told the world they were enemies? The villain in your story?

A fire extinguisher created to stop accidents and save lives had become an instrument for terror. Tell people repeatedly enough that a group of serial killers are on the loose, murdering their victims with a fire extinguisher, and they will soon begin to fear firefighters.

Years later, I am still a dinosaur waiting to die—with no grand plans but to cruise through the mundanity of everyday life. But sometimes, we find ourselves in situations where danger becomes a companion.

I never expected I would consider entering an industry notorious for its tendency to give publicity to horrors. And at the same time, to live in fear of being roped into its curse, a place where I may die and everyone in there with me.

I can only hope that by that time, we can better rein in our nightmares.

Allyana Isabel Barrios, 21, is an undergraduate student at the University of the Philippines Baguio, majoring in journalism.