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Being: a Collection of Vignettes
Written from June 10, 2025 to September 30, 2025
Description:
Diverse genres, Filipino, psychological realism, cinematic, observational, kinetic, sensory.
This collection demonstrates my ability to handle and deal in various "lingua francas" spanning the world as I understand it. While it may not contain everything, like hard scifi, it does contain an everything, a synthesis of things even as each vignette demonstrates its own sovereign territory. Another role of this collection is the improvement of my capacity to handle multiple running threads all at once. By writing one vignette every day, I accomplish a hint of what serialization requires a person to do: perform, deliberate on, and then snap closure. This reinforces that by reducing the duration and randomness between discrete fiction works and by reducing each vignette to its most familiar properties: genre, trigger warnings, and what only utmost "show, don't tell" can most sustainably accomplish. Any "exceptions" merely prevent the corrosion that occurs through a failed accounting of the energy one can manageably spend on each muscle group and expecting energy to be an "anything" currency instead of an allocation.
Denver held a small mammal, his eyes catching a flash glinting off a distant watchtower, his roughened hands gripping intensely yet carefully, forming a dome around it, leaving as little gap as possible, his legs thumping against the staircase, panting. "You must be an animal." His voice lowered to a whisper. "You must be real." Sat on the sun-baked wood stairs, he took a long breath, the critter jittering within, its soft claws tickling. Next to him, a line of broadleaf trees ran down the sidewalk, flanking a wide dirt road. On the other end of the road stood a smithy, potion shop, an eatery, and a junction that led back to the main road. Sam needed his items, he thought. He pulled his legs in, his red trousers tight at the knees, and got up, his greaves clattering against the cobblestone sidewalk. He looked up and at the world around him. The lobed sunlight flecks filtering through greenery dappled the top of his head. The breeze blew against the sides of his hair, and his dark-brown flannel jacket billowed for a moment. He sighed in relief, beginning his gentle walk down the street, as he headed to Sam, sweat beading his forehead, a trickle dripping to the ground.
He opened his hands. The creature looked up at him, deepened its smile, and made a bleat-like sound. He grinned, a warm smile forming. Then when his gaze absentmindedly flitted up and at the street ahead of him, he saw the torches at the city walls being lit one by one. A nearby puddle reflected oranges, reds, and deep purples. He covered the creature again, and his footsteps clacked faster. He fit his paces into each cobble square, creating an even flow.
A door whirred closed nearby. He continued. A handcart porter to his right stuffed things into a bag. Several boys slowly entered through a gate, and an older woman on the other end of the street flagged down a group of children running along, saying something to them, as they went inside.
Throngs of older men slowly filled the streets, smelling of dust and woodsmoke, turning off down the junctions, rushing.
He stopped by a familiar rice store, buying a sack of rice and laying it against his shoulder. He propped it with his hand, moving the creature to his other hand.
He went off along a junction, passed through a broad gate, and walked down a quieter street, entering a building at the end. "Sam!" He flumped down the sack, as he glimpsed a blue-garbed figure through the gaps of two doors, several rooms away. The creature leapt off his hand and onto the table, curling into a ball.
Standing next to a chair, Raynold rested his interlocked hands palm-out against its armrest, leaning and thumping back and forth. "How're you?" he asked with a little hitch.
The man seated on the chair, Jeremy took a sip before placing it down on the coffee table in front of him, adjusting it next to his laptop, his eyes snapping to today's headline in The New Yorker. He looked for a while, then tilted his head up at the man. "Yes?" he said slowly with a quiver, tugging at his own shirt over his chest.
Raynold smiled as he sat down opposite him. "Well... you're doing fine, right? Got your morning breakfast." He lifted the plate behind the laptop toward him, eyes darting briefly at the waiter standing over a bustling table across the cafe.
"Yeah... So?" Jeremy raised his ice-blended dark mocha, his elbow pointing outward. Venti cup again, drinking a little longer this time. After eying Raynold's shirt collar, he looked out the window, a marching band strolling outside.
A glimpse of a wry smile forming on his face, Raynold rubbed both lateral sides of the table with both hands from corner to corner, as Jeremy planted the cup on the table, tilting his elbow inward and discreetly pressing it against the table.
As soon as the door behind Jeremy screeched open and closed, he turned his head for a moment and then stood up, gathering his things and putting them in his laptop backpack. "I'm heading." Raynold's gaze fixed on the band members in the distance.
Jeremy took a step outward, skirting the chair and grasping the edge of its backrest one last time. He walked over to the door, stopping halfway as a group exited. As they went out, he shot the counter menu a look. He then shouldered his way out the door. Inside, Raynold squinted slightly, his gaze averted.
Hiking up her shorts, Jade stormed up the steps, her ankles wet with mud. Tossing her sandals, she hurried to the second floor, hands latched onto the railings, a blue stain secreting from her palms.
She stalked down the hallway and entered her room, squeezing it shut. Her feet thudding across the room, she leaned onto the window, peering at the street below.
She clenched her hands into fists, snapping open a crate she'd set by the window. She drew out the gun inside it. She rested it on the windowsill, eyes aligning with the scope.
Outside, on the street lined with food stalls, a man chuckled among a group of male friends, darting his eyes between the windows as his friends raised their hands, gestured, and laughed about some story.
She shot—a ghost of a shot, a concrete void hurtling through the air—reloading.
The man's laugh hitched, as the shot zipped past his cheek, disappearing before it hit the wall.
She shot again, reloading—her hands glowing yellow, bearing the heat of the gun.
The man quietly hurried his friends inside, scanning the streets on the way inside, pressing his back against the door.
She clicked her tongue, pulling the gun back. "Damn it," she muttered, wiping it with white cloth.
After placing the gun on a table next to her, she pushed back with her palms, getting on her feet. She swore repeatedly, opening the door, hurrying down the stairs and to the streets. She grabbed a blade and another pair of sandals on the way out.
"This time..." she said after wearing her sandals, the wind blowing against her face.
Her feet clattered from under a stall awning, entering the sunlight.
Below the strikingly white, sun-pressed tops of swelling clouds lying over their soft lavender-gray underbellies, a magical streak of light flashed up from the ground, blitzing through the air. It burst clouds open, and at its height, it exploded, vapor debris shooting down.
As more and more streaks entered the sky, in the broadleaf forest below, mages continued to chant. Whirling their arms in a series of gestures, they spoke in strange tongues, standing over magic circles forming. After releasing another streak into the air, they got it to strike the tower in the distance, breaking off a chunk of it.
The chunk fell to the ground, landing near a group of swordsmen. As their eyes caught another flash, Helial one of them strode to the front. "Julie Jones..." he said, frowning. "I'd rather not ask this..."
For a moment, silence and frowns spread among the members, but Helial's eyes latched onto where she would appear.
Before one could ask, a figure shouldered her way through, barking at them to move out of her way. Pigs scuttled along behind her, and by the time she went out into the open, mud clung to her ankles. She dragged her pigs into the open, saying "Well?" With a wand, Julie pointed it at the man in front. "Thought you told me you'd never ask?"
"Well... the thing is that we're all just not that cut out for this, hah," said the group leader, smiling weakly. "So yeah, come on, you know? Just a little bit. Just please. Please do it. This time, you have to do it, because whatever happens next, let me handle the rest. Let me take it. Let me take it in its entirety and grip it." He gripped the air. "I'll bear the consequences—I'll carry your sins... Jul."
"Sure!" she said, turning aside, raising the wand, her voice shrinking to a whisper. "Pig Preparation."
Her palm released trails of dust, each shooting to the pigs.
One moment, the pigs grunted and snuffed. The next, one of them started shivering, saliva pouring down its chin. Tiny balls of light repeatedly formed out of thin air, zapping at it, each hit grotesquely expanding the muscles. The muscles squeezed, pinching each other.
The pig erupted in a cacophony of squeals and roars.
Seeing it trembling restlessly, the men cringed as they watched.
As more and more debris fell, one of the men created a magic shield, suspending directly overhead.
By the time the pig opened its eyes, the men stopped their shouting.
It turned around, staring.
Its gaze eventually settled on the cowering men below. "Hmm—" it said, wincing and its breath hitching. It snapped its head aside, its expression crumbling. Its hands jerked over its face, for a moment, it was silent and still.
But its arms began to quiver.
It slowly moved its hands off its face, shifting them outward. Once it saw both hands entirely, eyes flickering, its head jerked around, and it threw its hands, roaring, drowned out the rustling leaves, strained its neck, drawing out all its breath.
As it backstepped, it heard a crunch behind it, and it froze, tilting its chin down.
Its fellow pig's remains squelched and slurped underfoot.
Next to it, Julie opened her hand and placed it on its leg. "It's okay," she said. "We'll be okay."
The pig screamed, its hands in the air, the air trembling violently.
"Hey—" she said.
The beast stopped midswing, its bulging hand hanging just shy of her face, giving her a deathly stiff-lipped glare.
"This is not the time..." Her finger pointed up.
After a brief moment, the pig pulled back, watching the streak of light trailing across the sky.
It slammed against the tower, as more bricks broke off, some hurtling toward them
With the magic shield blinking away, gradually blinking faster and faster before it faded completely, the group and the beast retreated, the men settling a distance from the beast.
For a moment, the beast's gaze latched onto the sky..
Then it turned to Julie, who smiled at it, warmly.
Easing into a nod, it glanced at his hands again, slowly closing them.
Wide-eyed, she turned to the rest, briefly compressing her lips. "Let's go," she said, sharing a nod with the beast.
The two bolted, the pig tramping along, stomping over the packed earth.
The rest slowly turned to each other, their eyes meeting. With a shaky nod, they hurried after her, reaching out, shouting at them to wait for them.
Denzel held a small, crisp bat, placing it against the wall, pinching his shirt over his heart. Pausing for a moment, he looked around, his gaze continuous and flowing like a dance. When his head drifted back to what was right in front of him, his face slowly shifted and gradually transformed. An expression formed in his face—a strange, wry smile.
A figure behind him slammed him in the back with a bat, bursting a blast of white air through him, as Denzel gasped, buckling, dropping to his knees. “What a joke!” he said, straining.
The figure stared, standing over, stone-faced, an imperceptible smirk forming on the right corner of his mouth.
"Well?" the figure, John, said, craning his head.
He clasped Denzel's hand and pulled him up. "Let's try it again. This time, with style."
"Right," Denzel said, "just don't hit as hard this time."
"Right." John faked a swing, making Denzel flinch.
"Bro!" Denzel lowered the bat John was holding.
"Yeah, right."
The two broke, a shared chuckle forming, building between them, and exploding in a crow-like guffaw.
After getting off the stage and exiting the building, they joined the casual stroller on the city's tight backstreets, lined with sari-sari stores and a few others, including one Palawan Pawnshop, sauntering idly in the scattered filtered morning light. They paused to stare in curiosity at posters plastered on building walls and electricity poles advertising local political figures. Other posters read: "Room, Contact:" and phone numbers. They hurtled past expressionlessly and wandered on to peer into the windows of a bright fashion shop displaying dressed mannequins.
Malapit sa kanila, sa loop ng jeep, may isang drayber na nagtanong: "Diretcho ba Pa ang Robinsons?" Sumagot ang taong nasa upuan ng pasahero, "Di ko kabisado."
The two turned off into a metal staircase, heading to the second floor, and climbing another, before reaching the final floor, passing the CCF banner hanging on the railing. They entered the church building one by one and walked through a hallway. After slipping inside the small chapel room, they quietly entered the last row at the back, coming from the wall side instead of the aisle. "Excuse me," they said as they squeezed past and around the legs of those already seated. Once they sat down, they looked over at the pastor, whose gaze settled on them for a moment as he was preaching. They took a breath and settled in, leaning back, as they eyed each other one last time, locking onto the speaker.
Jared pattered over the sandbar's branched, tree-like channels, skittering in and out, as armored goblins rattled after him.
One of them clacked out a crossbow, locking it at the target and snapping the bolt loose.
It whizzed, striking him.
Jared gasped and fell to the ground. He lay and turned, his light cloak and trousers scuffing, his shoulders heaving as he panted. He hitched up to his knees and lugged himself to his feet, shuffling forward.
His eyes caught a flash from behind him.
Glancing back at it, he bolted down the sandbank and whooshed into the forest. As his gaze flew over his back trail, he zipped around a few branches, his blood tapping onto the ground. Jaw wrenched shut, he wrested the whining branches against his body, rustling forward, down the squelching mud slopes, and over the sighing, sticky forest floor.
For a moment, he exhaled a foul breath.
After he slowed to a halt, his arms froze, jaw dropped open, and spine arched. He blurted out a scream as the bolt in his body emitted a magical pulse, a throbbing swirl of dazzling, sloshing foam. Slamming the ground head-first, he reached out before he lashed at the earth, his face warping violently. His limbs twisted, straining around, as he let out guttural, strangled cries.
The sound of his screaming echoed away.
One by one, around him, humans softly thudded down short drops, boots damply crunching, cloaks gently swishing as some of them squatted, metal gear airily chinking and jingling.
One of them approached.
"Jared, we're OK now," Michael said.
Jared's eyes bulged briefly, then softened before they closed, while Michael settled beside him and hung his green-glowing hand just shy of the wound, the shoulders of the group relaxing little by little.
A young man stared and wrinkled his nose, sitting next to a lavender-whiffed maiden in an idle court, his eyes sweeping over the vicinity and pausing at every obscure-faced onlooker and bystander. He jerked up from his seat and clacked out the open gate, passing the lines of guards and rustling down the long flight of steps leading to the city square. He first put on the flat hat he had tucked under his arm and adjusted his band collar before settling next to a food cart. After purchasing a few morsels of tiny star bread, he plopped each in his mouth and chewed them all together, clattering the rest of his copper coins into his pocket.
As soon as he finished eating, he thumped on his hat, lowering it slightly, the wind already whistling and cooling his body. He clopped down a step, his sweat pattering over the stone. The way to the square loomed wide, and the drizzles of an oncoming rain cloaked the air, puffing a lingering earthy scent. He whooshed his way downward, his wooden shoes scuffing up to the road that turned off later to the main road and the square.
He flagged down and rode a traysikel, stiffening his rear as he nestled inside and wrenching his hands shut on the sidecar's right metal frame.
Upon arriving, he whizzed his head around briefly before swishing inside a café, his mustard-yellow cardigan and army-green cotton trousers brushing past the door. He grazed through a few thickly dressed customers, scanning the floor and stopping at an empty table with an embedded socket.
He sat down and produced from his backpack several dense books, piling them up. He then headed to the counter and ordered a large dark mocha, scanning his prepaid card. After returning, he took out his laptop, grabbed his mouse, keyboard, laptop charger, USB-C monitor cord, phone charger, and monitor, and then plugged them all in.
Once he sighed and planted his forearms on the table, over his keyboard, he gazed at the screen, showing him a browser tab of an email webpage.
He alt-tabbed to a text editor for coding and began typing, starting with the line "The world is cool and amazing" before ctrl-backspacing all of it.
After clicking the wifi and connecting it to his phone hotspot, he switched to his browser and typed on the search box "writing exercises".
"Sam!" interrupted the man at the counter.
He grabbed his phone and scurried over and back, putting the coffee cup in front of his mouse before searching "prompt heaven" and clicking the Tumblr result. He clicked the hyperlinked "location" in the pinned post and leaned in closer as the loading icon spun. When the page loaded, he read the line "A cabin in the middle of nowhere" and then typed in his text editor "The cabin cage loomed wide." Chuckling softly, he continued tapping away, his coffee's scent wafting and the floor's ruck of customers chatting into the night.
He slashed clean a group of slimes, the blast of white air thundering down a path. Orbs of XP fell into his level bar, whizzing it up by 20.
His eyes skittered across the holographic interface, skipping over a column of "Slime (Level 2) slain! 2 XP!" messages and stopping at "XP: 110/130".
He scuttled along the river.
A skeleton archer shot, piercing through his armor. He chugged a potion and swallowed it whole, tossing the bottle aside and raising his blade. He blocked the next bolt, clobbering a volley asunder. He whirled, slashed, crushed, tumbled, and heaved himself up. He demolished a skeleton line. XP orbs flew, filling up his bar and completing it, the interface ringing and throbbing at "130/130".
A whirlwind of magical energy burst out of him, splashing in a mist, as a magical circle remained around his figure on the ground. His interface read: "Level up! +2 Strength!"
He rotated his arm violently, smashing the ground in a sound like applause, driving forward.
A man pounded up the hill, dashing forward and clashing one by one, blade meeting hammer. He kicked and threw a goblin overhead, flying with his wings and drop-kicking any goblin mid-fight.
In the distance, goblins screamed, one's face reflecting in a blade, as the man came over, skewered it, and hurled it down, stomping on it repeatedly.
Meanwhile, two other official-garbed humans watched, as several hooded mages cast spells in the form of phantom snake heads biting any goblins in their path until they fell before moving on to another.
Pointing his blade forward, the man let a long shout before closing his eyes.
Beneath his lids, colors swirled, gradually distorting the scene before burning it all away, revealing an office on the other side.
The office had two people, one doctor man and a boy.
The man's gaze rested on the boy. "So you're saying... That this is how you see yourself?"
"Yes..." the boy muttered.
Flashes of red and blue and green threatened to combine again before the doctor man snapped his finger. "Remember this. You have to keep it with you." He "handed" his finger snap gesture to the boy. "You'll need it when the 'colors' happen."
"Yes..."
The boy went home that day and fell asleep. That night, he saw someone's face staring at him through the window. He snapped his finger. It went away.
Ten minutes out of Vito Cruz, the morning train chugged along the Metro South Commuter line. It had passed through the roads, bridges, gravel, informal homes, foliage-blanketed poles, shirt-off teenagers, and dusty cement-painted basketball courts of Manila. But now, it was slowing along the chain-link fences, posing to stop at Pandacan.
Once it did, Richard got off.
He strolled around, scanning the streets. His eyes lingered on numerous features, including a cart with a colored-umbrella, the PNB bank, and the yellow-and-black bollards.
He later turned off the street and into his mint-green home, sitting at his computer desk. As he sipped water, his gaze drifted out the wire mesh to his left, past the hanging chichirya, into the neighborhood street, where it drizzled.
After taking a shower, he turned on his computer and began listening to League of Legends's (LOL) song "Legends Never Die".
He opened the LOL game itself and queued up, banning the champion "Braum" and selecting "Lucian." At that exact moment, the track erupted into the grandeur of orchestral strings, percussion, and layered synthesizers.
Once he entered the match, his vision exploded in an array of colors.
Beside the dull-colored horse, the cowboy in his red shirt could be seen standing upright in the open air, unshielded by any bandana or "wild rag," while at his feet the lawman crouched, shoveling gravel into the bags hung on the horse. Behind the blowing horse were three yellow-shirted first-class gunfighters, followed by seven green second-class buffalo hunters; and at the very end, a gray, bareheaded sheriff. In front of this large company of men sat the pucker-faced bartender Benti. "What then?" he asked, his voice a chop in the dust.
"It'll work," said the cowboy, before getting snapped at by the sheriff with a "You gotta be kidding me!" and a string of complaints about the weather and heat and how staying out here too long would get their heads melting after the hats.
"It should," said the lawman, shoveling another. "I hate to say it, but he's right. This is not a matter of if, but when. So let's get moving... Seriously, why am I the only one shoveling? Guys?"
The three gunfighters worked themselves over, their boots shedding against the dirt. They started helping him, as the clouds scudded across the sky.
A shadow. "What's that?" asked one of the seven buffalo hunters.
They looked again. A cloud.
They snapped their heads up. A forming of clouds.
"Yo! Guys! Get moving!" shouted the cowboy, as the sheriff ran his way to the horse, hands on head.
The clouds combined and squelched, billowing.
A thunder struck the ground near them. A signal.
Another fell, hitting the lawman who fell over. Dead.
An explosion in the sky.
A greater shadow emerged, enveloping them all.
The cowboy's eye reflected a great beast, his form a twinkle in its serpentine gaze.
West of what finally became mainland Jolhelm there was originally only war, and turbulent war it was, for here a great campaign, the Crusades, met a 100-year conflict, the Marchen Wars, and dark gatherings signaled their meeting, a haunt of beast and man, of goblins that skimmed the tall trees of the forest capturing birds with sticky sap, and of the most terrifying creatures nature provided, the hairy red giant whose oval furrowed face looked almost exactly like that of some depictions of hell's gate. In these wars, too, tramped the land creature that would ultimately lay waste to Jolhelm, the treant, whose feats left fire in its wake.
In one rainforest of Jolhelm's Midwest, that same treant struck the foliage, creating a gap. Before raising an outsized tarnished-bronze clockwork-pistol, it checked its whirring similarly large brass-plated watch and then snap-fired through the gap. Upon its reload, the cases slammed the ground. It tut-tutted as it watched the lonely figure running through a field of corpses, into the fort.
Steam releasing from the sides of its head, it pushed back from its knees and settled on the ground. It switched the pistol with its steam-rifle and got its elbows back in place. With a shot, a gasp of flames, a proboscis of steam and magic, lashed out.
Explosion. Hell.
It got up and closed the clumsily open bag beside it before swaggering on its way, in the opposite direction.
It glared.
An airship cleaved through the sky. Within, a man with a bolted watch gazed out into the cloud expanse, the wind swirling and whistling, swishing against the wooden railings. As he went inside, he pinched the watch, twisted its knob, and watched it hiss back into a whir.
"Good day, Sir," said the unresolved figure of a steward, the smile nicked into her face. She turned and backstepped, moving her leg pouch aside as he walked past. He slowly put on his pince-nez, glancing at her now in crisp detail, seeing the eyes' corner crinkles. Before those eyes could lock with him, he trailed off, turning a corner.
Steps quietly thudding, he eyed the paintings, maps, and books, threading through the crowd standing bareheaded across the hallway.
Upon reaching a shoe rack and a double door, he inserted his shoes among the rest and entered.
He first heard the crashing and the clanging accompanying the childish voices raised in hymn to the long drawn-out doxology on the Stonefell carpeted wood where, as he caught sight of the singing throngs, he waved his hat aside and, slipping into the congregation himself, recited along—it was clear that the service had swept Luke off his feet.
The woman waved her hand aside with a slow turn of the wrist, the shoulder fins of her terno stabbing skyward and bulking over the crowd before her.
"Yes?" she asked, turning before balking at the open palace gate. After peering at an ash tray on an ornate sideboard within, she tapped her pumps inside.
Her eyes grazed past smock-dressed servants before pausing at a hand peeking at a remove from behind an ajar door and gripping its side. Around it were spread layered figures, set gazes, arms planted over knees, heads, and shoulders, and hands twirled at the wrist and fingers coiled above and beside each other—a resolving house tableau.
