There was a growing source of chitter and chatter as another group came, from just outside the town. With them were black cars, a few vans, and whatever else they could salvage. Outside the town, The Kadlum were pretty much in disarray. They arrived one day after another, some hours after the previous group came. But, soon, Alice suspected they were going to be complete. Like caravans from the outside world, the scattered members of the clan would come in and meet with Alice and the others and share a drink or two. Some have left for the other safehouses around Manila, making sure they could still operate. But, this town, was ultimately the rendezvous point. A place where they could build, after everything that has happened. If the town was this generous to them, then Alice and her family must’ve had an incredible mark with its people. In fact, Aden wondered if it was a town at all. It seemed more like a splinter community hidden from the outside world. A society the
Aden blinked at the little ray of the sun that had been lingering inside his room. He was quite surprised at the revealing possibility that a light could still actually enter his ‘totally-decent’ room. He was up in the attic, and he had learned to just call it that. The light of the sun came from the small round window pane fixed just above his head, raised just a few inches from his bed. He blinked and stared at the specks of dust flying around. This was worse than Nanay Wang’s place, he thought to himself. At least Nanay Wang’s claustrophobic space was kawayan and had air inside it. In here, Aden was barely breathing.He lied on his small bed with the first sign of sunrise. In his view, the sun had only risen just a few inches rom the horizon. He couldn’t tell the time, but he figured it must already be time for him to get up and go downstairs. He could smell the food in the kitchen. Breakfast.Aden walked towards the small spac
“Her name’s Aurora,” Alice said. Aden had already taken off from the small town, riding in one of the cars the Kadlum had prepared in the place. He had his phone up to his ear, listening to Alice speak while he drove to the main road. “I’ll send you the location. She lives in a girl’s dormitory right beside her college in Manila,” Alice said.“What should I say?” asked Aden. He hated being the harbinger of grave news, and it creeped up on him quite distastefully. No one should just knock on someone’s door and tell them their father is dead. He knew the police had not identified most of the man caught up in the fire. And Mark had decided not to contact Alice, yet. He knew they were in hiding.He figured that maybe Alice knew how to do it. But they couldn’t risk bringing Alice out in the open. Not yet. It was better if Aden did the job for them.“What do you mean ‘What should I say&rsquo
“Her name’s Aurora,” Alice said. Aden had already taken off from the small town, riding in one of the cars the Kadlum had prepared in the place. He had his phone up to his ear, listening to Alice speak while he drove to the main road. “I’ll send you the location. She lives in a girl’s dormitory right beside her college in Manila,” Alice said.“What should I say?” asked Aden. He hated being the harbinger of grave news, and it creeped up on him quite distastefully. No one should just knock on someone’s door and tell them their father is dead. He knew the police had not identified most of the man caught up in the fire. And Mark had decided not to contact Alice, yet. He knew they were in hiding.He figured that maybe Alice knew how to do it. But they couldn’t risk bringing Alice out in the open. Not yet. It was better if Aden did the job for them.“What do you mean ‘What should I say&rsquo
Nuvali was a place Alice was very familiar with, but she never thought she’d be there for work and business. “Is it?” she asked herself in her head. “Is the daughter of your dead friend still called work?”Aurora leaned against the railing beneath the darkening sky as she watched Nuvali’s koi fishes swim and twirl in the water. Like a messy cluster, the fishes would come rushing towards the edge of the railings when one of the crowds would throw bread onto them. The water would splash and gently hit the faces of those looking too closely.Aurora giggled at the sight. Then simply stared.“We used to come here when I was little,” she said.“Your father never told me he liked fishes…” Alice replied.“I liked the fishes. He only came here because of me. He was like that, you know?”Aden and Alice thought they should at least have her speak like this for a while. In si
“Woah.” Her words bounced off the walls of the cave in an echo across the dark abyss. Accompanying her sudden sound was the rushing streams of the spirited waterfalls dropping down into the deep unknown chasm below them. Briefly, Aurora tried to make sense of the place as she took it all in and distinguished which was magic and which was pure nature. The torches continued to flare gracefully while they gave the newcomer some time to overwhelm herself at the newfound discovery. The cave wasn’t black, albeit dark. It was green. Moss and nature had overgrown from it. Although the torches had an orange sense of the cavity, Aurora examined the plants and the moss climbing across the walls as if a coat of protection from anything else. Through it all, the air was fresh and welcoming. She took another deep breath. And she closed her eyes. She exhaled, and it was as if the fires joined her in this meditation. There was an odd chime across the venue. Like ringing, ambient a
Brilliant daybreak had once again dominated the color of the place. Sunbeams and shafts, glowing above the yellow sky while everyone in the town was still either sleeping or just preparing breakfast. Everyone, that is, except for the noiseless few donned in onyx black suits that almost seemed to reflect like the black gem itself—glinting against the mild sunbite. Within the trees surrounding them, there were chirping birds few and far between. It was a lonely, quiet day with only the chosen Kadlum that had accompanied Alice, standing beside two to three raven cars ready to go. Alice, hardly squinting from the radiance of the sun, crossed her arms as she gave a long sigh. “What’s taking him so long?” she asked.Inside the café, Aden was staring at the mirror—his eyes cutting deep into the windows of his own soul. It was, however, admittedly a bit strange to him. He was staring at his own face, but he could have sworn there was a feeling tha
…a wound… Cut black and deep right in the middle of the dark desert. Starless skies had hovered above him, but the white glow had caused the sands to glint and reflect quite enough. Atop a hill of sand, Aden gazed beyond the black dunes and caught himself staring at the infinite sinkhole fixed at the center of the hollow dream. No, not a sinkhole, corrected Aden. He stepped closer, but made sure he wouldn’t slide away from the sands. It was a vacuum. A fall. A pit. A fissure that dug deeper than what Aden could possibly see. The trench was as big as a town. You could throw in a whole village in there, he said to himself. There were signs of the sand, some sparkling against the lowly-gleaming white, being sucked in. But ultimately, they stopped. No movement. A frozen picture of the terrain going down into the black hole. Aden gripped his handgun and blinked wildly. He did not expect the sinking rift to go away, but he expected to calm down. Regaining his breat
At first, Aden did not believe it. He did not choose to recognize it. He stared at the presence of the abyssal onyx symbol underneath him, clutching the patterns and the symbols. Maybe because of his mumblings, and the silence, and the whisperings of the void, he was getting his thoughts whispered back to him. Because he began to hear himself. His own voice. But it wasn’t there in his head anymore. It was… right there with him. Standing, Aden continued to stare at the ground with the uncertainty of what he might see when he turned his gaze away. His eyes shot directly at the pedestal, and his left fist clenched while his right hand gripped his pistol. But then, he eased himself. Letting the anxious breath go, he exhaled the last of his anxieties. Nothing replaced it but a warm and calm caress in his soul. He stared blankly at the ground, then… his eyes crept up. To his left side… “Hey…” his voice. His own voice. “…Aden.” But that wasn’t his tone. That wasn’t