She clattered to her room, inside which she rested. The next morning, she got up, straddling the stool and fixing herself up. After a short trip to the SUV, she hitched herself up and flumped down at the back. As the car wheels rolled over the rain-soaked Muntinlupa tarmac, she tucked at the hems of her blouse as she flicked to the tinted windows, her reflected features slowly resolving. Outside, she caught a glimpse of a list of things: a parked bicycle, a green cart with three kinds of peanuts in a glass display, plastic-wrapped Hello Kitty phone cases hanging on a gridwall stall, shirts, shorts, and denim pants.
Settling back, she let out a long sigh, drawing her chauffeur's glance, the world droning into cacophony.
When the car arrived, she stepped over the flecks of rock, trail of water, and cement-pinched grasses below her, working her way outside before hammering up the grooved ramp leading to the plaza, her blouse brushing through KFC's door.
She slumped onto an empty table, her arm collapsing over, wrist lamely settled, phone gripped.
Then he plowed out the door, and the crowd fell back, and we tailed after him. He got in a tent, hitching his low-slung canvas chair up closer and lighting a cigarette, flumping down, as a woman in a chintz-covered petticoat stood nearby, a drab glow in her cupped hands. He scooted his cuffed-sleeved hands beneath him to the back of his knees, eying us, cocking his head back down, blinking as the smoke got in his eyes, tossing the cigarette, and then looking up at us again. He got up and hitched the split-bottom chair from the table behind the woman, placing it in place of the canvas chair, which he tossed aside. He slung a rag over his shoulder, most of it lying over his dark sweat patch. He slewed and stretched his hands at the wrist and rippled his fingers, encircling his wrist with two fingers and rubbing palm and back together, clasping hands together and rubbing into the ball of the thumb, interlocking fingers and rubbing at the base of the fingers. He cycled through these motions as his gaze rested dully on the walls.
He pounded his big feet outside again, over the sun-baked mud and past the stripped-down houses lying at a remove, several of which still threw up flames.
"The hell are we doing, Grant?" he uttered croakingly with what strength was left in him after the battle at Fort Medyo. "Have we already forgot the facts? Is this 'waste time' time? Or w-what?" He opened his mouth and stopped midway, head affixed. After a quick turn, he jerked his hand back creakily and threw them a look and a flurry of gestures. "Go back to brass and tell 'em we're already done here!" A cold grip went all the way down in our stomachs. We dawdled a step forward, firm and strong-footed.
The glitter was in our eyes.
Sunlight glistening on its towering spires, rain dotting over shavings of woodland, the city of Sepulchre swept out as far as its western boundary in the mountains of Horos. Within, in one of its jungles, the round head of a goblin bent down over a law book as finches around it snapped through the trees, chattering about.
"Oy, oy!" chirped the finch Sentur, his face looking like that of a roguish old man. "Those old bastards running their mouths again. Let's getta chance here, we've got the Mason spellbooks, now don't we?"
"Right, right, time to teach them a lesson!" added the finch Jishiki. "Strike those stiff lips off those arrogant mouths!"
"Come on now," stated the goblin Masterdon, with a hushing tone, a priestliness to his piled robes. "Let us not lay waste within our land, which Providence Himself bestowed unto us." He eased his eyes closed, holding them still for a moment as he drew the birds' curious leaning looks. "Now... what is your plan? I'll join you, but let me pray for mine enemies first."
The birds erupted into cheer as he stood up, the hems of his robes brightly and magically burning away their mud.
He covered his mouth.
A grin concealed.
Jethro slapped Levi. Levi jounced his hand against Jethro. Jethro rubbed his own face, then snapped his knee against Levi. Levi threw his hand over Jethro, grabbed him, and, with a string held between his hands, plopped his wrists around Jethro's head. He began to choke him. Jethro hammered up Levi's chin and drilled him with a rattle of blows. Levi hitched his hands out the more Jethro drove his fists. Levi fell. Jethro stooped down and clapped Levi's face.
"Try again," Jethro said.
The gym clattered with metal plates and thudded with boxing bags.
"But why?" Levi said. Silas unbuttoned his own coat and went toward him.
"Well, you know," Silas said. "It's part of it."
Jethro gave a nod and shook his hands and clapped Silas's shoulder.
"How are you?" he said.
Silas smiled. "I've been training."
"Really?"
Levi stood up. "Guys, wait for me, I'll go to the CR," he said.
Silas said, "Yep."
Jethro said, "You sure you haven't been dating girls?"
Silas winced. "Come on, I don't date girls. I've never been able to."
Jethro chuckled and clapped his shoulder again. "Yeah, yeah, OK, see ya."
He jolted toward Felix and skittered behind him and wrapped himself over his shoulders from under the arms. Felix jerked out.
"Can't," Felix said.
"Dang it," Jethro said. "Thought I'd get you."
"Haha," Felix said. "Try again." Jude and Tobias went toward them.
"Hello," Jude said with a wave.
"Hello," Tobias said in his pockets.
"How is it?" said Jethro.
"They're doing alright. Was wondering if you'd like to join us on our hike."
"Yeah, yeah, try hiking," Jude said.
Tobias nodded his large head.
Jethro chuckled.
He got up, and he encountered a strange sensation, that of the world falling apart and collapsing in on him, and he nevertheless concluded that this was simply the way that it was and that any other event would simply resolve itself by the end of the day, or at least one day eventually. In the end, he lived his life according to that notion, and he rarely dawdled out of it, always acting only according to what he had been given and to what orders he had been placed under. As such, his life was, in a description, monotonous and routine, even amid the momentary flashes and spells of interesting or intense feeling or sensation.
When he witnessed a portal that could only come out of novels and movies forming, he immediately raised his hand and attempted to swat it away, to swipe it off this room, off this planet. This very thing invited his appraisal firstly, but at this pressing moment, it only threatened the safety and stability upon which his life had been built. Usually, anything unordinary was matched with a relevant solution of his own creation, and he implemented them from a strongpoint and piecemeal. But now, the portal resisted his solution for it, expanding.
He chose his battles and ran out of his room, hoping that it eventually faded, but it didn't and kept growing until it became a visible semi-transparent sphere that passed through objects, threatening to include him within it to the potential effect of having his life either taken away or transported.
He screamed for help, but the sphere zipped too fast. It swallowed him up, and he found himself in pitch-black darkness, collapsing, vision fading.
The entirety of the world screamed at him, visions of the sphere screeching and clawing its way toward him. Roaring thunder struck at him, eroding him bit by bit. He let out a ghastly yell.
The moment cut short, and in front of him, he saw the relentless, soaking rain and the towering stalks of trees fading into a pale, misty celadon-green, before he cocked his head to the grass below him, the undersides of his arms intensely scuffing against it. He stood up, eyes darting from corner to corner, stopping at anything not leaf or bark.
His feet smudged against the squishy mud and the damp air zoomed around him, his shirt billowing, a percussive dance of droplets drumming the ground nearby after rattling through the canopy, the droning rain flooding his ears and soaking his hair, fingertips growing both clammy and nettled as he squelched through the rainforest, his smarting eyes repeatedly blinking hard, face slick with moisture.
He briefly clasped a tree beside him, its wood shavings sticking to his hands and arms, blurring through the vines, trees, and shrubs. "Where am I?" he uttered croakingly with what strength he had left.
A chuckle burst out of him. He covered his mouth, eyes wide. "What happened to me?"
"What's happening to me?" He looked at his arms and legs and then back at the sky through the gaps in the trees.
He stared.
Rageful rain roared.
A honeyed scent tickled his nose. Caleb levered himself up and out the door, striding by patches of green moss and dark surfaces slick with rain, his steps thocking. Above hung the lantern by the door and, farther up, the broad, heavy leaves. He passed the gentle glow on the wooden porch, glancing at the array of potted plants on the left side. As he breathed with the constant hiss and patter of the rain, the water on the road in front of him rippled and swayed.
He looked up at the sound of a car chugging to a stop before the engine switched off, the door swinging open and thudding. His younger brother, Asher, hurried up, a rolled-up jacket over his shoulder, clutching three books of different sizes.
"Hey," Asher said.
"Hey," Caleb said.
As they walked toward their family house, they heard what sounded like a soaring plane. They glanced before eying each other, barreling back out into the open air, the rain streaking down their faces.
In the distance, a meteor cut across the sky. They gasped.
"What's that!?" Caleb said.
"The hell!" Asher said.
For a moment, it slipped beneath the trees, and all was quiet.
Then the roar of its impact hit, ripping through the forest before falling quiet.
Banks of clouds rolled along, the hiss of the rain returning.
As they whisked back inside, an ancient-garbed star-eyed man hovered above, watching them from the sky.
I opened my eyes. Sight of rich pastures and wild-fowl, scent of saffron, cooked buttered corns on a plate, clay and loam soils in rice bags, dairies of cows numbered on a nearby log book. Wagons steadily rolled nearby, containing 900 weight each, drawn with six horses only, and the road corkscrewed toward the nearest throughfare and market-town, carrying piles of wheat, barley, malt, and all sorts of grain. On the carts and tables lay a bone lace and straw-hats, which were eventually plucked off. In the distance lay pleasant wood and fine streams, and in the fields stood graziers, and on the ground shavings and cuttings of paper lay about. And as the sweet healthful air flowed through the corn-fields and meadows, seated near flecks of rock, I made some resounding back cracks. Below my face, sunlight glistened on my dainty knees and lower legs, and waves of water in a basin played about my submerged feet. Overhead, clouds passed, and they would eventually pass over the earth dam at Osbourne River. The land heartily nestled among rivers and hills; deer, boar, and hunting game abounded in the forests across the earth. As I sat and ate corns, I caught sight of groups of cargo-packed travelers sashayed about the land since it connected two trails, but only a few left precipitously and headed far out where the mountains dropped steeply.
I thought it was a nice day.
The singular thing that I am, I weaponize, put it together to form this epitome of a thing, and I recognize that it isn't that simple, because there are thousands of ways to be, really. It really is that kind of thing, that thing that it is, and surely, it is about trying to make sure that things don't easily fall apart. Pa pulled himself up off the chair and rained down blows on the boy, striking him and breaking him apart, reducing him to a plop on the floor, boxing his ear with the heel of his palm.
"There! Surely you know the epitome of grace!" Pa said.
Sweat dribbled down the face of the boy, who lowered his head like dumb beasts do in the storm.
Pa smiled, cocked his ear to the quiet neighborhood street outside, and said, "The world is a beautiful place, simply it is. That thing that it is, the monstrous thing that must be committed to memory, I transfer over to you. Become one with the entirety of a person."
He then went and hugged the boy, crying, a deep grief and compassion suffusing his breaking voice: "This is for your own good. This is what it means to live in this world. To be born and to die. To live and to act accordingly. Understand?"
The boy stiffened his upper lip.
You must be the epitome of grace and beauty, Son. As I have. We shall be free.
Pa sobbed before looking aside, saying offhand: "I don't need you to love me or to like me. I need you to be free."
The boy's brows lifted for a moment, opening his mouth to speak.
Not a single noise complaint.
Teacher's eyes narrowed at the boy.
Pastor's nose wrinkled at the boy.
The boy hurried his typing. His eyes reflected his computer screen.
His message popped up.
It never moved up.
A smile fell on his lips.
Twenty years later, the boy stared, rain streaming down his face, standing in the streets. "I must become... I must become... Whatever I must. For that purpose for which I have been ordained and placed. I am the epitome, the singular thing, the divine attributor."
He held a shotgun and blasted the door, opening a gaping hole on earth.
"I shall be free from every single thing!"
He shot, a piercing bullet striking through, vanishing into the bodies of his oppressors. Rage burst from his seams, ejecta and slag tossing around. He slashed and crushed a nearby oppressor, battering his head with hammering fists.
Beyond the battle, behind an auto-playing screen, a man drank a cup of ice-blended coffee from a nearby cafe. "This is pretty good. How much it cost?" he said.
"Seven, six dollars," the shop staff said.
"On Steam?" the man said.
"Yes," the staff said, imperceptibly knitting his brows as he glanced at the game packages neatly arranged in shelves all around him.
"Alright, thank you," the man said before leaving.
The staff tilted away with a twitching at the corner of his lips.
"So where did Mom say we were going?" said the man's younger brother, who just appeared on his side after sighting him in the distance and running over to him.
While they skirted a kiosk, the older brother, Samuel said, "Lola Cecille's and then dinner at Italliani's with relatives."
"Tita Maris?" Mickey, the younger brother, said. "Or Dad's?"
"Tita Maris," Samuel said.
They walked on for a moment, Samuel sipping.
"It's crazy that Trundle doesn't have a counter," Mickey said. "I mean, he's like the easiest champ, or among the easiest champ, and he doesn't get countered. You just split-push every game, and you just win. Just int Trundle."
Samuel glanced and nodded, taking another sip before opening his mouth. "Well," he said. "Trundle's pretty strong. He's like Yorick and Sion, but the difference is that his entire kit is for 1v1-ing, so there is no issue at all for like how he goes from base to top to enemy base. It's like a pretty linear route through and through."
"Yup!" Mickey said. "I mean, I even tried using Phase Rush, and it wasn't good. Lethal tempo talaga. It's the only one that works. How about Hail of Blades? Did you try it?"
"No. You never get Hail of Blades if your champion is either smash your opponent to death or just die right there on the spot."
"But did you try it? Was it good? I saw a video of TrundleTop playing it."
"It must have just been an experiment."
"He said it's good against certain match-ups, like Fiora."
"How?"
"He said that you get better trades."
"That doesn't make sense."
"Well..."
"How about Lethal Tempo, then go full tank? I tried it, and it sucked! I tested it ARAM, it was good, but ranked, it sucked."
"I mean. His entire kit is based on hitting hard. Why would you not go just full pushing and Sheen?"
"I mean, Mundo's kit is so strong."
"Well, that's Mundo."
'I know, but it can work. Just need the right teammates. They just throw before I can test it out late game."
"Mundo. Just go Mundo if that's the case."
The brother in between Mickey and Samuel in age appeared. "Hey guys, Mom's telling you to come back," he said. "We're leaving na."
"OK, we were just walking around," Samuel said.
With a fine felt hat in hand, he sat down, jerking his legs under the seat. His eyes went over to the men on the stage, where they waved and danced with their legs kicked up and about. They then moved the hands they had kept so still in front of their faces and, as if scattering war pamphlets, they made a flurry of hand gestures, having them slice through the air and past and around each other, while their footsteps strutted in turn. Then, being unfinished, they clasped the air and slid their arms in the air and made circles upon circles and flourished their headbands' waving tails along their bodies' motion, which they sped up with the increasing claps per second heard from behind the stage curtains until they stopped in the middle of swinging at a trumpeting voice calling out ("Over!") and rushed from the stage to the back, where their footsteps could be heard drumming away. A man came in from the back and raised his hand, greeting the crowd and expressing his thanks for their attendance, and the felt-hatted man stood up inconspicuously and began walking along the aisle and, with many others, streamed out the theatre door.
The man, with a rough, cold face, tramped across the road and started up a Barney Auto Lines bus. He took a seat at the back on the right two-seat row in front of the last row, next to the window, and he raised his bag in front of him and rotated it so that it matched him vertically and set it on his lap. With a quick curious outside look that ran across the street, he pressed back against the chair and, so that his face scrunched comfortably against it, hugged the bag tight until the traffic ended and the bus began to move again.
The sound of the bus honked and squeaked when it almost collided with a jaywalker. Before it could return to normal speed, the felt-hatted man pulled himself up, and, before calling for the bus to stop, clutched the bar. He then wrestled himself to the staircase, then thumped down the steps onto the road. After a brief turn-around and rubbing of his sweaty forehead, he walked toward his apartment and carried his bag all the way.
In front of the apartment, he raised his bag and climbed up the steps inside, where he put down his things. He put one hand under the hem of his shirt and dragged it up as he edged toward the bathroom.
Inside, he stood naked. He twisted the knob and turned his ear to the sudden driving rain outside, and he looked at the water-dribbled tile patterns that travelled asymmetrically to the walls and corners. He sighed and murmured, "How long's it been since I watched?"
In the room, while drying himself, he said, "Haven't gone anywhere in a while."
He put on his clothes.
At the computer, he sat down and placed his hand on the nearest book. "I hope this ends."
He typed his password and logged into his user account. "Don't want to go outside again."
He opened Reddit.
His fingers tugged down the sides of his mouth. "But this is worse..."
Down the dirt road appeared a moving wall of carriages and carts, and, with it, thousands of goblin infantry, as they edged toward the south.
Inside the convoy, Bonecut, a middle-aged goblin with an oval face and a silver-hemmed tunic, turned back to go to his carriage. Finally, he sat down next to Griznak, one of the twelve commanders.
"How's the new tea?" Bonecut said.
"Good," Griznak said. "Did your men get this from Asalam?"
"No, no, we actually had Mr. Filli get it from the spirit dimension of Asalam. So this should be exquisite at least."
"Well..." Griznak said, taking a sip. "It is excellent."
Hour after hour Bonecut looked out the window, and he continued listening to the aide-de-camp beside the carriage.
Upon the eighth hour, Bonecut settled back and stopped looking outside, and he and Griznak started discussing their younger years.
"Remember when we still fought that creature?"
"Yeah. It's been a while."
"What was its name again?"
"Shadow...something."
"Yeah. It's been a long while. Kinda miss when they were a threat, but hehe, of course it's better this way."
Outside, the goblins started to chat as well, their faces loosening up.
"How's Witchman been doing, Peter?"
"He's already left the group I heard."
"Really—"
The sound of young voices rang out from the distance.
They came from human children in a large magical circle on the ground following wherever they went. Their arms were linked, and they slowly walked toward the goblins, chanting continuously with a rare, unearthly beauty.
As soon as Bonecut heard it, he choked, clutching his chest. He then saw Griznak use a healing spell on himself, and as its green light was flickering, Bonecut cocked his head toward the window.
Outside, across the convoy, goblins began to drop to the ground, and their eyes and faces were pale. Their bodies shook, and they gasped or screamed. Green domes, most small, a few gigantic, appeared, and those within them slowly regained their color and stood.
In a large bird-swirled island, as soon as a footsore red-garbed burly man slumped forward around a seaward wall, a cloth-wrapped silver-wand jutted out from the bushes.
Five firebolts, fired from less than a metre range, all into the back of the head and neck.
The man's wand-searching hands yanked against his taut muscles as he fell to the ground, while the ejected mana refuse trickled against the cloth.
As his body slithered downhill, the silver-wand vanished in a rustle.
A group of hooded mages ran from the bushes and dashed around the wall, aiming their wands at the tops of the towers, striking down the guards one by one.
A brown-clothed man inside the fort set down his book and fumbled for his wand.
He edged out his room door as a blast burned him in hellfire. "Arghh!" he screamed.
He fell, as more and more men hurried into the fort.
The fort went up in flames.
Far off, across the sea, past the retreating hills, at a common town, a slim boy with a bony face, two quick brown eyes, and rumpled black hair that drooped low above his eyes, was sitting on a rambling wooden porch. He wore a flat hard straw hat on the back of his head and a short tunic featuring stripes of purple and yellow and seashells along its hem. He still held the sprig of jasmine, his eyes aglimmer in the soft air and pale light, watching over the large shrubs and lush grasses and mosses.
His eyes travelled far out as the horizon slowly lightened. "Father?" he said.
For a moment, his face was still.
But it twisted, crumpling.
He hefted his lame hand up, bursting.
"Father!" he yelled.
A sunlight-steeped dark-jowled male in a thin synthetic polo shirt padded down the green-studded street. Across the street loitered another, wearing tank-top and a capiz-shelled necklace. In between the two males, a crowd—after lifting their arms, zipping them diagonally to the side, and whirling them around—pressed their shirtsleeves against their sweat-slicked foreheads. They then recollected on the side of the road as the horizon was lightening and the stream of passersby thickened. The people clumped at the middle, turning off into an LED-lit church—a sea of limbs whopping by.
Inside the filling high-ceilinged, windowed lobby—a kaleidoscope of crowd-reflecting oranges—beside a wide staircase that led to the bleachers, a boy with bruised-blue trousers, soft-brown skin and prickly black hair was hunkered down against the brick-red wall, a band of filtered sunlight across his torso from right shoulder to left hip, clutching a bowl of hot ginataan. Dark pouches below his eyes, he unevenly got up while steadying his bowl-gripping hand. He then prowled through the crowd, passing one of two double doors adjoining the chapel, settling at the back of the ranked split-bottom chairs, behind a chuckling bag-hugging, t-shirted, denim-trousered group of two men and a woman.
Squinting for a moment, the boy cocked his ear around. The faint rush of the air conditioner filtered through the scuffing clothes, patter of bag rummaging, and whispered back-and-forths. The gigantic screen above the stage shot a cinema-like glare, diffusing among the blouses, polo shirts, darkness, shadowy chairs, and carpeted walls.
After fiddling with his bag, the boy produced his glasses and wore it. The group of three in front of him resolved into stark silhouettes against the silent timer on the screen.
"Yeah, but that's like why he didn't do it, noh?" Elijah, the woman, said.
"Wait guys, did you guys forget charging cable?" David said.
"No," said Mark. "It's here." He pressed his elbow against the backrest to prop his body while he opened his black-leather bag. After putting several items aside, he raised and angled his bag at the other two, indicating the cable.
"But noh, noh?" Elijah said. "He wouldn't have been the one to sacrifice so early if it wasn't for the time loop."
"Maybe? Thing is that Marlock didn't really have it until after the 'Noch' scene, so..."
"Guess so." Elijah shook her ice-blended coffee cup at the wrist, her gaze drifting aside as another group of attendees began to pour from the aisle into the empty seats on her and the other two's row.
Behind them, the boy rocked gently back and forth. His head hung below his phone screen, the hitched-up top of his shirt covering his mouth, his right index finger making wide sliding gestures on the screen. The mobile game he was playing featured repeating levels of running, hiding, and preparing for raids.
Robyn pressed his blue cotton jacket sleeve against his damp forehead, putting his thick-rimmed glasses on again. From his vantage point at the edge of an intersection adjoining the city square, his eyes grazed the entire square in front of him. He brushed his green drawstring trousers pocket, fingertips rolling over the shapes inside before stopping at a pen. He holstered his right hand and gripped the top, exposing it for a moment before sliding it out, sunlight glinting off the pentip. He set it in his closed palm, then looked out toward a store. As he started to thud across the rainwater-dribbled concrete, his fingers rippled over the pen's surface.
The clacking of his shoes stopped at a banner with the name "Palawan Pawnshop" in round-ended lettering. As he turned back around toward the bus stop that flanked the road a little before the intersection, his head wandered aside.
He stopped, sighting a figure, his brows knitting imperceptibly before shooting up. "C-Clowey?" he asked, taking a backstep, then a sidestep, then a slow turn of the head, as the woman with a light cotton H&M shirt, ring-studded fingers, and a hair band across her head approached, a strong perfume scent trailing off her that ran down to — Bay.
They quietly entered a nearby cafe.
"Dark mocha?" Clowey said.
"Yeah," Robyn said.
"Dark mocha venti, please," Clowey said, holding her branded prepaid card in front of the red scanner lights. "And one caramel macchiato. Venti as well."
They sat down in silence until they got the drinks.
"What are you doing nowadays?" Clowey asked.
"Fishing," Robyn said, chuckling alone.
The sides of her mouth rose, but her eyes kept still.
"No, seriously," she said.
"I got a job as a coder just this March."
"Two months ago? That's not that long ago."
"Yeah."
When he did not add anything else, she said, "Hm."
"Great then!" she said.
Her phone rung.
"Sorry, I have to take this," she said.
As she stood up to leave, he offered her his pen. "I still write," he said.
She stopped, tapping the call away. "What?" she said.
"I thought you stopped," she muttered.
"I didn't." Robyn smiled. "I never did.
"Did you?"
"I stopped drawing," she said, zipping through those words, darting her eyes aside.
He thumped tissue over the table to her, moved his ice-blended coffee next to it, and planted his pen on the tissue.
"T-that's not the right coffee." She jerked out a breathy laugh. "And I can't do tissue art with a ballpen."
"Oh... whoops." He made a small smile.
After returning his pen and cup, she started painting on the tissue with her coffee, showing it to him.
"How do you even do that?" he said as soon as she drew a recognizable detailed figure.
"Well, practice. Lots of it."
"So you still...?"
"No, no. I mean, kinda. I like to draw on the walls when I'm bored, but no, I don't, officially."
The two watched the drawing form to include a male figure.
"Is that...?"
"Yup."
From under a lily-sown awning hanging in mid-air—the air still quivering around it as javelins, rocks, and colorful blasts of magic disappeared off it—Lei wandered out.
She wore a black, sleek smock and a black-feathered tall flat hat and held a long spear tipped at the end and along the sides with sharp bits of shimmering gemstone.
She met the gaze of twenty-four figures, who each wore an outfit of a different style—like a glaringly sharp collar, a daintily thin hem, and invitingly rounded pockets—and color combination—including quirky azure-mustard, rich lavender-gold, and fiery emerald-crimson.
Their expressions and stances also varied: one wide-eyed and baring his teeth with his arms stretched out and fists flashing with magical flames, another hovering cross-legged above the ground with a dull gaze and floating balls swirling around her.
"Hmph, you guys never get it, do you?" Lei said. "I can do this again and again. Just stop already. Save yourselves. You're throwing your lives away for nothing!
A man with red-striped blue breeches, a black cloak, and a butterfly flitting across the surface of his eyes, Makki stepped forward. "We want to work under you," he said.
"W-what?" Lei said.
The twenty-four watched her pacing and her face jerking around.
The dust wafted forward.
Lei slammed the ground. "If you want that," she said, "then... you're going to have to go through something... A test... I will throw my strongest attack, and I will stop it at the last moment, so that it's just a blast of wind. If you don't flinch, then... you're in."
Makki's butterfly had frozen.
He looked back at the others who started exchanging glances, throwing his gaze aside, his eyes settling in the distance.
The sun edged downward.
"So?" Lei said.
Makki advanced. "OK. All twenty-four of us will do it."
The floating dust eventually aligned with the sun rays.
Makki fell to the ground right after she blasted him, his butterfly trembling.
"Out!" Lei said.
Makki flinched again, got up, hobbled through the crowd, and ran off.
She smirked.
"Next!"
A woman with a thick, mottled, rust-textured mask, a red coat, and a purple tunic, Joyce stumbled over. "Me next," she said.
Blasting her, Lei took a deep breath, then looked up.
Joyce raised her hands palm-up, her feet in the same position.
Lei started nodding. "Good," she muttered. "You passed!"
A man with two long strips across his torso, Andrei went.
Lei blasted him before he could stop.
Andrei gazed expressionlessly at her.
"You passed!" Lei said.
The man Aidan burst from the crowd, swaggering forward, thundering toward her. "Come at me!" he said.
Lei frowned, then smiled. "OK!" She curved her hand, blasting him from the side.
Aidan's eyes flickered. "Thank you!" he said, shaking her hand.
Lei went along with it. "You passed..."
The remaining twenty similarly passed the test.
Eying the orange hues on the horizon, Lei grinned.
"Welcome!" she said, clapping.
She pointed. "We're going to Califa."
Damn if this works out... she thought.
Her eyes softened, and she tightened her grip on her spear. Her hat tilted backward as her chin lifted, the hem of her smock flapping in the breeze. The twenty-three's heads followed her spear gemstones' trailing light.
Puncturations along Enzo's ribs. Air thudding against an invisible ceiling between his jaw and his throat.
His legs jerked, stopping at a mid point; then he fell, spindly knees twanging against the applause-rippled floor.
His air hitched midway, then hitched again mid-journey back.
His jowls became defined, his lips a vacuum that rolled through a series of snags.
His Adam's apple jolted like a chugging engine before air started jetting through his body again.
He promptly got up and smiled to the audience, a cough of ejecta-like phlegm threatening to erupt.
After scuttling off the stage, he immediately burst out of the building and into the back parking lot, a wide stretch of gravel with a sparse diffusion of cars.
Upon entering his car, he tooled it forward and across the lot, skirting the building and leaving at the side, where a few cars waited in line to pay for the ticket that only had a 15-minute grace period.
After heading home to his condo, he flumped down on the russet-brown carpeted floor on all fours, staggering toward the window.
His head barely peeked out above the thin windowsill, and his eyes were already darting across the streets around the block in front and between the three large skyscrapers forming a triangle.
The sun outside slowly rose.
He eventually pushed back from his knees and sat his bottom on the floor.
As he lay there, the streets rushed with an influx of vehicles heading to work.
Eventually, Enzo peeked out the window again, sighting a familiar man with a branded polo shirt standing in front of a crossing.
It was his friend John.
One of the cars slammed the horn close to John.
Please spare Enzo, Lord, he thought.
After seeing the pedestrian light turn green, John thudded across—glancing to his right where cars were leaving the parking lot left one by one—before entering through the main doors of the building.
He slipped across a lobby, rode one of four lifts, and strode out onto the 9th floor and to a glassy door to the left at the end of the hallway.
He waved at the blurry figures filtering through it and slowly opened it, eying the clock inside that said it was 9 AM, letting the door close by itself behind him.
He passed several staff across the hallway and a naturally lit glass-walled room to the right with children and two water dispensers beside each other.
He then reached the service room.
The congregation in front of him were casually exiting their seats one by one, walking over to the back, where they each grabbed a free plastic container with food from a wide table, some getting for friends. Several padded past John and toward the bathroom outside, and others still started filling transparent plastic cups and personal bottles via the dispensers in the glass room from earlier.
"Where's Enzo?" someone asked another.
John raised his brows at the question before knitting them, turning his body toward the door leading back to the elevator lobby, his gaze affixed.
The buzz of traffic quieted as rush hour ended.
Back in the condo, Enzo took his last deep breath and stood up simply.
He got out, walked into the lift, got off at the first floor, slid onto the sidewalk, and ghosted up toward a cafe, bypassing the crossing.
Inside, he waited in line.
At the counter, he loaded his prepaid card with cash, scanned, ordered, scanned again, waited, and then got it at the serving part of the counter.
After sitting down alone at an eight-seater dining table, he brought out his laptop and cables and connected them all. He then snatched up his ice-blended coffee, leaning in as his lips met the straw.
He watched the coffee's surface inside the plastic cup—a moony sea.
As the cafe bar stirred as more and more people entered at 10 AM, he glanced at the metal chairs beaded with dew outside the window, as aircon unit breeze misted on his skin, chill burning his bare hands.
In his laptop screen, he journaled, "Happened again today. In church."
His fingertips rubbed the floor, his palm planted on its seamless surface despite its mottled appearance. Headphones over his ears, he plugged his phone charger prongs into the cafe socket fixed into the long wall-couch bottom side. He then settled at the table hanging above the socket, one of four socket-paired tables evenly spaced along the wall-couch's length. The table, like the other three, was made of a round flat wooden surface connected to a straight thick rod that ended in a 90-degree turn into the wall-couch wood side below the cushion.
He mounted his wrists on the table side as he started typing on his laptop. My arrogance knows no limits... he thought.
He followed by writing, "Because I know I will die at any moment."
If he had a blade, he would cut down every single human being here, not out of hatred, but out of a sense of powerlessness.
He would create the world anew and break open this entire faux world. He would rebuild a new one in his image.
He would not literally do it, but there was this compulsion in his soul that wanted to destroy and irreversibly damn them all to hell, maybe in a creative way, in a way as visceral as literally killing them, in a way that only art could.
He started rapping on the keyboard, forging entire worlds, massacring thousands.
Several men stood in front, two others at the back.
A finger raised, thumping it up and down, Angelo mouthed numbers.
When the men began stalking forward, he pressed his right hand's fingertips together, palm up, eyes traveling between his nails. As soon as they entered the L300, he got up, strolling parallel to them along the sidewalk.
"What? Really? Wasn't they supposed to win last fight? They were 0-10 in scrims, seriously how!?" a nearby passerby said to his two brothers beside him, his arms slung over their shoulders.
After passing them, Angelo stopped and stared as they strolled down the street.
The L300 whirred around a corner.
He turned back and kicked forward, sprinting to the L300.
The L300 door slid open, and he strode inside.
As the L300 started moving again, he steadied himself with his hand over a tarpaulin blanket. He cast a look out the window, narrowing his eyes over the yellow lettering "China Bank".
Cars coasted by, the traffic branching from the intersection.
The L300 turned toward the yellow, moving steadily.
As the lettering got bigger, the L300 slowed to a crawl.
A man with a phone over his ear on the sidewalk laughed.
"Yeah, yeah—I can bring it later—sure, sure."
To his left, several men dragged the door open and hurried out, the tarpaulin removed, guns revealed.
They set down a plume with smoke grenades, skirting it and eying the corners where heads would peek, slamming magazines into their guns and aiming.
Bystanders heard a fusillade of pistol shots.
The heist-men dropped one by one.
A group of national soldiers crept into the scene.
They shot a few more.
Angelo's glassy eyes met theirs, blood leaking down his mouth. He lay jerking.
In a cafe, bruised spires of light reflected off the ground from outside, pillars of shadow in between, as sun-nicked leaves on barked posts filtered through the glass walls. Smooth-wood open cabinet-like shelves displaying cups shone faintly on the floor, blending with the diffused mottled mass of green.
A man entered, dispersing the colors, a shadow upon the surface. He sat down and looked around before heading around to the counter and stating his coffee order. Another man went in, drifting within shadow, sliding to a corner table. The eyes of both locked for a moment before their heads reverted.
Two thick-bloused, neck-laced, bag-shouldering women arrived, hovering across the reflections, settling at the first table.
The man at the counter made a little march over to his seat and did a look around, happening upon the women. He squinted before unhitching.
Corner-table man rolled over his phone, rapping over its surface, the sound effect enabled.
The women's gazes lifted before they snaked between tables toward the counter, crunching upon the seats there.
A group of ten bustled in, jetting to their tables, a burst of shadow.
"Hey guys," one of the ten, Jericho said. "Food, food, food."
"Why aren't you guys trying the new update?" Linus said. "Is it really that bad? You guys didn't say anything about it."
"Excuse me, are you busy?" the person in front of her said. "If I'm bothering you, just tell me. I'll just return to my seat."
"Hmm?" Angela said. "Oh, uh, whaaat?"
"Are you busy?"
"Why?"
"Well, I was wondering if you'd like a conversation. Fine with that?"
"Uh... not really, no."
"OK."
He did it again the next day in another cafe.
"...to my seat," he said.
"Uh, sorryyy, I'm busy, thank you for asking," Laura said.
He returned home, stumbling to the ground, tears dribbling down his eyes. "Fuck, I'm so weak," he creaked. "I'm never doing that again."
The next day, in his room, he looked toward the singing birds from behind the black-out curtain.
"This is what it means," he said.
The next day, he sat down in a cafe, drinking and tapping on his keyboard.
Two women from different tables glanced at him several times, one over fifteen minutes, the other over forty-five.
Their faces remained blurs until they left.
"I feel so weird when women keep looking at me," he wrote. "It bothers me."
She sat down. In front of her was a grayish brown, black-mottled metal object shaped like a very wide U. Two metal stalks projected vertically from U-bottom, the first sprouting from the second quarter and the second from the third quarter of top of the U-bottom. The two stalks ended in curves projecting horizontally into the U-middle, which terminated in a horizontal bar that formed a thick-edged hollowed-out circle. On top of the circle was a white ceramic pot-shaped cup with a handle and a flat, circular bottom that steeply narrowed in diameter at the beginning of the cup and widened as it reached the top. Additionally, filling the U-middle on the U-outline floor was a steel gray metal with rows of same-sized holes and alternating zigzag columns forming a hatch-work. Below the right horizontal circle was a wide-bottom upside-down-pot-shaped transparent glass cup made of four round-bumped or plump sides. Its size tapered upward but suddenly widened gradually at the top with a pouring lip or beak.
"Excuse me," a voice said from her right rear. She turned her head, chin resting on her palm. Eyes traveling up and down, she registered a man.
"What," she stated, not asked.
"Just wondering if you'd like to have a conversation," he said.
"Sorry," she said. "I can't."
She stood up, passing him, drawing his sorry. She went out and walked to her car, getting inside and driving home.
The street lights overhead flashed across her torso from waist to face repeatedly through the windshield.
She jerked her left cheek aside, stretching it.
He woke up, and nothing else existed besides the plain day, with everything in it falling away. He got off his bed and stumbled toward the door, looking out and seeing whales flying in the distance. He returned to his bed and closed his eyes. I am merely as much as I am, beyond which I am nothing, he thought before heading out. There, outside, he looked around and visualized the world that was so full yet so limiting. He desired to be one with it, but each moment carried itself to the next unwittingly. In that sense did he stroll about, seeing gigantic trains taller than 10-story buildings and dogs walking about upside-down with their feet padding the air where their heads should be. He wondered if he could do a single thing, so he punched the air, which created a portal, before slipping inside.
He saw goblins upon goblins, and there was little else to perceive save for a mass of green, because he could not bear to look at the sun-pierced trees and how they seemed to glare at him and force his eyes to burn. It was a strange sensory response, but he maintained his pace and clattered along the road in front of him as the portal behind him dissipated into thin air.
He walked through what felt like distinct plump blob-like layers of air, and each created a swishing sound upon entering and exiting, creating the sense of "throbbing" through the air.
As he was traveling, his eyes happened upon a small assortment of red-tiled buildings with blue walls and rainbow festoons. Around it huddled hundreds of goblins, each with a blue flame streaking harmlessly from their left eye.
He skirted this phenomenon of a place and padded toward the absurdly large jungle trees bulking at the edge of his vision like domes of sand.
His brown-trousered, blue-jacketed, wooden-sandaled body with rumpled black hair waded through, the sun-speared tops of the forest around him contrasting its dark-green undersides, where grasses, ferns, and shrubs and other understory features flourished. Sweat dribbling down his face, as his nose twitched in a twist-like motion at the profusion of fragrances wafting past and against him. His skin prickled at each scrape against a passing vine.
He fell to his knees, imagining a protective sphere around him, the wind stopping on it. "Where am I?" he said. "I feel that I have lost my senses or sense of self.
"Hello?"
He aimed—his shot slammed into the wall. "I have nothing else to say," he said. "I am merely a person. Have nothing else but that. I really am only as much as I am."
He tilted his eyes to the right, an empty void of silence. He tilted his eyes to the left, the fluttering and singing of birds. A dam in his right ear where the roaring of a sky should have been.
He looked in the mirror—jagged teeth. Super sweet orange juice given to him during a week of fever without brushing teeth back in 2020.
"I am only as much as I am," he said, a grotesque smile festooning his face.
He fell into a world of goblins and adventurers.
He racked his Beretta's slide.
Above the ruck he would rise into the racking clouds.
He shot a green-gob, downing it. "I have desires and wishes and emotions. I am a human being. You, a callous dog incapable of premeditation, an awareness of one's decisions and what one is doing and why one is doing it. Can you blame a dog for its limitations? No. Same goes for you." The gobber lay jerking and screaming.
"Gobite, what you gonna do now? If I were in your position, I'd be alive for the first time—a face to face privilege with death and a true measure of one's capacity to be, at all, in this world of things. To be only as much as one is, whether by loss of hearing or by its void of silence, or by crooked teeth and the consequences of ignorant help. That is what it means to live."
He handed her a red potion, and once she drank it all and healed back to full health, he said, "Get it now? Stand up. I still have hopes for you. For you to become a human being, not a literal one, but a being capable of pre-thought. I wish only for you to be a person. I must give people a voice. I must bestow the honor and dignity of a person upon all of us. For I am only as much as I am."
He offered her clothes and all kinds of "personable" things. "Choose. Don't choose. Either way, everyone deserves a voice." He turned and left.
The goblin ran before she stopped midway, her feet that should have been treading away finding themselves skirting the puddles and mud along the way back to him.
"I am a person," he said as she came to his side. "You, an equal."
She wore a purple-yellow tunic out of a list of options, merely to display her personhood. After feeling it out with her hands, she then removed it, realizing her own was hers and that any foreign object would only prove difficult to intermarriage lest there was a collaborative compromise rather than one of imposition. So she wore her usual clothes, those from before he even came.
"Yes," she slurred, unable to speak human language yet. Then she repeated it in goblin language: "Komak."
"Good." He offered her a shake of the hand.
She slapped it away. "You deserve to die."
"I do," he said with a sincere tone, his face cracking briefly before re-summoning itself as his mouth moved clearly again: "I am only as much as I am."
She knitted her brows. "I will kill you."
"Do so. Whatever gives you your right to live. You deserve to be you, to be given agency." His voice cracked with the truth of the matter.
When he saw her struggling to speak, he looked up. But come, look! The daring sky! he thought.
She struck him.
"Hehe. Hehaha-heha!" He loved the pain.
"Why're you like this?" she said in her goblin language.
"I am only as much as I am. Death is a thing of things." He got back on his feet, his hands trembling. "S-so, want to see what the world is like?" His expression was twitching between an absurd variety of emotions.
She gave an ugly grimace. "You... what is wrong with you?" she said in her native.
"I am merely—"
She slapped him.
"I—"
She slapped him again.
"You—"
She kicked him and beat him. "You despicable creature!" she said.
"Grah—"
She continued to rack him.
At the end of a hundred blows, he lay dull-eyed, jerking, and struggling to breathe.
She panted, her shoulders heaving. "W-what is it with you?" she asked in her native.
His eyes remained still, but his chest continued to go up and down.
After a long quiet, she said, "Get up. Go and get away. From me. From everything. Go die where I can't see." She strode away.
She came back the next day to see him near death.
She swore, suddenly jumping to his aid and starting the process of bringing him back to full health.
"Why?" she said. "Why're you like this!"
He stared at her, stone-faced, neutral, and letting her do whatever she wanted with him, without so much as a word.
"Please... kill me already." Tears dribbled down his face. "I know what I am. I should have died a long time ago. I'm sorry."
"W-what?" she said. "What the hell is happening?!"
He shook his head, wiping his tears. "S-sorry. I just wanted to do the right thing.
"Thank you."
She froze mid-wipe, her hands gripping steadily onto the rag she brought to clean him and prevent his wounds from "succulating."
"I..." She stood up and ran.
He laughed to himself, his voice bursting out throughout the forest, following her wherever she went. She covered her ears until it ended.
Eventually, he stood up, removing the rags. "I am only as much as I am." He dug his Beretta into his pocket and strode off toward the world.
"I will heal the weak and bring hope to the lost.
"I must do the right thing.
"Even if it means dying."
He melted between the trees, leaving the place, and she never tried to find him again.
She lodged the node into the system, watching the scudding Filipino chat messages in her circular monitor. After tossing her milk carton behind her into its dedicated pile, she got off her stool and whipped to the door, setting her left ear against it, hearing a clattering heading in her direction. She produced a ball from her pocket and opened it like one would with an apple—with both hands. It flashed blue, a holographic scanning projection enveloping her body, as she dissipated, re-appearing elsewhere in another tech-midden of a room.
She strode up to the window, sealing it against the racks of smoke outside before wafting the air into her nose with one cupped hand, sniffing it. Squinting, she thudded next to a large metallic chair with cables and wheels for legs. She closed her eyes as she brought the visor attached to the chair over her eyes, the black screen opening up into a digital world of blue background and white text.
After mentally clicking enter, the blue turned first into a blur of azure skies and crocodile-green grass, then resolved into a mosaic of naturalistic shades—a 3D hyperrealistic virtual world.
She stepped with her own toes and gripped the earth with her soles, feeling the friction and traction and the rubbing and scuffing against her feet, as if they would score and gall any moment now. Wading into the sunlight against the southerly breeze, she held up her hands and made a wide drawing motion, letting the air settle in her chest before exhaling just as slowly.
She swept the air with her hand, whizzing it all away—the clogging pain in her throat, the pulling tension in her rope of a spine. Replacing them were the cauliflower-like bursts, canyons, and billows of the clouded world.
A blob-like creature materialized in front of her. She smiled and, in her smock, offered it a flower. "How are you, Winnie207?" she said.
"SuperEvilZombee?" Winnie207 said, grabbing it with a slime-like tendril and mentally placing it in his inventory, which caused it to dematerialize with a small brief flash and rustle. "How's you?"
"Well, been a while hasnt it? How's Gobozer-Maiden?"
"Haha, still serious about that? I was just saying that."
She tilted down, pausing to play with the grasses with her hands. "I wanted to help you, you know."
"Yeah, so? What you on about?"
"No, sorry. Just... I don't know." Twitching, she dematerialized a blade of grass she picked up and turned back to him. "How've you been?"
"Fine, I said I was."
"You didn't."
"Or I mean that I am fine. I am, I am really."
"You sure?"
"Dunno. But enough that I can live. You know what it's like."
"I do, but that don't mean it's OK-OK, you know?"
"Well... I mean... we're all hanging out here. All of us."
"Yeah, but you know that's not what I mean."
"I do know what you mean, but you know?"
"I do."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"But seriously, what was that about? Why're you still asking me about it? I thought we agreed?"
"No we didn't."
"I mean no explicit say, but we did kinda."
"Yeah, in a way. But how've you been? Want to do anything?"
"Let's just walk as per."
"The usual? Sure."
"'Kay then."
With a breath, she snipped the snag off her white sweater knitted with primary colors.
She clattered the green-handled scissors on the colorless folding table beside her. Sliding off the plastic stacking stool, she, with a blue pole, hooked down a yellow hanger with a torn shirt off an indoor clothesline.
Passing by a stack of study papers, she laid the panda shirt flat on a sewing machine before starting.
When she finished sewing, she paused mid-walk at a pronounced rustling of the trees outside.
Her eyes travelled the olive walls and stopped at the jalousie window, where she leaned over on the second floor to see the mountainous clouds forming over her city.
She climbed down the narrow staircase with its thin but steep steps—where a large body meant an impasse.
On the first floor, she glanced around, stopping at her brother's room.
After staring at the household objects in the darkness, she strode up the ray of sunlight cleaving across the floor to its source, the windows, setting her head against them, her left hand leaning against the bare concrete walls.
After a look at a turn on the left corner of the house-strewn street, she padded to the kitchen-dining room.
Her feet found their way across the wallpaper-covered floor, where rubbing into certain parts would fold it upwards and she had to nudge it back down with her foot.
Under the night light of a cord-strung low-hanging ceiling lightbulb, she sat at the table on a large, heavy, ornate wooden chair and rested her arms on the transparent plastic tablecloth, as a rooster's crow outside resounded through the walls.
Her gaze resting on the refrigerator, a door opened to her right, where someone's feet were shuffling.
Her brother had gotten up, his form peeking out the door. As he dragged the knob to a close, he gave the stuffed toy–covered mattress a look, watching the door banging frustratedly against its plump edge. With his foot, he nudged the mattress's bear-sewn cover off the door frame, kicking the tight-fitting bed inside. After the bed kept slumping back down, he held it up in place with his foot, making its edge curve inwards. He then gave the door one more pass, releasing his foot and pulling it shut quietly.
He glanced around, then sighted her, squinting at her with his slight slouch. Slipping into the slippers beside his room door, he waded down a two-step staircase. It connected him directly to the kitchen-dining room.
"What you doing?" he said, squinting sleepily. He stretched. "Why're you up so early?"
"Studying?" he answered for himself after seeing the papers on the table.
"Yeah."
"Subdivisions, main road, side roads, malls, businesses, restaurants, street stalls and stores, churches, plazas, and office buildings."
"I even wrote a description. Want me to read?"
"No." Grabbing a coffee maker, he slipped inside a pack and placed a mug under the dispenser. "Teka, what's it about? I'm bored. Go ahead."
"A highly urbanized place where poor and rich lived variably together, though not without nuance and contradiction in part due to the rapid installment of elevated highways and other transporation infrastructure, which formed dark and dense urban areas not only in business districts (the primary urban pocket of activity), but up to the edge of the region as well, and which subdivided wealthy life across the privileged spots of the cities in the region, in work, life, visit, stay, and play."
In the darkness, the rain slammed. A boy and his mother entered through a clanging gate with a large barrel bolt, and they padded down this narrow passage with canals on both sides. It led them to a white-lit bare concrete apartment front with jalousie windows. A chubby woman got down the one large step that connected the door to the cement ground, looked at them, and waved, telling them to enter. They joined her inside, encountering the two other members—another mother and son—who were there first. The other members came after. Once they arrived, they began their weekly prayer gathering. While the chubby woman was the one who lived here and allowed this place to be used as a venue, she was not the leader. Someone else, a woman with a ponytail, presided over it, a great speaker who spoke at district events and orchestrated meetings with heads across the denomination. She spoke as passionately tonight as she did in all the different venues, places, and events she had attended.
Devotional verses were shared, two being from Proverbs.
Their reading for today was the entire Proverbs Chapter 1, one for beginners rather than a culmination of having gone from Genesis to Psalm and then to Proverbs. But they already did the Five Books of Moses and The Gospels in previous sessions.
The first boy, being the youngest, could only watch and listen, but his eyes flickered and darted at just the right moments. His mother, being the leader, brought him everywhere she went, exposing him to everything.
After they ended with a prayer, the boy and his mother went home, riding a jeepney across the main road under the orange lights. They dropped after his mother told the driver something along the lines of "Pakitabi po sa kanto."
They went home, and in the living room, the boy booted up the family computer since he had spent the entire day outside, using his two-hour turn now. He opened up Roblox Studio and resumed making a soldier that could repair buildings, typing the code he assembled from many other scripts and objects called "models". Afterwards, he saved his progress by saving the game itself, or "place" in Roblox terms, rewriting the local file. He went local for two reasons. One, the engine took a long time when saving it online, and it tended to crash a lot in the process. Two, the auto-saving did not produce consistent results, often overlooking tiny changes he made. By saving it locally, he could do it instantly with a keyboard shortcut and not lose any progress. Then he could save it online only after enough small updates had accumulated to form what felt like a new version of the game, which looked like an up-tick from "0.0.1" to "0.0.2" in the title next to the place name. The slow internet and the bugginess of Roblox Studio explained this reliance on local file storage and his long family history with data loss. He could not watch Twitch even at the lowest settings, so Youtube videos set at "360p" resolution were normal to him.
After an hour and a half, he got too sleepy. So he lay down on one of the mats arranged on the marble-imitating ceramic tiled floor, scooting next to his mother and brothers, and he fell asleep, leaving the soldier's building repairing code unfinished for his tomorrow self to pick again, as per usual.
Tomorrow, he woke up to food on the table and someone taking a shower. It was Sunday, and the whole family was preparing for church. While Sunday was church and "computer shop" day, Saturdays were for prayer meetings, and the rest of the week were for morning devotionals.
The service started with the key passage Ecclesiastes 3: 1 - 9. It showed in a slideshow on a screen on a white left wall through a projector. Beside the projector was a laptop and a seated woman with her finger over the arrow keys, which she pressed to switch between slides. Each slide showed a portion of the passage.
As soon as the service ended, a large pot of arroz caldo waited for the attendees, and everyone ate.
Afterwards, three brothers, including the first boy, went up to their mother and asked if they could go to the "computer shop," or internet cafe.
She handed them 20 pesos each to play 2 hours. The brothers joined 4 other friends, and they went past the open black church gates.
After exiting their subdivision, they headed to the kanto again and walked along the sidewalk to an unairconditioned computer shop at the end of a staircase and an exterior corridor. Inside, at least 10 people around their age were playing.
They paid, booted up, and played League of Legends, Crossfire, and Minecraft.
Afterwards, they walked home.
Some days later, the boy rode a L300 as the church went on a trip to a sports fest, bringing water containers and all kinds of equipment. Food was shared liberally throughout the journey there.
When they arrived, the boy scanned his environment, but he could only stare even as he maintained a walking pace with the rest of his church group, which included his mother and older half-sister.
A few clouds drifted overhead across the glaring blue sky, leaving no billows or oranges or reds.
The stickiness of sweat made him clammy.
He sat on the grass beside his church friends and the things they brought, watching a concrete volleyball court with players from his church and those from another church. It was surrounded by a connected field of undulating grass that stretched up to the VCT-floored, concrete-paved venue buildings a distance away.
It was a lovely, gusty morning for the people here: some exercise, communal food, and time spent meditating on a life free from society's expectations and responsibilities. For a moment, this was all there was, and to the boy, being too young to understand the stressors and potential trauma accompanying adulthood, it really was all there was.
Even then, his eyes continued to flicker at just the right beats of the sermons, group prayers, and in-group discussions between his church members, never missing one. It was all there was, and that allowed him to see everything.
That same flickering occurred thirteen years later in a room with a strange scent.
The scent of death wafted over the floor, as emasculated bodies were tumbled all over it.
He shot.
The whistle of a breath. The singular mishmash of thoughts lodged and dislodged in his brain.
He could only fester it for so long.
He shot.
The blanks.
The rageful silences that followed the echoes. They revealed the presence of a figure.
A person.
Emmanuel took a long sip from his soft drink bottle as he said in a gravelly, thick moneyed Englishero accent: "Aye, I'm afraid that's just life when you happen to be born female."
"Yeah, but why, why does life have to be this way?" the child with a cotton shirt and denim pants, Shyla said in her native English.
13 years old, still having a tough time transitioning from home schooling, and looking for any advice from anyone willing to listen, he thought, rubbing his soft graphic t-shirt against his mouth. Reminds me of myself.
Shyla was sitting next to Emmanuel and another man, both in their later twenties, at around 8 PM in a campus being used as a venue for a three-day Christian conference all three were attending.
"It simply is," said Emmanuel, raising his arms and lacing his fingers behind his head, setting one hairy leg over the other, his double-knit polyester shorts absorbing the friction. "People are afraid of taking accountability. They would rather pretend it all away, even if it means engaging in socially acceptable 'cruelty'."
"Seriously?" Shyla said, eying the other man, Gil, who looked about to speak.
"I wouldn't say that," Gil said in an essay English–taught accent, lifting his hips before squeezing himself back against his seat. He wore dark-gray denim pants and a lighter gray non-plaid flannel shirt.
Emmanuel showed no tension or offense.
"It isn't an 'it is what it is' situation," Gil continued, spreading his legs apart and resting his hands on the edge of his stool. "Change is possible. Everyone has a choice, and their decision to let such things happen is a choice. Perhaps, they have reasons, but I would still say that people have a choice."
Eventually the conversation ended, and Shyla returned to her room, checking her bag inside. She fetched her phone from underneath a pile of clothes that were just folded a day ago: one plaid flannel, one hoodie for the Baguio cold but also in case she ran out, and three different synthetic t-shirts. Her phone was a 2,299-peso Cherry Mobile Topaz, and, along with it, she took out wired earphones to listen to Christian songs: multiple grainy-quality Planetshakers songs like the classic The Anthem and one Chris Tomlin song How Great Is Our God.
She then listened as she fell asleep.
"Wow, you have Cowhead?" Loren said.
"W-what? Why?" said his cousin Tianna. They stood in the kitchen in a large house, with its exotic plethora of scents.
"I've never drank Cowhead before."
"What do you mean? I've seen you drinking milk."
"But that's powder. We've never bought Cowhead."
"Okkaay. Well, wanna go check ATC?"
"OK. Are your friends coming?"
"Teresa and Rachel? Yeah. But let's just wait for our driver. He's still bringing my mom. Wanna order pizza first?"
"You can just order pizza?"
"Yeah, whhy?"
"We've never done that."
Later, Loren tripped and dropped the popcorn bowl as he entered the console room.
When he got on his knees and started picking each popcorn up by hand, Tianna glanced at her older brother, Aron, who was already knitting his brows.
"Just let the maid do it," Aron said frustratedly.
Loren misunderstood and thought Aron wanted him to work faster.
Aron repeated himself with more anger.
Loren nodded and stood up, watching awkwardly as the older maid entered the room and Tianna continued playing with the Xbox console controller in silence.
Loren excitedly played each new console game right before they had to leave, whereas Tianna smiled knowing she had someone to play with.
As soon as the driver brought them to ATC, Loren bit his lip every time he heard Tianna swore in English with Rachel, but he loved being in a rich mall. Tianna spent the 1000 pesos she was given for today liberally, buying Loren some random expensive candy.
When they returned to Tianna's house, Loren passed by Tianna's older sister's room, seeing a book inside. Wow cool book! he thought, getting Tianna's permission to look at the book. It was Rick Yancey's The 5th Wave, and its cover was so "high-tech." When he scanned the room, he was in awe at how personalized it was, only seeing this in CDs and the cinema.
After getting back to Tianna, he asked her if they could swim, but she told him he didn't want to. He then pressured her, to which she said that she could stay at the shaded table next to the pool and watch him swim.
As he swam, she told him about that one time that Aron jumped off the balcony in front of his friends into the pool as a stunt.
Fernando snapped the shorts once, hard. The creased legs flew open.
A light drizzle trickled down bands of leaves overhead, faintly tapping him.
He and several others entered their room in slippers with towels, toiletries, and old clothes, shower water dribbling down their bodies.
After placing the shorts and other items inside his bag, he changed clothes and left his room, hurrying across campus. He went down 5 resin-bound gravel steps and then angled his guitar past the double doors of the chapel as the assigned praise and worship team were making their first testing sounds. God, please help me not be afraid, he thought.
He put down his bag, took out his guitar from its case, and strummed alongside them on the left front pew, following the acoustic guitarist's chords.
On the stage were 6 people.
The lead guitarist confidently shifted his weight from one leg to the other, nodding to the beat as he plucked and picked the strings.
The lead singer to his left, who was holding the mic with a phone on her other hand, waited for the musicians to set up.
The pianist to her left held sustained chords as ambience.
The bald acoustic guitarist in front of the singer glanced at seven district camp attendees chuckling outside and three on one of the back pews. His gaze rested on the other musicians from behind his thick-rimmed glasses, his head leaning over the music sheet with its chords and lyrics.
The eyes of the bassist behind the lead guitarist, drifted boredly about.
The drummer to his right rested her drumstick-holding forearms on her hips.
After the drummer's failed attempt at mouthing a question and getting an answer from Fernando, she motioned him to his side. She then asked, "Are you going to sing? Or do you want to play guitar?"
Fernando shook his head. "I'll play guitar."
"You don't want to sing?" the drummer, Princess said. "You said you wanted to when we practiced?"
"I do, but I'm still new."
"OK, let's start," interjected the acoustic guitarist, initiating a nod with the others.
The lead guitarist plugged in Fernando's Christmas-gifted acoustic guitar and had him get on stage next to the bassist.
Forty-five minutes later, the pews were filled with chattering and rustling attendees, some using the large electric fans to dry their damp or wet hair, and the stage was empty. The service was about to start.
"The thing is that it doesn't really matter, does it?" Elijah said. "We've seen what it's like. It's all fucked."
"Real," Faith said.
They walked toward the trophy. Elijah snickered, grabbing it and lifting it up. Then after a long cheer from the crowd, he lowered it and handed it to Faith. "Now, go, you deserve this too."
Faith tried to smirk, raising and shouting.
Elijah walked away, leaving Faith and the rest of the team on stage.
When the cheering finally died down and the team returned to their building, Faith went to Elijah's door and asked, "Elijah, why aren't you with the rest?"
Twiddling his team-issued gaming keyboard, Elijah laughed and said, "Why're you asking? You know me."
"What do you mean?" Faith said, walking inside. "Tell me."
"I've seen what this world has to offer, and... it ain't for me," Elijah said.
"What? What are you saying? Is this something serious? Should I call anyone? Your mom?"
"Haha, no, no. That's not it. I'm just changing is all. We all do. But yeah, Faith, that's my question. What are you up to? What are you going to do next? Now that we've won back-to-back. What is your next step?"
Faith froze.
"I don't need any of this. At least not anymore. So what? What's next? What's on your mind? Tell me Faith."
Faith apologized and stumbled out of the room, returning to hers. You're the one who inspired me and recommended my name to this tier 1 team after we played together in the tier 4 league years ago, she thought. Why're you like this!
"Dad," she called on Messenger.
"Anak, how are you?"
"I'm going home."
"Yeah, you told me. Why? Is anything wrong?"
"I-I don't know. I'll tell you later."
Two weeks later, Faith saw it—some random user's post of Elijah's quitting rumor that got many likes.
If this was before, she wouldn't feel anything as usual, having seen these kinds of rumors many times. But now, she slammed the keys on her pseudonymous account: "The fuck is wrong with you! Disgusting piece of shit!"
After she did some laundry for her father, she grabbed her phone again, went to his name, and called.
"Eli," she said. "Can you talk to me?"
His voice laughed into her right ear. "Well... sure. I don't really care anymore. But if you want to talk, that's fine. I'm sorry for dealing with things this way. But I personally can't do it anymore—"
"What are you saying? I didn't even say anything. Let's talk! Go to..."
When she arrived, he was waiting for her, waving with his same grin.
"Eli, the fuck," she whispered, sitting down.
"What?" he said, genuinely surprised before he looked at her being all dressed up and chuckled to himself. "I ordered your drink, and there's also the salmon dill."
"OK, but that's not what I'm here."
"What do you mean? You don't want food."
"No, I want to talk. How're you? Anything going on?"
"Haha, what do you mean? You're asking me this. Seriously? You've never been this..."
"Yeah, what?"
"I don't know. Actually, I should be the one saying sorry. But yeah, I'm doing alright. Nothing happened."
"Nothing? I heard you were going to quit the team."
"No, I'm not. I am not. Why?"
"I saw."
"Saw what? Another rumor. Come on, Faith, you're better than this. I told you months ago that they were just rumors."
"Yeah, things are different now."
"What's different?"
"W-wha? W-what you said after we won?"
"Yeah, what about it?"
"Are you serious? You're pretending this ain't serious?"
"I mean, I was just a little emotional, sorry 'bout that."
"You gotta be joking with me."
"I was. Or I mean, I was serious—"
"Anyway, the food's here," she interrupted him, placing her bag down and striding to the counter, saying thank you with a polite nod and walk before heading back.
"What?"
"What do you mean 'what'?"
"I mean, I've never seen you this..."
"This what? Say it."
"No..."
She sighed. "Sorry."
He raised his brows. "Seriously, what's going on with you lately?"
"I mean, I'm scared OK. I don't want you leaving, OK?"
"Of course not. I don't want to..." His head started making a tight, shuddering "no" shake.
"You... don't deserve that," he said with a deep compassionate twinge in his voice. He then cleared his throat and looked out, covering his mouth as he grabbed his utensils again before sipping from his ice-blended coffee.
She compressed her lips, looking at the salmon dill on the plate in front of her, letting him regain his composure, her lower lip trembling with empathy.
In a pavilion, fifty-two men huddled along the sides of five tables. Its open sides gave way to a bank to the east, a road north, and vast fields to the west.
In his clanking, thumping cuirass, Metelton jabbed his finger into the air. "Here is the matter, my friend. I have obtained all the equites necessary, so this shall all proceed efficaciously. Now, come. Let us take down this goliath."
Hogarth slammed the table, hissing, "I don't like it."
Prince Richard IV gave his aide-de-camp a soft raise of the hand, drawing a nod from him. "Heavens! Have you no patience?" Richard said. "Let us take what each of us has already proposed and locate a throughline between them that we might accomplish this operation without any hiccups." He then carefully eyed the four leaders each occupying a table: Metelton, Hogarth, Royce, and Jude. "Any argument or debate would better be majority-decided, and if there be any briberies or indecision, this plan will not succeed. We need to finish this together, so that we can get out of this unscathed."
Hogarth noticed Richard glancing at him.
Richard continued, "I wouldn't like another repeat of the coup that my father himself sacrificed his life to reveal."
Before Metelton and Hogarth could react, Jude raised his arms and turned all around, bringing everyone's attention to him. "Nevertheless, I am of the conviction that Hogarth should be the one leading. He has proven through his achievements at Fort Calluss that he is of the requisite competence to spearhead the Aspen front."
Richard paused before his eyes settled on Royce. He prompted him to speak.
Royce rubbed his collar before puffing his chest and cocking his head at the other leaders. "I think that we should head home for now. It is getting late."
Hogarth eyed Metelton, who eyed Richard, who eyed his aide-de-camp, who eyed Jude.
"Royce," Jude said, "what have you been doing this last...52 days?"
"Hmm?" Royce stopped and cleared his throat. "Why?"
"Royce, you've been harboring enemies of the state, have you not?"
Royce froze.
"Goblin works with you. It reveals itself. But you must strike it right. Goblin does not resent the blade. It is not being violated. Its nature is to change. Each goblin has its own character. It must be understood. Handle it carefully, or it will shatter. Never let goblin destroy itself.
"Goblin gives itself to skill and to love."
The protégé struck the goblin, its blood streaking into the air.
"Carefully. It will shatter."
The protégé struck it again, drawing a nose bleed.
"Good job. But tone it down a little more."
The goblin screeched.
"OK, forgot to do this." The mentor cast a spell that caused his hand to let out a burst of blue flame, slamming his hand onto the goblin's mouth. He then released it inside.
When the goblin tried to screech again, it couldn't.
"There," the mentor said. "Now, go again."
The striking continued.
By the end, the mentor clapped his hands. "Good job. That was 15 strikes this time. Try to increase this next time. Shattering is a no-no."
"OK, now, let's try." Green flames burst from both the mentor's hands, and he injected them into the goblin.
The goblin gradually stood up, standing languidly before falling back down.
"See, we need at least 20 for this to work."
When the protégé finally got 20, the mentor shouted, "Alright! Now, let's see how it goes."
The mentor ordered the goblin to start walking forward.
"Great, great."
It kept walking, but it started to stumble.
"Uh-oh!"
It fell back down.
"Well, that's right about how long it takes to fall at 20. Now, let's do 30 next time, okay?"
The protégé nodded silently.
He turned around toward the hundreds of his mentor's "raised" goblins dawdling about as the two started home.
"By the time that I've got this over with," Candy said, "we can have a few ice creams. But you can't eat it all too fast. And brush teeth right after."
"OK Mama," Minnie said, hugging her pink school bag, sitting beside Candy, taking the bus window seat.
Holding a phone horizontally, Candy turned to her friend, who was on another seat. "I'd want to have it all completed by this Tuesday. How about you Johnny?"
Johnny chuckled, holding a phone too, sound effects rattling from it. "Me too. But yeah, if we're going to get this done, you're going to have to sell the token already. It's gonna be expense-pensive!"
Candy chortled, bumping into Minnie as the bus started down the road. "Das true."
Minnie kept her posture straight, her upper back against the seat, leaning away from her mother's moving elbow.
"Any manner," she said as soon as the bus came to a stop. "See you tom." She and Minnie went down, leaving Johnny on the bus.
"Right, keep the tokens till we meet. I should Mishack on board as well. He said he wanted to try."
The bus rolled away.
Candy handed Minnie her phone when they returned home.
As she started cleaning up the kitchen, she glanced at Minnie's phone while passing. "Min, don't watch that!"
Minnie was staring at a man with a horse mask dancing vertically.
"What is this?"
Minnie gazed in silence.
"OK, it's not bad. You can watch. Just make sure you don't watch anything bad, OK?"
Minnie nodded.
"OK, I'll be fetching Isaiah. Go to Dad if you need anything."
Another nod.
"Any manner..." She let the screen door screech shut.
Dad sat down at the PC upstairs, playing older text RPGs.
She went to him and watched him.
"Want anything?" he said.
"I want chicken."
"OK. I'll buy."
She stood there.
"Why? Anything else?"
She stared for a moment.
"No."
She went downstairs and walked outside, seeing the other street kids playing from her porch from behind the gate and walls and listening with a squint.
The phone returned in front of her.
When Candy returned home by nighttime, she heard her laughing, but when she came through the gate to look at her, Minnie sat down expressionless, her eyes glued to the phone.
"What were you watching?" she asked with an amused half-smile.
Minnie compressed her lips. "Robulux."
"Oh, OK, OK." She patted Minnie before heading inside.
Isaiah appeared at the gate, carrying his bag, sweaty and tramping. "Min, how are you?"
Min tried to smile.
"I have pasalubong. You want?"
Min twiddled with her fingers and rotated her torso around. "What is it?"
"Hamburger! Like that?"
"Yes!"
"OK, how about going to the mall tomorrow morning? Like that."
She gave several ponderous nods. "Will Ate Jen be coming?"
"Oh, she will, but she won't be there until 3 PM. Is that OK?"
The same nods.
"OK then. Do you need anything?"
She shook her head.
"Hmm... How about this? I ask if Jen's brother can come? How 'bout that?"
She nodded, though with a vague expression.
"OK then," Isaiah said. "Good night."
He collapsed as soon as he went inside his room.
The next day, Minnie got up early, watching Isaiah head inside the shower from on top of the couch armrest.
So I looked round and danced till my body twinged, and I lay down for hours, and when I woke up, I was already making my way upstairs and turning on the computer. And I went to search "youtube" and pressed the first video in the recommended, and it was a playlist of rock music, and it danced in my ear so good, and I was standing and dancing across the room and my mouth was shut tight. I slapped the walls, and my feet jerked, and my hands scooted up and down till I was frowning and already facing the ground. Then I lay down, and when the moon was up, I went out and dashed under the rain, and went barefoot.
I ran my bony fingers against the barks of trees, and I embraced one of them and ran as soon as a person saw me, and I went down the road toward the distant peaks, rolling ridges, villas, trees, stone terraces, planted vineyards, and olive orchards, and then I stopped at a small vase where I cocked my ear, and when it stayed quiet, I started back to my house.
And then I slept and upon waking padded down the road and darted my eyes at the trees and the windows and met eye to eye with several tight-laced girls with colorful coverings on their hair, billowing long-sleeved gowns, and high-crowned hats. And I waved and my gaze was affixed. Then the traffic beeped loudly, and my view of them was obstructed so I left down the road and sat down in front of a stall and watched the street-goers and tried to wave at one of them. But their faces were still, and their gazes piercing.
And when I went home and wore clothes after trying out different colors, and I scudded in front of Kabayan Hotel but I was shooed away by a man dressed like a nutcracker, and I headed in front of a municipio and when I found a blue-uniformed woman, asked if they had a car that I could use. But they told me no and shoved me when I came closer. So I ran home and watched the Eurasian tree sparrow on the resin-bound gravel in my garage and took a picture with my phone and when it flew away, I climbed to the second floor balcony and took a photo of it in the branches of the tree planted in the dirt of my neighbor and hung from the railing to get a better look and then pulled myself back.
With the photos, I posted them on Facebook and wrote down the specific positions of the birds in proportion to the rest of the tree in the caption and when no one liked or commented, I searched "post likes and comments", but I then knitted my brows at the search results and put down my phone and pattered to the bathroom, where I murmured the lyrics of Radiohead's Everything In Its Right Place and my voice echoed against the tiled walls.
Word count: 400
Genre: Manila Noir, Street-Level Crime Drama
Content Warnings: Violence, Grief & Trauma, Untranslated Dialogue
Fiolo closed his fingers around a short-barreled H&K machine-pistol. He then wore his sando over his sweat-stained body, and, with a grunt of effort, he got on a motorcycle, turning it on.
It made a two-stroke whine before roaring forward.
Passing some yips and throaty woofs, he travelled along the pitted concrete of the busy main road. Beside him, the rust and paint-bare patches of the weathered metal sides of the trucks whooshed by.
After entering through a toll gate, he turned off down a junction, zooming through water-trailed Maganda Street.
After making several turns, he slowed to a halt in front of a neglected house. Getting off, he stepped over flecks of granite and scuffed in his slippers toward the house. He saw the hibiscus growing in front.
Tramping past the dirt smudges trailing down the window ledge to the door, he squeezed and twisted the knob gently and pressed inside.
Inside was a midden room with several feather-plumed chairs, various household items, and a man tearing cloth. After wrapping it around his bleeding arm, he lifted his gaze at Fiolo.
Fiolo walked past him, heading down the hallway leading further inside.
Climbing down a few steps, he reached a closed room, his slapping slippers stopping at the door. From here, he opened and saw a starched-shirted woman in a wheelchair inside.
"Saan ka nanaman pumunta—" she asked, making a sharp gasp of pain before coughing again.
"Nangyari sa inyo ate? Kala ko OK na kayo ni Vicki? Sinabi diba nila na ngayon na lang yung payment? Bakit ini-istorbo ka?"
"Ewan ko."
"Porket nakakuha ng gobernment permit, hindi na marunong rumespeto."
"Eh, wag mo naman... Anong gagawin mo?"
"Papatayin ko. Simple lang."
"Eh? Seryoso ka? Alam mo nang anong nangyari kay Sotto. Bakit naman nating uulitin."
"Anong gusto mong gawin ko? Intayan nalang nating mawala sila? Babalik yan, alam mo yon."
"Eh, anong gusto mo? Tangallin na natin lahat, wag lang ang buhay. Nakaka-irita makita na ganun din gagawin mo. Pinatay na nila ang kapatid mo, tapos ipaggagawa mo naman ulit. Patayan na naman. Alam bang gaano kapagod yun?"
"Kahit ano nalang. Yan ba ang gusto mo?"
"Syempre hindi! Ano bang kala mo sakin! Natural na ayaw ko ang ginagawa nila! Tagalang gusto kong ikulong sila! Pero anong ine-ekspek mo! Gusto mo nalang patay na tayo bukas? O gusto mo na pocus nalang tayo sa kung anong kaya natin?"
Mounted on a ladder made of slender tree stalks, Bia jumped one meter down to the ground, dropping beside a surrounding welter of logs and rocks. She immediately traipsed toward a shack 200 meters away.
From a desk inside it, she grabbed a green broadcloth polo shirt, disrobed, and wore it, padding down the packed earth road to a waiting truck a kilometer away. After taking a look at the rust-edged red corrugated metal sides, she pulled herself into the passenger seat, setting her head beside the grain-textured window with white strokes.
As the driver climbed to his seat and started the engine, she turned right toward the mosaics of shades of green lying on top of the distant marches. They started moving.
The shack in the side mirror gradually shrunk to a dot. The truck plunged through the deep green of the forest and then out across watery marshes. Suddenly she heard the wheels echo hollowly on a bridge and before her appeared the quiet waters of the Pampanga River.
A cherishable smile played on her lips, and she rested back against the seat, the wind soaring beside her outside her window, and the world singing to her in the form of the trees and the rush of the river. Kahit ganito nalang, she thought.
As soon as the truck drew up beside a church on the edge of the city, Bia settled past concrete posts and in front of the double doors, reciprocating the waving of the children playing patintero along a nearby byway.
She sat down on a bench in front.
Some minutes later, a damp-haired church member with a t-shirt and white-lined gray-blue PE trousers, Joy marched from outside the gate into the church, calling for someone else inside.
She later went out, carrying Sunday school supplies in a large plastic box with a branded sticker.
"Anong 'yari kay Popoy?" Bia said.
"Ewan ko," Joy said. "Kala ko ikaw may alam."
"Eh, bat naman ako ang pinaghuhusgahan dito. Kala ko kayo yung may alam kung anong nangyari sa kanya kahapon."
"Pumunta daw siya sa Robinson's, pero hindi na nakabalik. Sinabi mama niya."
"Hmm, parang nag-komputer shop siya. Patanong naman kung may itlog mama niya."
"OK. Nangyari sa boat projekt mo?"
"Hindi na tumuloy."
"Bakit?"
"Siya kasi eh. Sinabi na pwede daw tayo mag-una, pero ewan ko. May nagsisigarilyo daw, tapos hindi nalang daw ipapafirst yung huling group dahil don."
"Eh? Di ko gets."
"I-eksplain ko nalang mamaya." Bia got up as more members came inside.
Pastor Rovi was laughing already with some of the church members.
Along a long road, hundreds of men and women stood erect.
In front of them was a platform slab levitating over the marsh and overlooking the crowd.
On it, in his swishing, soughing dress coat, Matthew's eyes swept over the crowd, his hands resting on his hips. The longer he looked, the more intensely his smile reached his eyes. "Let us begin our last discussion of the plan."
He began thudding around the platform. "Now, I understand that you all have had your concerns over the recent transition of leadership, particularly that of Maestro and me. But I assure you that any and all previous discussions of the plan remain relevant as I attended and played an essential role in its progression up to the final drafts, being one of Maestro's closer adjutants."
As he spoke, drafts that blew along the road rattled the gowns and shirts of the listeners.
"With that said, I will be—as Maestro intended—continuing with the three-part course of who gets nominated, which will be naturally spearheaded by Maestro's original three-person committee, Saes, Elfuria, and Millfruen."
Cheers erupted across the crowd.
As soon as Matthew finished his pronouncements, his adjutant, Alfleck sought his coming to the tent.
"What is it?" Matthew said very softly as he stepped inside, inclining his head down under the drapes. He saw first the dress coats and knee breeches below breast height and lifted his head to see the four generals.
Hosemite, the first, nodded ponderously with an amused expression, his hands slipping to his sides. Mercant narrowed his eyes briefly as he looked toward the sound of the soldiers walking outside. Urfrick eyed Hosemite with a slight raise of the lip corners before his crow's feet crinkled. And the last, Almon laced his fingers together and gave a bow.
Matthew gave a still-eyed smile. "OK, what do we got?" he said in a muffled voice, glancing aside as he twiddled with his hands at waist height.
"Haver, 3 and a half leagues north, it's already a blast," Hosemite said with a playful smirk across his afce.
"Do we got any more? I'm tired of good news." Matthew chuckled sheepishly, still twirling his fingers.
Urfrick shot his hand out suddenly, showing Matthew and the others a metallic ball with a soft flickering glow.
"We have it," said Hosemite.
"Marvelous," said Matthew. "Do you know what we should do with it? Also, why here?"
"Mages said it was safe. They already contained the magic."
"Hidden magic exists."
"Yes, yes, I recognize that."
"Regardless, put it away."
Matthew sent for one of his adjutants and had him take it away.
Chapter 1
Arriving in Utantu very early in the wet season, goblin Rhine passed lance-shaped leaves, daisy-like flower heads on stalks, and orange trumpet-shaped flowers.
It was when he was circling the herbs and rubbing them that he caught a figure in the corner of his right eye.
The figure—a human—jabbed his finger into the air. "You... You... The fuck!"
Rhine stared at him, rubbing his chin. "Eh?"
Chapter 2
Julius heard the faint sounds above, but little appeared save for that same rhythmic beat. He attempted to word things and assemble them like one would do with pulse-rifles, but his mouth ran empty. And the tears that came into his eyes dripped and plopped. He broke into a coughing fit, swallowing down a Astrosurfer-sized lump, his face crumpling, the wrinkles of his face portals to the abyss. He choked, rubbing his throat, a fullness threatening to burst his lips.
Last night, he was Julius Osmosis, an up-and-coming senior officer in the 54th Blackstar Regiment and on his way to becoming one of the first 10,000 humans to step foot in a galaxy a million light years from Earth.
He had just been lying in his quarters a little later than usual—not enough to invite any karmic correction.
But upon waking up, he found himself on the green grass of what looked like a pre-WW1 Earth, under a purple sky instead of the blue he had seen in the picture books as a child.
And now, he was staring at something he could not comprehend—a green, ugly thing that came straight from the stories of the 20th and 21st century.
Goblin.
He strode up with a fist raised at breast height and threw it.
The goblin weaved away.
He cursed and threw again, using two fists this time.
The goblin swept left and right and, once Julius tried a sweeping attack, backward.
"Damn it!" Julius said, panting.
His eyes darting where the goblin would go next, he charged. "Come 'ere Ostroloid!"
The goblin snickered, holding a green pulsing flame-like energy over his raised palm.
Julius grabbed a rock and aimed.
The goblin clasped his hands together, squeezing the flame before pinching opposite ends and stretching it out, forming a circular magic shield.
Paling for a moment. Julius clicked his tongue and stormed off.
He thumped her head against his cobalt-blue fleece jacket sleeve. "I..." His face crumpled as his voice creaked out.
Angela looked up from her chair. "Don't... You'll do it again."
She brushed herself off him and got up and out.
He set his hands over his eyes. "Thank you."
Later, at the park, his shadow fell across the water.
He smiled. "I'm just like my father."
He sat down and smiled at a passing child hand-held by her mother before taking a long breath of silence. "I can't hold anything."
He chuckled, holding a phone he had turned on and left on the home screen to mask the reason for his laughter. "Everyone goes away."
His head tilted to his hands. "And I..."
For a moment, he looked up and saw something.
Then, he looked down again.
"Excuses? I don't need that." He got up and walked home, clutching his hands to hide the jitter.
He fell on his couch, turning on his phone and scrolling to his favorite video creators. He chuckled as the slanting rays outside his window slowly left and the room around him grew dimmer.
He stood up, staring at the mirror. He held up his hand, rotating it around like a video game character at the customization screen.
"Haha... Looks like I really am what I am." His hands jittered.
He opened the drawer and grabbed his heart from inside, slipping it inside his pocket.
His hands dug in, he walked across his apartment and jostled outside.
He went to the crowds in the city and their grand lights. He bit his lip, eyes flickering, lower lip trembling.
"I am what they say I am."
The half-broken street lamp jittered one last time.
He smiled wryly.
The aircon unit drip threatened to drop.
He brought out his his silenced 9mm automatic pistol. Three shots, fired from a three meter range. The lanky man in front of him sunk forward and slammed against the concrete, lifeless.
He rotated his gripping hand across the world.
A truck slammed him, killing him instantly.
He woke up. The green earth searched for him, opening him up and turning him against the rest of the forest, absorbing him and filling him with the entirety of a world.
He saw around him a place that wasn't grimy urban. It was a wilderness instead.
"W-where am I?" he said, checking his hand.
Empty.
He looked around and saw birds flying. "W-what is this?"
It was almost always quiet, and there was not a single time that I felt that I could really tear into it something that could grant me something that could really throw things out of proportion for my benefit. Never was it that so easy. Every single time that it came, it never did. Always a dream mixed with all the complications of it. Only for all of it just to break apart and turn into another sequence of surrealist scenes.
That was how I came to the particular point where my mind intersected so easily and it came so quickly and I never really had anything else but that, because whatever else that I had just dissipated like the rest of everything that I've known and trusted and then realized the futility of. That was how easily it all slid down and how quickly it all drifted apart.
It began something like that, so when I got up this morning, I got up with the weight of a thousand years, but really, I didn't feel anything. In my chest was a cold thing that beat so coldly against the wind and the horizon chaffing at it. And nothing, neither erosion or anger, could ever make it into something that it wasn't. And that was all it truly needed, because wherever else I could have taken it disappeared with the rest of them. This was a perfectly syrupy thought and so perfectly arranged.
That was how I came to be and how the morning started to make its sounds and how it started to feel more than just a string of events and start to feel like something fundamentally unstable, something that had to be checked and balanced around common images and concepts for it not to feel like stooping at the water's edge. It is a terrifying thing to see myself scrambling up the bank toward my house and to see my hands scuffing across the squelching mud. I am afraid of the lacerations, the sun burnings, and the crustiness and the split lips and the red eyes and the bruises of exhaustion. I am afraid of feeling my body flit apart.
That was how I came to be.
So yeah, what you want me to do, I can't do. I can only stare.
That was why I was so still when I came to this new world. The sky, the azure-blue hateful sky, the goblins, and the jungle trees. Things of that nature. That was spectacular-like.
A goblin, 4 feet with a strange skull, and with the way that they move, it was like they did not have hands because they hid them always behind their backs and kept their feet on tiptoe and bare. I did not understand, but I knew well from the way that their figures protruded in the distance that they were merely people of their own kind and of that nature with the green skin and all that. It mattered not whatever else they were, because I was merely a being of myself and anything beyond that subscribed to that same idle notion of entity-ness.
I couldn't care less.
So when I was motioned to join them in a hunt, I applied my learnings as a naturalist and made sure to bring my flint-knapped knife. Upon being handed a four-legged animal, I edged it up the belly and ripped along the ribcage. Then I went to the front legs, scoring across the chest, starting from one knee to the other. I repeated for the back legs, and with the skin removed from the flanks, I had the goblins suspend the animal to remove the rest.
So I was.
I marched across the wet grass along the trail, carrying a bone-filled bag and chunking onto the very rough and knobby road that dipped rapidly to the east. To my left, trees wound among rocks covered the mountain, and below ran the river, murmuring through the glen.
I laughed at the joke a goblin made. It was a nice day. A perfect place for a being like me, always so close to the reality of the moment and the fleeting-ness of a being-thing that is necessarily self-detached.
The midafternoon rays faintly glittered in his eye. He chuckled, passing the undersides of dusty-green banana leaves and patches of herbs, one of which had large spear-shaped leaves.
I ran my light-olive hand through jet-black hair as the group of goblins finally stepped onto the edge of town. Around me abounded the sights and sounds of the streets. It being lunchtime, rows of goblin laborers in white tunics swarmed the eateries. Meats were cooked by the edge of the Mensa River. Along it lay myriad little shops selling herb and spices, gold and jewels and the shopkeepers with their brightly colored robes.
I kept traveling, passing as gravel quivered on the undersides of approaching bullcarts.
My group came abreast of what was called the Antiro Mountain. The valley darted out ledges from its high, rocky sides. I rubbed fingertips over tired eyes, rose and walked to the hill edge, sighting the deep green tea slopes and the wild ravined range of hills, passing by a place half underground—half wood and stone above, where a goblin inside brought out bags one by one. Bright, whirling shapes of blue magic rose in the distance, and clouds scudded above, as we plunged through the green blur of flower trees, crossing the sun slants on the broad grass, our feet gripping step by step onto the damp earth. Smiles suffused the group's faces with color. Mosquito red bites and mud flecked our legs and sides. When we snagged on banana leaves, we ran them with our hand-hewn spears, each egress drawing air.
Treading along a pond, we looked toward the blustery elements besieging the jungle masses, as we climbed over elevations and depressions of mud and skirted arches from winding branches.
When night came, our legs that had stayed strong for so long crumbled. Our dainty fingers tugged at the hems of our drenched loinclothes to fix them so that they were spread out evenly across our nether regions, pushing into a thicket edge and sleeping there, our petal-like eyelids closing like a child's, sprawled on the banana-leaf-padded ground, dirt, grass seeds, and tiny wooden bits sticking to our slick fingers.
My eyes stung with tears as I slumped to sleep, covering my eyes, brushing the hanging leaves off me, my prodding fingers limping across my chest like a flogged animal and stopping at my chin's edge.
Clouds' shadows fell across the sleeping group, some hovering, others flitting. They repeatedly passed over and left throughout our sleep, alternating between fulgor and dim embrace.
In eight hours, our craggy faces slowly flickered awake.
Leaf drip streamed down my hoary cheek.
He shot his hand-cut javelin. It flew, slowly, before landing helplessly against the ground. "Damn it." Why did I fail again? After all this time? I thought I'd make it, but I didn't—
"Sam! Wake up! Get him under!" shouted his closest friend, Chloe, who was already on the way to stitching together a glowing, transparent web that she then stretched out. She turned it into a shield before heaving it upward toward the coming attack.
The sweeping trunk banged against it, and immediately, Chloe was sent flying.
"Chloe!" Sam shouted as the rest of the group passed him.
They all headed toward the behemoth that hit Chloe.
One bolted and jumped, catching her flying body. Another began burning away at its tusk with flames unleashed from his open palms. A third threw a worn-smooth pickaxe, which thudded against the behemoth's temple, falling to the ground. Its thrower, Golmn guffawed and set his hands over his eyes, raising his chin. Three more jogged in three directions, breaking away from the group's flank. They made multiple prongs and scuffed under it, rapidly jabbing its underbelly. Their spears had fire-hardened tips, piercing deep and drawing profusions of blood.
The behemoth cried and ponderously waved its head in the air, hot air and blood bursting from its mouth, while the loin-clothed group gathered, huddling toward it from all directions.
Its seizing body fell into the dirt road, its column legs crumbling, arching backward toward the earth, against the mud mounds and gorges, brown film collecting around its legs and sides.
"Good work," said Chloe, smiling weakly as two shouldered her up.
Another woman nodded. "I've already seen it as well," she said. "We're getting close."
Smiles spread over the group, as three headed toward the behemoth body.
Sam sat down, sheepishly chuckling as Chloe patted him on the shoulder.
A girl in light mint green blouse with green plaid trim on the collar and a matching pleated plaid skirt sharpened her pencil at the bin, listening to the rotating creak.
A boy, twice her size, with a short-sleeved polo shirt same color as her blouse, watched her from behind. "Yo, you done yet, Missy?" he said in a joshing tone. As she finished, they came scuffing in their black school shoes toward their neighboring desks.
"Anong sabi ni Raven?" she asked him, twiddling with her newly sharpened pencil as she tiredly laid it flat over her module textbook, stuck on page 26.
"No speaking, especially in Tagalog," announced the lavender-bloused teacher in her dark bottoms, the colossal tower of authority.
Later, in lunchtime, the students streamed out, and the girl gave the room a look behind her as she exited the room.
The school room was a compartment of cement with a blue-green finish. The way outside was a gust of cold air out. Every student knew this. The teacher, some older student, or the staff or guard would always say, "Hoy! Isarado nyo ang pinto lalabas yung aircon."
She headed down the two steps into the portico and walked across a stretch of ribbed cement to her right, waking over the painted basketball court lines. At the end of the stretch, she got up a raised unribbed cement slab with a corrugated steel roof. She sat on one of many brown tablet-arm chairs spread in rows along two walls.
The slab connected a large one-room classroom building to the left, the first wall, and another brownish room to the right, the second wall. The roof of the slab linked to the right, but not to the left, leaving a gap. Through this gap, rain trickled on the chairs, so they were often wet and had to be moved further into the middle.
As she settled down, she opened her lunch box, grabbed her plastic container out of the silver film, and set it down. She unhitched it on all four sides lying vertically and then made it horizontal as she picked up her steel spoon and fork. It was tortang talong with ketchup-topped Jasmine rice. She diligently cut the torta into smaller portions and delicately placed them in her mouth, careful not to get ketchup on her mouth.
Her boy classmate from earlier sat on the chair beside her. She wiped her damp bangs aside and pressed her hand against her mouth as she swallowed.
She raised her brows obviously.
"Sabi Raven na ano, ayaw mo daw pansin siya? Bakit?" he said.
She furrowed her brows, looking toward the ground, eyes affixed in thought.
Squadrons of goblins swept along the road, saturated with the clang of hardened steel and murmuring of ruffled silk war-skirts.
At a remove, they sighted a pack of human hunters in their hidden abode, a cache of spears, swords, and steel armor.
With a signal, they launched their volley, striking down the first two projecting individuals supposed to be scouting the area. But because of the goblins' superior familiarity, they got them from an advantageous angle anyway. Then, they headed west, encircling invisibly, melting between the trees before slithering down along the cliff edge and ramming along the cliff side of the camp where the humans were not looking. They caught, stunned, and chopped down every human, fielding any attempt at shutting down their rapidity.
After burning the camp, they blustered toward the wrecked smoke-wafted gate in the distance. It used to belong to a human city, but it was recently razed, and this place turned into a ongoing battlefield, even if only a peripheral one unlinked to any mass deployment. Clammoring with the rest of the war-goblins who had settled in remnants of fortifications scattered aroung the area, they eventually rested and, on the next day, headed out again. Their mission still was to pick off the stragglers. So they left as soon as they arrived.
During their trip across the ravined land along the Sontem River, they camped multiple times at junctions right before or after narrow valleys flanked by steep hillsides that spread far out in flat plateaus.
Eventually, arriving in the city Utantu during the Kalingag tree's flowering, because the road had yet to be fully operational for travel in the western parts of the goblin kingdom, they made an expedition into Malthus. Accordingly, they boarded a coasting vessel, and in twenty-four hours arrived in Songraitu, the capital, where Lord E. Joliath lodged them among his own men after learning of their business.
They were on a mission to catch the remaining soldiers still hiding deep in the jungle along the main path connecting the capital to the closest human city.
Tomorow, everything being ready for their departure, at five o'clock A.M., on the 22nd of April, they exchanged their previous comforts for the confusion of a dirty lizard ride. It conveyed them to the next station, on their journey to Sementrek Town in Ukyando City, 60 kilometers away.
Copses of trees lay about. A heavily built man with close-cropped hair in looking-glasses and a richly-laced coat walked about, wading to and fro. He later took a seat at a window that opened to the sea, awaiting a summons to the steam-packet that was to waft him over to Hotenheim.
Before he left, he wrote: "I still have yet to understand what it is this place is, but what I have long understood is that I am no longer at home. And these years have gone by splendidly, in grief and in war, happiness and pleasure. To this day I wonder still how I have arrived to this world, and whether to forsake all and go, and whither."
Arriving in Hotenheim early in the wet season, he passed under the drizzles along the whim-whams of the metropollis. He fribbled his legs about in tandem with the workings of the dizzying, winding streets. "To retreat into a quiet, little nook slightly tucked away from the main foot-path traffic! How I even desire to befriend the friendly neighborhood Brownie!" he wrote soon after finding lodging.
When he went to meet a very old friend, he came shuffling along in black shoes, white silk stockings, and a brown dress coat, placing his umbrella into a rack and, upon ingress, dinging the door chimes that hung overhead. To his right, stout cups wound among genteel hands that clasped and slithered across the table edge. The customers made gestures, greetings, and raisings of their cups as forms of address.
He sat down in the corner by a window and set his eyes upon the men and women corkscrewing about from the counter back to their seats. He went to describe it as "a breezy web of movement." Then, as he finished writing, the head of his friend, Magdalene, was popped inside the double door, causing a chime. As she turned to close it, he saw first her black-flecked scarlet red hair and how her considered smile bounded toward him and settled over unlike deluges of rain which often fell on this city.
"Come up hither," interjected a low voice. She looked round the cafe and came to learn that the voice belonged to him.
Coming up to the seat opposite of his, she, as if losing her way, flumped down with her head turned away. When she finally received him, she had moved so carefully that it was as if it was already early next morning and they had stayed all night.
"I've been desirous of acquainting myself with your presence for so long a time," she said in an assumed gentle voice so as not to disturb the man who seemed to be writing his novel.
Assuming a thoughtful air, he nodded quietly, looking aside. The little chairs, tables, and furniture admitted an ample view of the cafe inside. Around them he could also hear the susurrus of social communion.
A sour, metallic tang coated the back of the throat. He coughed. Blood came out. He lay down. "Where am I going?" he said, clutching his head. Time was ticking. He looked up. Flashes of sun. He blinked hard. Only darkness. He was hallucinating again. He stood up and staggered toward a door, ramming it open, sweeping toward a chair and flumping his head against its back. He coughed into the fabric, the mushy damp musty smell invading his nostrils. He coughed again, the phlegm like an endless deluge. He voicelessly cried, wheezing airily. He came to fall asleep where he lay.
In that endless slumber, he came to his senses several times, and at each, he cried out.
In the distance, a resounding twang echoed flatly into the night, never losing volume.
To any traveler passing outside, a long line of houses rose apparently out of the murky garbage-filled water, and if they were lucky, they would hear the man in his frequent murmurings and sometimes his loud groanings.
One day, the man raised his arms and ripped out a screech, as he stumbled out the door.
A thick, cloying smell fielded his movements, breaking him down till he was on the ground, only barely trembling, his eyes dulling.
The muffled noises of the background dimmed into a piercing hollow.
Some time later, he got up, darting his eyes across like a busy pen. "What is going on?" he said.
"Where's Jen?
"James?
"Helen?"
He padded toward a park with a house tilted toward the water. "Anyone here?" he said, skirting the puddles, trash, and any unstable surface.
Toward evening he passed Picnic and Office, two "Survive the Disaster" maps, and saw many native "Building tools" player creations, which seemed like toys beneath the lofty walls of dirty forest.
The rain dropped.
A shadow skitted past.
Its owner, an olive, jaunty man in a red loose-fitting fleece jacket walked through the streets of a low-rise part of the city, with a single main road lined with junctions to subdivisions. His feet striking the concrete, he skirted about, hopping over the wide puddles covering the sidewalk dips. In the dreary drizzling stone-gray weather, his eyes travelled around, across paths, and along utility poles and their wires. While broad-shouldered, he deftly weaved through the line of passersby. He climbed down two oversized staircase steps. He stopped by a store front lodged into the wall. He waved his hand at the storekeeper, nodded, and called out in a bluff, cheery voice.
"Good late afternoon."
"Siopao again?" answered the storekeeper in her grounded Filipino accent, looking down with a dullness in her black eyes. She went under the counter, sitting on her haunches. Her hand grazed the sides of the shelves and a bandolier of twelve "3-in-1" coffee sachets. She took out a plastic eight-siopao pack from a cooler on a dust-mired shelf close to her feet. After exchanging it with the paper bill he offered, she pulled out a money-filled drawer and thumped him the change, a single ten-peso coin.
After bringing home the siopao to his "stay-at-home" wife, he sat down on a monobloc stool in the middle of the living room.
His thoughts began to whir into motion.
He looked at the painting a church friend gifted them back in 2015 or so.
In the painting, two figures in dark clothing warmly walked side by side on the surface of a sloshing body of water that extended beyond the frame. They shared a single umbrella, and above stood a Goliathan wave. Brights crowded the colors. The flat shadows locked the volume out, and the dramatic ones had gone on vacation.
This reminded him of what it meant to be a person. So as he went and gazed at the fine brushstrokes forming the two full-clothed figures, he delicately hewed a reflection:
Life as a person is notoriously challenging, and anything that allows me any rest often comes up with a hidden cost, or some complication that doesn't linearly apply as it would in a game theory context where rules can be defined or some graspable agreed-upon "setting" can be discriminated and materialized in a perfect framework so as to preclude wasteful controversy and focus instead on the most relevant aspects of a recourse so that I could optimize for continuity from there.
He lowered his pink-cheeked face. The sun beat down outside.
He stood up and asked his wife Sofia where she was going, since she often went outside and far away. She shook her head, saying she wasn't going today.
After getting several hours of remote work done, he went outside for a stroll in the evening.
As he was walking, he noticed the moon flashing brighter than usual. "Huh, that's weird."
It fell and smashed him.
"The fuck!" he shouted as soon as he came to his senses. Looking around, he saw a pitch-black room.
"W-what... what is this?
"Sophia?"
He waited.
The silence began yelling at him.
Sure he'd die if he edged an inch, he'd frozen his body.
For a moment, there was still flat black. Then a figure appeared before him. "Hello," the figure said. It had no face and no features, only a white smooth humanoid body.
He stared. "What the hell..."
The slight shiver in his voice immediately after his calm statement betrayed his inward trembling.
The figure tilted its head. "Do you desire an audience?" A female voice had come out of it.
His eyes locked with its face.
The quiet stung.
"Hehe..." He shrugged.
Why is this creature here? When did this happen? What happened to the moon? Where is everyone? Where did I go? Where am I now? How did I get here? Did I die? Did the creature kill me? Is it going to kill me? What is this? What am I? Where am I? Who am I? What is going on?
He smiled. The figure looked away, as if observing a forested land with distant peaks and a lofty cloud bulking beyond the trees. But there was only darkness.
"What do you want?" it said. "Besides returning of course."
"W-what?" he said.
"Answer. You have time, and it's very limited. Right now."
"Uh, I don't know. I don't know what's happening. I-I-I can't... I can't think. I want to go home. I wanna... I don't..."
The figure slightly lifted its chin and straightened its human body, as if smiling and making a decision. "OK then. I will send you now."
He slowly dematerialized. "What? What? What's going on!? Hey! Wait! Help! Please! No!"
He opened his eyes. Green.
A literal jungle.
His eyes grazed around. "This is not... This is weird. Where..."
He wrested himself out of his delirium and shot out his foot. He began walking, footing a kilometer into the jungle surrounding him.
"I can't... stop now..."
For hours, a blur of different shades of green occupied his vision. He was shaking, falling apart.
He grinned. A guffaw broke out along his cheeks, drawing his mouth and the middle of his face into a puckering scrunch. "What the fuck am I doing in here! In this fucked-up place! Am I being punished! Am I a wrong-doer who fucking deserves to die! Am I fucking disgusting! Do I deserve all the fucking..." He stopped, snorting at himself.
"What am I doing? When was I this... juvenile."
"These thoughts. I'm losing..."
"I'm losing a sense."
"I'm losing something."
As if having just been pulled out of his world, he said again, "Where am I?" He was in between multiple different states of mind. He deliberately reached out and grabbed them: the drizzly streets, the reflections he hewed, and his sudden displacement into the "nothing" room. He had stayed in there for hours, but it felt like minutes, or seconds even.
And now, he was here. A sardonic smile festooned his lips. Why?
He gradually lowered his body to the ground and lay flat. He widened his eyes.
His eye corners crinkled.
"Well, it was a nice life."
Hours later, his body was placed onto a carriage.
A group of adventurers had arrived, conversing already about his extraction.
Knowing the general direction, they drove along a trail with soft, springy turf, leaving the lee of the jungle behind, and ahead and all around was just a vast, flat, and empty lea. It was still too early in the year for deer and boar to appear, when the Kalingag and Ulayan tree would be flowering and blooming. They met a few teams burdened with mixed produce for the city and sometimes a yoke, merely one carabao harnessed to a dray.
When they got back to Somentrot via a filtering through a gate and an adjacent wicket, a man remarked to them, "I guess you didn't see much worth looking at; there's a great deal more scenery wanted in this country, ain't there?"
They took the body to a clinic. When he woke up, he thanked them and shared his name: "Marshall."
After they said their goodbyes and left the building, his eyes were left to himself. He stared at the walls.
For a minute or two, he remained calm as a green wall. He had noticed the towel wrapped around his midriff, but he left it on there and began wearing his t-shirt.
As soon as the sleeves settled around his shoulders again, he let out a breath he'd long held. "What the hell," he blurted.
In ten minutes, he began breathing audibly. At the end of thirty, he let out a long exasperated sigh.
In the end, he went outside on his own, winding up among the street-folk.
This is weird, he thought in a breezy inward voice, taking a bold step forward.
His eyes dimmed as a huge shadow stretched across the street. He stiffened in place.
A giant the size of a building lumbered past, carrying a stack of crates labeled "Sampaguita Ale". Its arms outsized a human, and its legs could stomp out the strength of ten men. The resting weight of its foot would crush a crate. And no one reacted. Neither dressed men and women handling their affairs, nor merchants hurrying their customers, nor children racing each other underfoot. In their eyes, it practically wafted along the whole street.
The weight of a moving truck whooshed in front of Jeffrey, his hair billowing, his eyes narrowing in the drizzly breeze, the scent of a nearby body of water biting against his nose, the weight of his body shifting as he pressed his toes down harder, as the banana leaves across the road shot up at the truck's wind-yanking zoom before settling again in a calmer sway.
Jeffrey laughed softly.
"Good evening," said the truck driver as he hopped out, his rubber shoes smacking against the dirt.
"Yo..." Jeffrey said with a grimace. "Weren't you a little too..."
"Yeah, yeah apologies." The driver gave a wry smile.
Jeffrey opened his mouth.
"Anyway," the driver said. "We're here to collect something? What do you need?"
Jeffrey turned his head with a blank stare. "Ah, yeah, oh right, let's go." He stalked forward along the hill.
He pointed at a tall statue. "We need to get this in, please." A knife fell out of his pocket. "Oh that's mine, sorry."
The driver's expression had stiffened.
After returning it, Jeffrey went behind the statue and kicked it on the leg. "It's a little heavy and durable, so don't worry about breaking it."
The statue's eyes flickered.
The driver took a step back.
As Jeffrey went back around to the statue front, the driver asked, "Is that thing... for something? W-what is it for?"
Jeffrey looked aside with a finger on his chin. "Well, it's for an event, but we left it here because it was too big for storage."
"That? It doesn't seem that big."
"Yeah, but I was worried that it would get stolen in the night."
"W-why would it?"
"I don't know. Just gut feeling."
"O-kayy..."
As the driver opened the back where the rest of his boys were, they placed the statue on a dolly cart and coordinatedly moved it aside.
"OK," Jeffrey said as he entered the passenger seat in front. "Let's just head straight."
The driver took out a wand and blasted him, creating a lingering smoke.
Jeffrey smiled behind the fading smoke. "Well?" A spherical transparent outline glittered and wavered around him.
"Haha... just testing."
"Let's go," Jeffrey stated.
As they went on their way, Jeffrey slowly leaned back, his legs resting more and more languidly against the floor before he fell asleep.
The driver glanced at him and immediately whistled.
Jeffrey opened his eyes slightly, but then closed them again.
The driver changed gear and was about to stop the car, but then when he looked over at where Jeffrey was supposed to be, all he saw was a puddle. He screamed as blood spilled on his face from thin air.
His eyes paled as he began to suffocate, trembling in his seat. He soon fell over, dead, as the rest of his boys soon lay dead inside.
In the distance, a truck labeled "Sampaguita Ale" rambled into the scene, as red-uniformed men poured out to get the statue.
Elsewhere, in a tower with glass walls, Jeffrey sat on a chair with a high back, checking the streets below. A man in butler's attire entered through a double door, passing the four black-suited guards, and strode into the room. "We have it," he told Jeffrey.
"Good," Jeffrey said as he casually took a sip from his Scotch, setting down the sloshing glass onto his glass-topped table, leaving it rattling on the tray. He wiped one tiny drop of stain on his mouth against his sleeve as he stood, stretching upwards, moaning playfully.
Dust motes spread across the sky, over the inlands and knolls, along the byways leading to the capital, carpeting the ants in columns and files and crossing galleries, amid the lush, soft, and muffled herbage. Many embarked on board coastal schooners, and birds perched on the lee of ledges jutting from the craggy sides of the valleys.
The world was thrown into chaos, as stately dust-clouds fell, burying streets and buildings.
In the middle of this world-altering event, one man in a tightly laced coat, Redd stood at the train station with a sullen, morose expression. The arriving train jerked a few paces before stopping.
A large group of men and women stood still several paces behind him.
As he entered, he waved at the group before scooting his hands under the train seat and placing his second bag there. “I’m going,” he breathed with a hitch. People’s bags began to thud all around him as the ruck of passengers poured inside. Below him he saw the tension of their faces reflecting off the damp, mud-studded floor. As the train started and rolled toward the next station, the scent of breeze-whipped broad-leaved trees gradually perfumed the train rooms.
Redd caught sight of the gigantic shelf of fog scudding across the sky. As he lowered his head, he noticed the window misting around the edges. Mist was starting to eddy around the streaking train, and showers of dust pellets covered the roof. Rain was starting to mix with the dust.
Outside, on the plains, marshes, and wet rice paddies, there were villagers still boring through the dust tufts. The sweat on their faces clumped with dust.
Redd turned away. His face pressed against someone else’s bag in the squeezing throng. What happened? he thought.
In the wet lands, on a layer of water, each step I made caused a ripple.
“I-I w–w-will kill you all!“ I barked at the two goblins standing a few paces in front of me along the path.
I widened my stance, pacing about, gripping my quarterstaff.
The goblins, brandishing their swords, edged forward, taking a step back every time I raised my hand to strike, ultimately moving forward to catch me in a window.
We kept jerking back and forth, but eventually, I baited them close enough before catching them with a whipping strike on the first goblin and a counter on the second goblin with a half-turn.
With their forms sprawled along the path, they began pelting me with pebbles, but I plowed up to them and lifted my quarterstaff.
I smashed them continuously, making loud wet thuds. But this soon fell into tedium.
After that brief trance, I closed my eyes, releasing the breath I'd been holding. I then picked up my bag and slung it back around my shoulder before stepping over the two bodies lying along the sedgy bank. I tramped down the path, downriver.
Even throughout the rush, the effects of the battle lingered still. My eyes would randomly widen as the thoughts sped through my brain, and my hands would stop midair, as if hitting a snag, whenever my face would briefly crease at the tactile feeling of distorting flesh.
A grimace overspread my face as the outline of the distant torch-lit town etched against the darkening sky.
Soundless steps burst into flight, flowing from nook to nook along the crowded street. One of them, a woman, broke off, entering a recessed entryway.
Her arms stretched toward the door, hand already closing around the knob. When she got a full grip, she turned it a notch, drawing a screech. She turned it again, getting a muffled gasp. So she turned it the whole way.
When the door finally slid open, she pushed it wide. But as she took a step in, she flinched at the clanging and thumping of black armor.
She turned around to notice the guards stumping from behind the corner. Before the door drifted shut, she grabbed the handle. Heaving and panting, she entered, slipping inside, and tensed at the wind slamming the door shut.
Inside, her chin raised at the buskers strumming their guitars and the tavern regulars passing around the town news. Taking a deep breath, she widened her stance and strode inside. Her eyes sweeping around the interior, she saw a myriad faces and expressions.
Before she could scour the tables for her target, an azure hood, a shaky man bumped into her. He apologized, but before she could get out of the way, his thick garb pushed against her bag. He squeezed past her and then plodded dizzily to the door, opening and closing it before calling for the rest of his friends still laughing inside, who only began to stand up now.
While one of the inn staff spoke to him for opening and closing the door too much, the woman went on her way, squeezing herself further inside.
As soon as she broke free, she sighed with relief, ease returning to her face. But when her eyes travelled up the aisle, her shoulders slumped. In front of her crept a train of people wanting to leave, snaking along the table aisles, blocking her path.
As soon as she got a relaxed area, she made a drawn-out sigh, rubbing the sides of her mouth. After making a brief scan of the area, she heaved her bag where she could see and untied it to open it.
Narrowing her eyes, she slithered her fingers inside, soon brushing the edge of her hat. But as she grasped it, a cacophony of laughter nearby made her jerk up and lose her grip.
With a grimace, she resumed searching her bag, now glancing in front of her every few seconds, as she trod forward carefully.
In the meantime, a man with a hand over his yawn mouth was seated in a corner, and while he lifted his cup to drink, his eyes wandered over a woman looking down, busy with her hands.
For a moment, he thoughtlessly watched her.
But as she moved closer to him, he eyed her features, studying them. Thick beetle brows overlaid her piercing eyes, and a smooth curve ran down her forehead, stopping at her rugged chin.
Right before he lost interest, his right eye caught a blur of yellow, which she clapped on her head, a calico sun-bonnet. She had been looking inside her bag for it this whole time and finally gotten it out.
Pulling back his azure hood, he said, interrupting her, "Miss, excuse me." The woman, slowly processing his appearance, knitted her brows. Her eyes soon widened.
She inhaled to speak, but his voice cut through the air first. "Are you the Elesat?"
"That is almost my name. 'Elesa.'"
"Not 'the', no 'the,' none?"
"Not 'the.'"
"OK, well, how're you doing? It's been a pleasure. Well, it will be a pleasure. So... can we sit down? Are you, are you 'forged,` did you get the thing?"
"Mm-hmm."
"'OK then. What's on the board?"
"We have a few groupings that need to be addressed first." She plumped down on the long wood seat across the table, wiping the sweat over her brow. "So if you're up to that, we can start drafting the assignments and then, from there, decide who gets which role. What do you think?" She placed her hand on the table while she shifted her bag so she could sit more comfortably.
His gaze sneaked over her resting hand, stopping briefly at the glint of steel tucked inside her sleeve. "Sure."
An abacist strode about the coasting vessel with an Aaronical air, clothed in Abaca linen. Aback of him stood his subordinate, wearing the dark pantaloons of a former abactor, his lips pinched in a wrinkled expression. Further abaft worked twenty slaves. Their sweat rhythmically fell along the glimmering wood floor.
Without waiting for the abacist to turn, the subordinate said in a strained voice, "I have made the proper preparations." A smile tugged at the sides of his closed mouth.
Depriving him of a gratifiying reply, the abacist remained stuck on the soaring clouds over the starboard lookout.
With a sore face as if forced out, the subordinate made a quick obeisance and thudded away, along the edge overlooking the islands.
In two hours, they arrived in Songraitu, and the two headed along a herby, unpaved road, toward the city gates bosomed in sylvan scenes.
When they entered among the crowds of passerby, the subordinate, with head abased, kept to the muddy, dungy middle, while the abacist skirted along the cleaner edge, with chin raised.
"Well?" said a young man, seated in a balcony beside his old man. They were observing the two, one of whom wore dark pantaloons. The other wore a shimmering purple jacket.
"This is good," the old man said. "Let's check their countenance first." A soft green glow appeared on his palm, floating.
The young man grinned, his right palm already showing a tiny red glint.
The abacist cocked his head aside. After seeing nothing of note, he shifted his attention to a balcony facing the street. Behind the balustrades were two empty chairs. He squinted before casting a look at his subordinate, who immediately raised his brows in understanding.
When I dropped by Mrs. Adams' House, checking for documents that I haven't yet seen, thinking that perhaps this was going to end up backfiring on me (since what else could a person do but wait?)—a cacophony of sounds assaulted me, and my eyes swept over the panoply of consignments of goodies only now delivered: chocolate chip, peanut butter–filled oatmeal cookies, Graham balls, banana bread, both macarons and macaroons.
The cacophony of sounds? Well, that was just a bunch of brothers waking up and trying their hand at home-grown cooking. Well, it was utterly failing, but that's not the point. (What the hell are they doing anyway!) The point is that I thought I would be able to find the documents before most of them woke up. I mean, John, one of the brothers, is still looking at me, waiting, but he is now greeted by the reality that our searching plan has failed. His mother's steps are making the wood groan upstairs. She's heading down.
I went outside before they saw me and knocked on the door as if I was just arriving. John let me in, and I gave him a multitude of expressions only my dastardly handsome face could make.
The goodies were not supposed to be here yet either. It was supposed to be delayed so that there was no reason for them to be staying home. John! What happened in transit! My eyes were screaming at him, but I had to adjust them manually for the emerging Mrs. "Hello," her voice emitted, like a coo.
I gave her my best joshing-boy smile and posed for a bow before leaving.
"You're not eating with us, Mishack?"
"Sorry, gotta go, Mrs. Adams."
"Right. Well, you go on your way now. Wouldn't want to have your mother calling this early in the morning again."
"Right, apologies for that."
"Yes, yes, go."
"Thank you." I eyed John one more meaningful time, and he nodded with his eyebrows, those slick things below his forehead and over his eyes. He was a handsome fellow, as was I, but I was handsomer.
"Brother oh brother," said my disgusting spat-eyed sister, her eyes like diamonds that failed to fully bloom. "You little twat, you think you could beat me at Raceiods! I'm always gonna be better! I'm better, I'm stronger! I'm smarter!" The brothered girl stood up as soon as she won 3-0 against me in our current favorite video game. "How lubricous! Muahahah!" Her over-the-top voice was screeching against my well-carved ear.
"'Ludicrous' you mean!"
"Ha! Who cares! I'm better, that's all that matters!"
"You're not using the words, right! That means you're utterly wrong!" A ping noise slammed my ear. John just texted me via Whatsoop.
I got my phone and looked at the message history, seeing that one by one, they were getting deleted. "Bro, what the helly!" Probably needs to hide it, I thought.
Our plan will not fail.
"Ugly!" her sister said as she returned downstairs with her hair tool thing.
"Where are you going?"
"To camp, fool!"
"'Kay, why am I not going?"
"It's for kids, you diddler!"
"'Kay... Did you pack your bags already?"
"Yeah, why?"
"I was thinking I should bring you."
"Uh... Mom?"
"Go," our mom said. "He said he'll bring you."
"Okay. I was thinking to wait, but you can bring me. It's just 45 minutes from here. Gogle said."
After I brought her to the air-conditioned place, I stopped by John in the cafe. He contacted me while I was driving and shared me our new headquarters.
"Documents?"
"Well, we can abandon that plan, because it's gone!"
"It's gone, why didn't you tell me?"
"Didn't want to surprise you. Plus, I've been planning."
"Planning what."
"A nefarious new plan. We can get my mother to spill it. Just listen."
He started whispering in my ear, telling me everything.
"Oh," I said during it. I heard everything I needed to hear.
"Okay," I said. "What's next?"
"First? Well, let's try the barbie shop. We'll find what we're looking for there."
"The barbie shop? What the hell is you on..."
Dashing along the street, she ran directly to the place of letters (a large brutalist structure)—the admin said her message was going to be sent first. So she pummelled those legs against the concrete as hard as she could, the rain-slicked road splashing at each marching shoe step. By the time she finally padded up the stairs, two men in black suits stood in front of her before gently bringing her inside. "What am I going to get!" she exclaimed with a chirping tone.
"Grade 1 is always the first," said the stubble-bearded suit, "so don't you worry. We'll have you in in no time."
"OK, but where's Mr. Copenhagen?" Her cadence switched, sounding almost accusatory.
"He's in this room," the black suit said with a tap on the glass door in front of them. He cleared his throat before raising his voice: "Copenhagen, Sir, Ms. Offlay is here."
"Offlay?" muttered the sunken-eyed man inside, sitting on a canvas chair. His thoughts looked for a footing; then his eyes latched onto her. "Our newest recruit? Good. We need one more Agent."
She brought out her widest grin. "Is it today? Happening?" She messed up the sequence of her words, but carried this with pride.
Copenhagen, who knew the admin, laughed. "Well, it will happen soon. Just not now. But you'll get your grade today. The official stuff? Later."
"Alright." She raised her hand in a playful salute.
Later, after a few conversations in hushed voices between the Copenhagen and people with whom he was in a phone call, he went back to her and told her, "You're officially..."
"Yes?!"
"...Grade 1."
"Woohoo!" She jumped for joy, restraining herself from bounding across the room.
Copenhagen's smile bloomed warmly in that wrinkled, aged, well-carved face.
"OK, what's next?" she asked, interrupting him midway through his turn.
"Oh right. Well, you come back here on 7 o'clock. Is that too early? We can re-arrange."
"No, no. I'll be there. I have the best timer, you see. A human one! My mother."
He raised his brows in curious understanding. "Well, OK. I trust you with that. Hopefully, you're right."
She frantically waved him goodbye, and he gave her a one-stroke wave. The suits waved as well, but right when she was already very well gone.
Her footsteps met the road around the time the streets were cacophonous with a myriad car horns and beeps.
When she returned home, it was tirelessly quiet, like a buzzing fly, and her mother was already preparing beef stew for her awaiting lips, those same ones she used to talk so confidently with earlier, now weakened by time and broken down by a hungry temper. "Thanks mom!" she said as soon as she aimed her face at the soup-slicked potato. "Yummy!" she exclaimed as she took a scrumptious bite that suffused her mouth with pleasure that reached her tired thighs. She breathed deeply, the steam cozily heating her up. She smiled healthily.
"Well, how's work?"
"New work? It's fine. I got Grade A!"
"Grade C, you mean?"
"Oh wait! No, sorry, it was Grade 1!"
"Good. What's that mean?"
"Well, I guess I'm starter."
"OK, not starter as in sports, right? You got to be the best to do that."
"Yeah, like newbie. That's what I am."
"Pretty cool. What do newbies have to do?"
"We newbie all over the place I guess. Well, I mean, I know what I'm going to do, but I have to be there early tomorrow. So... please wake me up, thanks ma!"
"OK! By the way, how's the beef stew?"
"Good, it's always good. Why?"
"Robert said there's been a few salty ones lately."
"Oh yeah, well, I eat salty all the time, I love it!"
"Well, it's not the best way to eat, you know that."
"Yeah, yeah, I know. I'll get diarrhea and start dying and start losing my life before I even get a job—well I have a job now—or during work or dying or getting car-crashed."
"Well, that's..."
"Yeah, I'll get UTI."
"Yup!"
After they finished talking about relatives and family friends and eating, Ms. Offlay retired.
Her mother woke her up as tasked, and Offlay went on her way, picking up where she left off with Copenhagen and the suits and the place of letters.
"What is that?" she said when she arrived, looking inside.
"Oh, this?" a suit said. "That's Copenhagen's new Filament solar-powered workout machine."
"Huh."
"I'm joking. That's just his new generator."
"What for?"
"For the underground. And it's not his. Something to do with the machinery not working."
"Right. Why am I getting this detail?"
"Oh, he didn't tell you. You'll be working on it, right now. He's busy right now, so he won't meet you. But! I'll explain all the details!"
"Who are you? I mean, what's your name, sorry?"
"John. John Witlock."
"Right. My name's uh..."
"Yes, you are Offlay. Ms. Offlay."
"Yes, that's correct. Uh, what do I do?"
"Well, come here.
"Did you mom wake you up?"
"Yes. Wait, is this a thing everyone knows?"
"Well... maybe not everyone, but a certain number of people comprising a large number of this organization."
"Mm-hmm," she said with a sarcastic playfulness.
A green blur crept into the dark brushes. Swift steps rang along behind him: another blur lay a hand on the shabby coat-sleeve of the first. Shadows slipped over them, accentuating their contours, revealing their grisly wrinkles. Their faces were sharp, their eyes struck the air around them, and their hands wielded rusty daggers. The cloud-patched skies above their bald heads admitted across their faces glimpses and flashes of almost audible sun-glare, screechy like scraping blades. At this they cringed within the woodwork.
"Are we headed?" said the first with a small-minded smile, his attention splayed between the trees and the listening birds.
"We are, but not yet," said the second, holding a drab expression. "We still need the stuff, and it's awaiting their owner too. So gotta check that as well." His tone grew soft and distant.
"Ah, I see," cut through the first. "I think we better try anyway."
"Which one? What are you talking about?"
"The... thing you said about the Leaven Scouts. We haven't gotten any bags anyway, so we're practically all set for their introduction. Do you need a review?"
"No, we're finished with this. No Leaven Scouts. The absence of bags only makes room for more goods. We don't need an assassin waiting in the back in case client goes southwest."
"Ha, either manner, we've got a ton to be optimistic about. I mean, check the greaves. They're selling good, and we got tons of them. That's pretty much it, right. But seriously, learn to take a lesson. We need these goods intact. Why would we withhold ourselves from that kind of opportunity? No reason not to take their offer up."
"It's a matter of waiting, friend. We wait. We trust only after we've waited."
"We've waited long enough, don't you think?"
"Either way, we're here. We better go."
Then from the bushes, an arrow stole through the air, arresting them. It penetrated the first. The second wheeled around, and his eyes relocated the way whence they came. But another arrow blew from the humble brush, eviscerating his skull. He fell with a thud.
Meanwhile, the clouds loomed heavily upon the forest.
"Where was I?" said a figure standing a distance from the scene, with beige flesh and a boyish grin, laughing. Behind him, another figure was saying something.
The first figure's eyes hovered on the two green figures.
Nearby, the daggers nestled among the grasses.
He said, "Ha."
A flutter of breath from the lips, an energetic expulsion of breath, a hasty inspiration of blue fog morning breeze.
A community of gray colossi scattered throughout with a habitat of sky-greeters in the misty background and rows of smaller rectangles in the detailed foreground. The road offering this vista continuously met the white metal carriage on which I rode.
Later, inside a large temple dedicated to beans was a face wearing a white hat that stretched from ear to ear but barely covered the whole head, connected with a snake that coiled toward a silver slab that unfolded into two linked tablets. Their hands rested upon the lower tablet, fingering the six rows of squares that depressed and rose on it.
A man wearing an almost skin-tight blue robe with sleeves that went above the elbows stood in the corner, wearing thick cloth as his undergarments and grasping a small black box crested with a projecting stick, from which a man's strict voice continually rushed out.
I stared, whispering writing into my hands and summoning the ether to link my soul to the moving painting on the upper tablet of my slab. Immediately, the writings running in my head rushed to the painting, one after another. The writings were now part of a spiritual world through which all other moving paintings were combined, which millions of people across the world had.
My garments flapped as I walked across the street, weaving through the crowd and slipping inside a government building through the portico, then the open double door. I moved through rooms, stopping in a bathroom, where I came face to face with a woman. "You're ready?" she asked.
I nodded. I scooted closer to her before raising my right hand and hovering it over her shoulder. I landed it gently, rubbing smoothly in circles. "So..." I stared at her shoulder for a moment before lifting my chin, meeting her eyes with a brow raised.
Her mouth was slightly open with cracking composure, tilted toward my shoulder-touching fingers. For a moment, she stared before shutting her mouth and facing me completely. "Y-yes, yes," she said.
"OK." I extended my arms toward both shoulders and set them gently, cupping them before leaning in to her.
Only inches from touching, our faces searched each other. Then...
I smiled. She mirrored it.
"Well?" she said, hot breath mixing with mine.
I planted my lips on her cheek and wheeled around. "OK, I should go."
"What?!" she said.
"Sorry. I thought I could do it."
"Dang it, Bryan!" Her face was split in a grin.
Right as I opened the door, I turned around and tried to kiss her.
She stopped me with a gesture. "Bro, you're not Usain Bolt, okay, you can't steal a kiss from that far."
I covered my burning face.
When we went out the door, she laughed. "Haha, you thought it was that simple, huh?" she said. "Better luck next time!"
"By the way, what happened to Usain Bolt's career? Haven't heard of him."
"I don't know. He's probably still practicing or something at least, no?"
"I guess."
We passed through the exit. "By the way..." I said in a casual voice.
A faint flush had crept into her dark, thin cheeks.
He pressed the change into the stranger's palm, snatched out a pencil and card from his pocket, and held out his hand.
"What?" said the stranger.
"Give me your hand," he said.
The stranger wafted her hand over his.
"Use," he said.
She shut her eyes tight and tensed her body.
Blue particles emerged from her palm, falling onto his hand.
"Good."
He set down the card and slammed the blue onto it. When the blue finally set in as the printed name of the stranger, he smiled and gave the card to her. "That's yours, Lisa." He turned around and began writing a name on an open ledger beneath the counter.
She stared at him before slowly saying, "Thank you." Her shoes gently tapped away, her figure dissolving in the sharply sunshiny street.
The man standing behind the counter smiled to himself before staring stone-faced at the taller man in front of him. He scarfed his money and started counting coins in a drawer for change.
Meanwhile, the woman began crossing the street, riding a lizard-drawn carriage and telling the driver "Clockaton."
The driver tipped his hat and whipped the lizard who rumbled.
The road around her gradually changed. At first, it was men in gambesons with insignias. But now, it became shabby brown garbs. Later, the street was full of rainbow outfits with all manner of hats and accessories.
"Clockaton," said the driver as he slowed the carriage to a stop.
"Thank you," she said before stepping down. The carriage went up a little, making her narrow her eyes.
She turned a few times along the sidewalk, but eventually stopped at a small house. It stood in the center of a low brick block in a short, narrow street at the South Red.
"How's adventuring?" exclaimed the crisp voice of her grandmother.
She smiled with slumped shoulders, raising the card. "I finally got it."
"Good! That's great! How about you eat first, then tell me all about it!"
"Okay..." She lay down on a couch.
"By the way..."
"What?" Lisa set her hand on the table to lift herself up enough to see where her grandmother might appear.
"Have you seen Donald?"
"No, why?" She began tapping the table.
"He hasn't been."
"Been? What do you mean?" Her tapping slowed down.
"He's been gone for a while. He said he was going on another quest, but I don't know what time he left. He should be here by now, right."
"Yeah..." Her tapping stopped.
"If you see him, tell me."
"OK." She released her hand from the table.
"It might just be another day. He's had them."
Lisa nodded to herself, staring into the pillow.
Later, she got up, walking upstairs to her room, sitting in front of a mirror. "When was the last time? I told myself I wouldn't do this." She tensed her hand, releasing blue. She extended it to the mirror. The mirror pulsed, a rainbow wave spreading throughout its surface. Then, an image materialized. It was a gambeson first, then the man wearing it, and his face—her sleeping brother.
She exhaled deeply before swiping right. The mirror returned to normal.
With her reflection bouncing back, her full cheeks chipped.
He dipped the spoon in the broth. The heat bubbled up. He drew back. "What's that?" he said.
"Well... It's called steam, motherfucker," his cousin, Lars said.
"Oh. I thought it was something else—you sure this is good?"
"Yeah! I got it from a reputed site. Don't you worry your head!"
"'Kay then. But... what will happen after I put in the garlic? It won't change color, right—hey, wait, help me here!" His cousin had left the room and was walking over to the pool.
Little winds wandered and moaned around the windows, in one of which his cousin appeared. "Bro! The broth!"
"What?" Lars said.
"It's burning!"
"What!?" Lars got up and headed straight, only to find it bubbling only slightly. He grabbed his cousin's shoulder and squeezed it, drawing a yelp. "That's called bubbling. It's not yet boiling, and it's most definitely not burning, doofus!"
"O-kay..." He rubbed the shoulder Lars left aching.
"Okay, but seriously, what do I have to do?"
Lars sighed before looking up at the ceiling.
"Is there anything?" His cousin looked up as well.
Lars raised his hand over his cousin's eyes. "OK, let's go. I'll teach you to be a master... at chess!"
"This comic is about cooking, right?"
The dark, slender, supple-framed young man moved much about the room, passing by Dorrice. In her eyes reflected his still expression and working mouth. A quirk had crept into the corners of her lips, curving her eyes.
She folded her hands.
Later, after the meeting, the young man stood in the thronged street. His gaze snagged on some of the plentiful street stalls, but he would blink and look away. He then found himself peering into the sheet of heads pouring to and fro, sandwiched between two different flows. His eyes glittered with diffuse sunlight, and the line of crowds stretched endlessly. For a moment, his eyes met nothing, save for a blur. But, then, one of the figures jolted out of the mass shape, appearing, and began weaving her way through the crowd. Before he could squint his eyes, Dorrice stood in front of him.
"You eating later?" her voice resounded in his ears amid the piercing murmur of crowd traffic.
"Yes," he said absently. The two of them trickled away.
On arriving in front of an apartment, he freed his feet, tossing the shoes aside. The woman stared in the process, working her eyes around the facade. Her mouth faltered open. The door squeaked.
She strode inside, interrupting him mid-gesture.
He watched her clothed back and tuft-crested head through the gap in the door.
She turned, exposing her sun-beamed cheeks, rehearsing, "This your place?"
"Yeah." He compressed his lips right after.
Their eyes passed each other before he went inside, getting away from a few passing stares.
The street had receded, and the inside now surrounded him. Her form regained contour at the gleam of a candle's tongue of flame. Her eyes flashed across the candle.
His mouth moved before she could turn, but nothing came out.
She faced him, hands pressed along her sides. "How are you?" she asked.
An upward turn made its way across his lips. He stopped her with a glance as he thudded to a table, sailing his hand along its edge.
"Good," he said with a pause in between consonants.
Her eyes glimmered as she passed by the flame and sat opposite him. "What is that?" she said. They both looked through the window at the potted flower on the windowsill.
His lips parted before he straightened and leaned into his chair. "Oh, some scientific name. But it's a tiger-lily from what I recall."
She held out her hand. "You hungry?"
He rose to receive her hand, as if she was exiting a carriage, helping her alight off the chair.
Her sharp features softened as he drew an apron over her head.
A knife in hand, he began cutting potatoes. In between, he slipped his hands into hers, and they pressed cheeks.
Meanwhile, the mid-day sun streamed through the window-panes, warming the seats on which they had just sat.
Their candle-cast shadows flickered across the wall further inside, as his potato cubes swished in a container of water.
Soon, they got their warm meal, and they fell asleep in the same bed.
But only two hours later, they left, going to the port for another meeting.
After they arrived, they sat down nearby, and in the ship's gauze of smoke, she yawned. Her dark head and slender limbs stood in strong relief within his wide-spreading arms and fair face, and her small round hat of light yellow straw supported his resting chin. "How long still?" he asked. Her clinging folds had bunched in his embrace. "A little while longer."
He fixed a pair of cold eyes on the young half-naked goblin, taking from his overcoat a splash potion. "Try this," he said, setting it on the tuft.
Picking it up, the goblin nodded before shooting it over the beetling rock edge. Upon impact, the potion cracked before releasing a burst of red.
The beasts coated with it slowed down before collapsing, the wind carrying their pained, sleepy moans. Their eyes fell to a dull still, over the mud-bank.
Below their forms sat a water-plant. Its deep-cut leaves tufted over the soft mud, and in places, whorls of pink flowers rose from its stem. It blew sideways at a beast's last breath.
The goblin, staring, slowly turned around and raised a fist palm-up.
A flash swept across the man's face. He turned around and started down the mountain. Getting the goblin to follow, he pounced at the first footings and, upon reaching the trail's flattest stretch, widened his strides. Once he neared the bottom, plants began jerking in his snatches, and the mud started bursting when he braced his feet.
At the bottom, it was quiet at first, the only sound his worn-out steps and the murmur of the jungle.
Then, a hint of smoke appeared. His lips shook.
He released a long-awaited breath.
"The monsters are dead!" he shouted as soon as he barged through the doors.
The gazes of the goblins in front of him went still for a moment, facing each other. But the goblin following him made his appearance.
An eruption of cheers came about.
Later, during the feast, while seated, the man laughed as he listened to the goblins' stories. When he travelled the room, they told him all about goblin life. But once he reached the last corner, his smile froze up at the wide-eyed stare of a goblin child.
"Is this?" he asked, his still eyes glancing at the goblins across the room.
"Yes," said the older goblin in front of him, standing over the child. "Our last one."
The human gasped, his lower lip briefly attacked by a quiver.
The child tilted her head to the side.
"I'm sorry," said the voice beside me. "I couldn't be there for you."
I stared at the clouds. "You're there."
"What?"
"You're there. We're all there."
The decapitated head bawled and cried. "Why! Why!"
"Unlike you, I'm not sorry. We're all free now."
"That's a beautiful place?"
"Yes. Just close your eyes one last time. We will go there together. But I'll just finish my job here first, okay?"
"Okay." He screamed in agony.
Over the course of twenty minutes, his voice gradually quieted down and grew hoarse.
He soon fell asleep.
I dropped his head and went on my way, first down the mountain and then straight to the next city, where I would meet the next people.
I saw a bunch of goblins, arranged in rows. Meeting? Some project? What's going on? They didn't look necro. So what were they? Hired mercenaries?
I walked up to the human there. "Hello, what are you doing?"
"Preparing for an upcoming attack. This is wave defence, see, so I need a stock of men of my own that I can control. And goblins, they're the perfect fit. They listen to anything that I say without question, as long as I promise them food and drink. It's a haven! Anyway, wanna help me protect my base?"
"OK."
I stood beside him and watched the clouds. It was of little importance that I was here, but time was not an issue whatsoever. I could stay here as long as possible, as long as the "next people" were still alive.
The human came up to me, leading me inside the base and to the top of a tower at one of its walls. "See. When the beasts come, I need to be prepared, so naturally, I've had all kinds of dwarves build all kinds of fortifications. But we're sticking to a star fort. I like the idea of it. Clean, edible. Haha. I'm referring to star biscuits. Anyway, if you're gonna help, you're gonna have to tell me what your abilities are."
I nodded. "Here." I slammed his head against the parapet and threw him off. He lay there on the ground, staring back at me. "Wow!" he said as he got up. "You're a pugilist! That's what I want!" His skeleton had re-animated itself.
"I had a feeling."
"Yeah, good intuition too!"
Now that we had that out of the way, I went to the field outside of the base and waited. The clouds sped up and slowed down depending on the magical weather. Sometimes, it was raining acid, and other times, it was raining small critters. But oftentimes, it was just a blanket of cloud that hid the entire sun.
When night came, I yawned, strolling and pacing back and forth.
I thought for a while whether the human was lying, but the beasts arrived, making their way to me with a din of roars.
I punched them and grabbed their snouts, delivering them to the earth and striking them with an axe chop of a kick. I pinned each of them down like that, incapacitating them. I produced a blade once I was done with a set of monsters and beheaded each and every single one of them.
No next wave came, and the human met me again, this time in the field. "OK, looks like they aren't coming today. Wanna come inside and eat?"
I nodded, drooling in my mouth.
She glid off the altar-steps. "I seek only to bring about the entirety." She tapped each of the shoulders in front of her, weaving down the aisle surrounded by the sparse collection of men standing along the pews. These adventurers all followed her with their eyes, with smirks and smiles, as she passed them.
By the time she reached the door-step, the inner corners of her brows drew up, as she dissolved into motes of fading light, leaving them alone in the silent, echoing hall.
In another remote place, she materialized with the chime of arrival, nursing a halberd.
Illusory figures stood in front of her. "Anna, you can do it," said one before dissolving into black sand. "Anna, it's your choice, whatever you do next is you!" said a second before dissolving the same.
"Anna, you can do it! You're the one who showed me the light. You paved the way!" said a third.
She covered her eyes, passing through them. Her mouth quivered open, and an exhale departed. She knitted her brows, faced forward.
The figures had set their hands together on their hips as they stood, tilting their heads downward, facing her, eyes shut.
She glanced at one of them before trudging along the trail that led her into the jungle that gradually surrounded her.
Her bare feet flattened leaves, rustling through dewy herbage, the smell of sandal-wood perfuming her nose.
She looked up, her face dappled with shadows of leaves, slits of sunlight appearing in the interspaces. The canopies loomed over her like a father, shielding her from the midsummer swelter. The jungle enclosed her in a plume of fresh and cool air, sometimes dousing her uncombed hair with drops of yesterday's rainwater from stray leaf tips, as if stroking her hair and kissing her forehead. Her gait softened in its refreshments, and her breaths mellowed.
She raised her weapon.
And dropped it.
She had left behind a message—"I am done."
I met a woman with a lot of books. Each book had a receipt in them, each from a different cafe, bookmarking a different page. I counted the first wall of books alone, and it was 60. And there were potentially over a thousand in here. I asked her about it. She told me that she has been doing this for a decade, and she has read every single book, though not necessarily so as to master them, but enough to warrant in each a bookmark. She mentioned a list of page numbers that she had bookmarked to back her point up: "16, 24, 80, 60, 90, 300, 200. Yes, I didn't always finish books. More often than not, I leave them a constant re-read. It is better that way."
"Why?" I asked.
"It makes it easier for me to keep them always in my mind. A finish gives closure. I don't want closure. That is not the point of reading for me."
"Oh, so you don't like endings?"
"Not necessarily. But if I do read a book to the end, I don't necessarily do so because I want closure, but because it just so happened that it did so for that particular story, not because I am that kind of person."
"I see... I don't see.
"Why wouldn't you?"
"I guess I just enjoy the feeling of constantly having something to read. It keeps that rhythm in my head ringing constantly. I like that word 'constantly', sorry about that."
"So why? Can you tell me why beyond just having something to read... always?"
"I think I don't treat books like static objects. I treat them like family... Maybe that's it."
"So what do you do? You take notes? You keep reading it and taking more and more notes."
"No, no, not always. I do take notes, but I'm not a master or anything. I just take notes 'cause it helps me keep in mind my thoughts at the time, like when I write down a particular line and what I felt at the time about it. Sometimes just the line itself is enough. Actually, more often than not, that's what I do, yeah."
"OK."
I picked up one book, and before I could look at the receipt, her voice rang out, "Don't change the page! Just read it there. I made that mistake before."
"OK." I looked at the receipt while keeping it on its page. I read the following:
8/18/25 2:37 PM.
Item, Price, Quantity, Amount
BLND DMF VENTI, 230, 1, 230 VA
Bal.: 270
I looked at another one. It had the same order, but five years back.
Another one. Another one. I read 10.
They all had the same orders! But years of separation between them.
"When is this?"
"What do you mean?"
"The range."
"Since 2021."
I realized that each of the receipts had a location as well. "Does this still exist?"
"No."
"How about this one?"
"Yes... Most of them do. Well, many."
"That's crazy...
"Like, that's amazing!"
"Really?"
"Yeah!"
I thought she was the craziest person in the world...
...in a good way.
In red polo and blue jeans, Lei glanced at several men entering one by one, straightening slightly in her chair. These men eyed for open spaces between the passengers, who moved aside to widen the gaps on both sides. When they finally sat down on three different gaps, Lei came under one of the men's brief look before he looked down, took out his wallet from the small receptable in his bag, fished out 13 pesos for pamasahe, and handed the amount straight to the driver's backward-reaching palm. With the payments clattering in chorus in the driver's coin tray, Lei eased into her seat.
Her attention drifted to the two metal tubes connecting floor and ceiling, which curved outward around the middle, between the passenger and driver section. She moved on to the tiny azure blue fan attached to the left metal frame connected to the driver's window. Then she turned to the pom-poms in front of her, and above it was fabric lettering. It was reversed to her because it faced forward, but she recognized the words immediately: "GOD BLESS US".
As soon as she neared her stop, she said para and went down, drawing in her breath sharply. She strode into a church building, seeing immediately young suckling pigs that had been roasted on a spit now lying on mint-green tables. To her right side, between the staircase connecting to the second floor and the doorway leading to the underground floor, she saw several cylindrical table legs leaning on the wall underneath the stairs. Beside these legs were a table with hand bags with silver thermal lining and a small plate with food crumbs. Many older adult church members shuttled to and fro through the doorway and via the staircase—mothers, aunts, and some uncles.
A high-pitched whine zipped along the street. Red beams struck the street, tearing up the cobblestones. Behind the lights, a figure appeared, a red orb already beaming from his clasped hands. Skyward darted another volley of light. In the distance, guards stood in a row, gesturing simultaneously. Three arrows appeared out of thin air with each thrust of the hand, forming a web of arrows. Once the web thickened to a fibrous lattice, they swung their hands left in unison. The arrows' large combined shadow scudded along the street.
In an instant, they closed the distance, and their target's figure was cast in darkness.
But the arrows stopped mid-flight. Briefly shivering midair, they fell, dissipating into dust. Right where the arrows had stopped, a faint blue rippled across the translucent sphere surrounding the attacker.
The skyward volley slammed the ground, shattering in blasts of blue flame. Each impact reduced guards to bloody slushes.
The blood soon stopped splashing, pooling along the ground. The survivors swiftly extended their hands, as debris flew from their places, melting together, forming a long, huge wall.
The attacker's next barrage left behind streaks of mana vapor along the street. Into the new wall slammed the blasts, evaporating in thin, dirty bluish smoke.
Farther up the road, the attacker's hands weaved through the air, halting mid-swing. In each gesture, his hands closed around invisible, tactile mana threads, pulling them together. As the threads bonded, they felt coarser. They unified into a single cord. Twenty balls of fire instantly burst into existence around him. Molding them like wax, he shaped them into a web of fiery spears and swung them toward the guards. Immediately bursts scorched buildings and impact explosions scattered hard rock.
While debris filled the streets, the guards dashed out of the way of falling rocks.
Later, only shouts resounded throughout the streets. The guards stumbled along, and many lay on the ground. By the time a green light flashed in the direction of the attacker, they broke and fled. "Run!" many shouted. Taking off in a sprint, they left the now debris-covered wall defense unmanned.
In the attacker's hands, a green ball of magic swished and spasmed. Once he brought the ball forward, it ignored the fleeing guards.
Instead, it darted into the rubble, slipping into the earth. And from there, a wagon-sized hand erupted, snatching the street. Along with it, the top half of a golem exploded out of the ground. As its appendages reached out and grabbed the buildings to lift itself out, it shook the dust and rock flecks off its body.
Easing its feet into the earth, it pleasantly ripped out more layers of stone. Its body now stood fully, its height exceeding the two-floor buildings around it.
At the sight of the golem, the rest of the guards poured into the streets, leaving any defence they might have considered and fleeing for their lives.
The mage attacker, watching all this, smirked and promptly made a gesture, clasping the air with his right hand. A glint of blue light flashed out. Then an invisible force clutched him, and he lifted his body off the ground. He stopped some 5 meters in the air. The invisible force strained at this height, faltering every time it tried to go higher. Fixing his eyes on the force for a moment, he stretched out his hands and slowly turned toward the golem, gliding toward it. He quickly grasped its surface with his hands. Upon securing a footing, he hugged it, drawing in a sharp breath. For a moment, he closed his eyes, breathing softly against the golem's skin. But eventually, he grabbed the surface above him, pulling himself skyward. Crawling along the side of the golem, he soon climbed its limbs, shoulders, and head.
Cresting the golem, he looked out into the streets, squinting at the rumbling distance.
Producing a broken gem, he looked at it before turning his attention to the light continuously beaming out of the castle in the distance.
The man opened his mouth softly, then closed it.
Below him, the golem stared at the street below, and the man grew silent, his feet shuffling over its head.
Its eyes followed a line of ants crawling beside the curb.
As its posture softened, a one-stroke sob shook the air, coming from above.
A gasp escaping its stone lips, it tilted its head, shaking the man.
The man regained his balance, looking at the golem's curious face. Nodding imperceptibly, he moved out his hands before folding them. He tightened his grasp, but slowly separated them, releasing translucent blue sparkles in the tension. Motes of purple light appeared within his hands, combining into a new ball of flame. He jerked his palm forward, sending it out. The moment a glare passed his face, the flame briefly crackled louder.
The ball of flame drifted through the air at first, but after he made a sharp throwing motion, the ball accelerated.
In the distance, a group of towers appeared, moving toward him. The ball he had sent out slammed into one of them. Carried along the streets by gigantic automaton hands, these towers trudged the whole way in seconds. Arrows shot out from their slits. Their size far exceeded the guards' arrows earlier. But even these tickled the golem, and wherever it was hit, fluttering blue particles appeared, like it was laughing.
More arrows came, aimed at the attacker himself. But even they dissolved into motes of light upon hitting his invisible magical shield.
Chuckling, he continued releasing more and more balls of fire, shooting them a split second as soon as they formed.
Eventually, the towers began succumbing to his barrages. They crumbled and collapsed, and, upon hitting the streets below, burst out fumes of stone dust.
Some guards remained in the nooks, eyes narrowing at the figure on top of the golem. But the figure caught them, directing barrages through the windows into their hiding places.
Soon, only a metallic scent covered the streets.
With time, the remotest parts of the city whispered and moaned at the arrival of rattling wagons, hissing reptilian beasts of burden, and stomping men. Coming from afar, the kingdom's soldiers were flanking along the edges in lines, already organizing just outside the attacker's ken.
But the golem kept itself and the attacker in constant movement, weaving through the streets and crouching behind buildings to evade distant volleys. Wherever soldiers formed, it stomped toward them, shaking the ground beneath them, stamping out whoever stayed.
A woman, hiding in a basement, watched dust filter through the cracks in the ceiling, the sound of the destruction muffled. With shaken breath, she sucked her teeth and leapt off the chair, darting to the basement window where fleeing men and marching soldiers covered the streets. From a drawer, she snagged a small wand and bucked it against the windowsill, propping it. Coiling her body, she drew her muscles tight, swelling her chest. An invisible force broke free from her body, entering the wand. She breasted the wave of exhaustion that followed, letting out a shuddering breath. Her wand gleamed, threatening to burst. She stared at the soldiers, tilting it toward them. Before she could thrust it, a tall soldier with a lavender flower emblem on his black bulky pauldron passed by. She gasped and smothered the gem of the wand, and the glow disappeared. Chucking the wand under the cabinet, she circled the basement before striding upstairs. Lines forming in her forehead, she balked at the sight of the figure at the door and clucked. The unhelmeted figure spoke with a gentle voice, wearing the flower emblem, "Good evening, Miss Lara. The forefather has been looking for you."
Their hair fluttering in the headwind, the two stepped off the doorstep. In the distance, puffs of greyish-white smoke and bright muzzle flashes popped up every now and then. "We've been looking for you for several months. I'm surprised you managed this long. If you contacted your friend earlier, we would have known. He's one of ours, you see."
She half-gasped, stiffening her jaw. "I know."
Across the street, soldiers used heavy machinery to buck a massive lizard onto a transport truck.
A soldier appeared briefly behind the figure, handing him a baby.
Touching the baby playfully under its chin, the figure continued, "Well, we desire an audience with the queen, and if you'd so gladly—"
"I thought I told you this before. The Queen doesn't answer to anyone."
"I see, I see. Well, we can ask you again when you're ready."
"The entirety of a being," he barked before his hand lifted. With a swing as loud as the hammering of a nail, he lunged, thrusting his sword. His grip tightened. The iron sword in his hand scudded before cocking toward the dummy. Upon colliding, it shredded its surface, halved it, and released its contents, forcing it asunder. The subsequent double slice cut a portion off its sides.
Cut. Cut. Cut.
He whirled his blade, weaving around the tip like one would with a playing knife. As if tossing it to and fro, he stabbed forward, and, like the sun bleeding into dusk, with his fiery hot breath, melted its blur along its trajectory. He cut up along the body of a goblin, rupturing it as well. Its contents drifted to the ground.
The gravelly scent of hunger wafted from his lungs, coating the ground with top notes of bitter gourd.
His left hand loosening around the rough, sand-like handle of his sword, he drew in a sharp breath and burst it out as he stomped the ground in front of him.
From the darkness, the red-eyed figure of a pointy-eared creature crept toward him, a blade rising from its side. From behind him thrust another creature's hand, as a burst of lightning materialized out of thin air and streaked along the ground, finally hitting the man.
Before collapsing on one knee, the man convulsed, searching immediately for a spot from which could keep an eye on the goblins while restoring its health with a red potion.
He dashed, avoiding a series of three arrows and ducking under a lightning bolt. Producing a potion, he stopped behind a craggy corner and chugged the potion. With his health ticking upwards, he peeked and saw a group of three goblins marching in a wedge formation.
He clicked his tongue before cocking his head upward, where a stalactite shook. Moving out of its trajectory, he immediately backstepped to avoid a bolt. Now that his health was at 100%, it turned and charged, sidestepping as he hurled up an arm. Along with it was the sword, chopping down. It stunned the goblin in the way before it found itself pulled up again and slammed against a second goblin, and then a third before returning to the first and then the second and all over again. He continued endlessly until one of the goblins grabbed the sword at the cost of its hand.
As a bolt slammed his chest, he fell to the ground, electrocuting him.
Coughing, he watched as the goblins quivered on the ground.
His face splitting in a wide grin, he brought down the last of his strength.
Seven minutes of slashing later, he sighed. "What a joke," he muttered.
"Well," said an approaching elf. "Like that? Is that good enough practice for you? We can procure some more, but you're gonna have to pay up if you want a continuous."
"Right, right. I'm fine with that. But what do you mean by 'continuous'?"
"A payment model where the goblins are brought directly to you at your home."
"Is that affordable? I mean, the damages? I mean, how are you even—"
"Don't worry. Are you going to take it or not?"
"No, no. I can't. This is good enough, for now."
"OK, then." Striding off, the elf raised his left hand in salute.
"How about those things?" He gestured to the dummies he destroyed earlier.
"Well... that's extra—"
"Damn it!"
In this cold and harrowing world, only his mother had allowed him the space to be himself, but that didn't matter now. She was dead. His time spent improving his Sword Mastery was at best a coping mechanism for a life wasted on farming. His father was the reason he got into farming, but it was his mother's advice that had motivated him to pick up his dream—sword fighting. It was only when his mother passed away that he finally stopped farming and went all-in into the path of the sword. It was only 6 months since he started, but he already knew how to handle goblin-level monsters in a controlled environment. He might have never truly tested himself out in the jungle and dungeons, but he was progressing, though slowly.
But it wasn't that simple.
When he returned home, he hauled the bodies of the goblins he had slain earlier and brought home in a lizard-drawn cart. In a special room, he hung their bodies on wall hooks. He drained their blood into a basin, bringing it to his bathroom and cleaning himself with the red liquid. Bathing in blood, he expired his heaviest breath, tilting his head against his left shoulder and resting against the edge of the wooden tub. His eyes flickered, as he panted. "Something," he muttered repeatedly.
He finished an hour and a half later. Wadding to his bedroom, his eyes swept over his ten tables, filled with wads of paper documents. He sighed, gently lowering himself onto a stool. "I haven't... had time to... take a break in a while." The thick miasma of death suffused his voice in the form of muffled hoarseness.
"I lived too long a life," he continued when the sun rays eventually tilted toward his window, making him blink.
Standing up, he padded outside, turning several times. In each street thronged soft-colored frocks, white blouses, short surcoats, traders, clerks, smiths, barkers, and tailors.
Finally reaching a small store at the end of a cul-de-sac, he entered, the door chime resounding in the air. He smiled briefly, sitting at the corner, where he straddled a stool and took out a snuff-box, setting it down in a measured way with an appeased expression.
Behind the counter, the clerk's eyes rose from the coin tray beneath the countertop, squinting at the man and his attire.
"Who are you?" the clerk said, steadying himself on the desk as he clutched his right leg.
"I am... Hubert," said the just-arrived man, and a grin overspread his face.
The clerk stuttered, "Well... are you to buy anything?"
"Yes." Returning the snuff-box inside his shoulder-bag, he then tied the bag shut. After standing up, he turned to the door, which was just opening. Someone else was coming in, a silk scarf draped over her head.
"Miss Lisa?" said the clerk.
Hubert's brows drew inward. "Hmm?"
Cleared her throat, the scarfed woman put her umbrella in the rack beside the door and curtsied.
Hubert's brows knitted. "Who's this?" he said, bringing his hand to his mouth and rubbing it dismissively.
"Who are you, Sir?" said Lisa, frowning. Shrugging, the clerk grimaced. "You know him?" he said.
Clenching his teeth, Hubert curled his hand into a fist and rested it on the table. "I'm here for an appointment. This is about the goblins."
"Oh!" the clerk said, skittering through a door at the back, his feet echoing down a staircase that led underground. At the sight of his eye-glare, Lisa dipped her chin in deference.
From the door came a dainty woman, the elf from earlier.
"So?" he said, head turned away.
"What do you mean? You didn't tell me anything?"
"I told you I would call you once I did want it. I now realize I'm here to make that clear. Because clearly, you still don't value me as a patron."
"What..." The elf chuckled as she stopped the red-faced scarfed woman from attacking him, her hand raised.
His back to the others, the clerk's hand rested on a small purple potion in a box beside the wall behind the counter, stern-eyed.
"I just want to make sure we're on the same page." Hubert's voice sounded like it came from behind a wall.
An ax materialized, which the scarfed woman clutched and brought immediately against Hubert.
Hubert smiled, as a blue rippled across a sphere surrounding him, blocking the ax. He raised his palm.
"No!" shouted the elf.
He gradually closed his hand.
"Nooo!"
He stopped midway. "OK, I was just kidding. But seriously, why are your subordinates still acting out like this? I thought these were better."
"Well, supposed to be, but yeah, Lisa, you're fucking fired."
"What!?"
"Fucking shit. I thought we discussed this!"
"Yeah, yeah, but he was going to!"
"He wasn't! He was just being an ass. He's my friend, but that's because we have the same goals. And because of those goals, I'm gonna have to give you up else he won't join me anymore."
"The fuck!"
"Yes 'the fuck'! This is all your fault!"
"What!? I don't fucking get it!"
"Yes, you don't... Leave. Now."
"Fuck, fuck, fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck—fuck!" Her voice resounded as she departed out the door.
"Well, that's done. What next? What you want?"
"Nothing. You made that all happen yourself."
"You're pinning it on me?! You know what you fucking did to Michael!"
"I did do that, but this is something you chose. That was something I chose. You're choosing before I can make my decision. Good. That means you're proactive, and mutually proactive partners mean a good relationship."
"So?"
"As long as you're willing, we'll continue."
"Fuck you, Hubert."
"Yeah, ha, as if... But yeah, I get it."
Stepping outside, Hubert eyed three gold coins gleaming on a stall. Someone seized his arm, a beggar boy.
Shaking his head at first, he gave in and gave the boy three gold coins straight from his breast pocket.
He sighted a low table beside an eatery and drew up a nearby chair to it, sitting down. After ordering, his body settled down in a soughing movement. Behind him, a familiar figure appeared in the passing crowd, a hook-nosed musclebound guard, stalking up to him.
The guard's face came first, coming to his shoulder. Freckles like berry-patches marked it. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be up with the goblins?"
"I should, but there's been a hiccup."
"I see."
The guard squeezed around the other seated customers onto an empty chair, ordering his own meal.
Afterwards, they stood up and hanged out in the streets. For hours they talked about the dreary affairs of the city, switching between the most gruesome details and trivia with no care for differentiating them.
At the end of the day, they parted ways, and Hubert returned home, where blue spectral tendrils were already beginning to form around the goblins he hung earlier.
"I almost forgot about this," he said as he used his shoe to pick up a battered helmet. Wearing it, he went outside and departed to the nearby human-controlled forest to hunt goblins.
Passing over streams well-stocked, he carried a spear at all times, with his iron sword in sheath. Far off extended purpled summits across the continuous mountain range, glistening.
Traversing well-trodden earth along a parched hillside, he sighted many kinds of trees.
He sat down and made camp when he got hungry and the sky dimmed.
"I hope to find a goblin in time."
He winced at someone's grip.
A goblin stabbed him through the stomach.
He produced a potion and knocked the goblin off with his elbow even as it tried to break the potion.
Finishing it, he clenched the blade, pulling it out slowly, screaming.
He got it out and attacked the goblin with deft swings, slicing it thoroughly apart.
Scanning his surroundings, he produced another potion.
An arrow flew, breaking the potion.
"Fuck!" He ran downhill,
Covering several kilometers, he stopped in a thicket.
Soon, the sky was splashed with the reds and oranges of sunrise.
He sat down, falling asleep.
Waking up four and a half hours later, he jumped to his feet, thrusting his sword repeatedly around himself before realizing he was all alone.
He returned home on foot, following the sun but skirting the area he just left.
When he got back in his house, the goblins were gone, but on the floor below collected blue tufts. He bent over and picked them up, consuming them immediately.
His body gradually transformed. His straight nose lengthened and sharpened into a hook. The fat of his face receded, revealing his delicately cut features His skin around his eyes gained a bluish hue.
Behind him, a woman sitting on a chair lifted a bare foot over her other leg. "What are you doing?" she said,
Hubert shot her a glance, turning back around before darting a look at her again. "What the hell! Martha, get out!"
The goblin saw two men standing in the middle of a large clearing. "Hey," he called. "What you guys doing?"
"Huh," said one of the men. "Goblin? What're you doing here?"
"That's what I'm asking. Plus, you can speak Goblin? What the hell is this?"
"Goblin? I speak English, savage."
"Savage. Look who's speaking."
"What the hell are you on? Forgot your kind were our doormats for hundreds of years?"
"Yeah, no. My goodness, haha!"
"What the hell!? Come, Mike, let's have him remember what 'gob' means. Maybe a little toss of the head would make that easier."
The two men approached the goblin.
The goblin sighed, a smirk overspreading his face.
"Yeah, by the way," he said.
The men stopped.
"I forgot about something..."
The men continued walking. "He's bluffing," one told the other.
They raised their hands and lunged.
The goblin lifted his palm up, jumping a hundred meters into the air in an instant. The men cursed in shock. The goblin whirled his hands, producing a portal out of thin air, entering it. "You guys are very cheap."
The men bolted off.
The goblin popped out of thin air in the middle of a goblin town.
He went straight to the town hall. "Let's attack the humans. I want to see how they respond this time."
"Specifics, Byron!" said the goblin woman, tossing her flower shawl at him. "Do you even know how to communicate!?"
"Ah, sorry," the jump-and-portal goblin, Byron said.
Chuckling, a stout goblin sitting with legs up said, "Yeah, we can try tomorrow. But try if you can do the jump without the portal, I want to try Mikey's new ability."
Byron nodded, looking at the setting sun.
The next day, a goblin riding on an oversized bird flew down to one of the trees, as he jumped out. He blew on a noiseless horn whistle, and immediately, in the clouds, a fleet of goblins on large birds appeared. Behind them, an airship with its cute spinning propeller drew up, lowering onto the forest glade.
In lines, the goblins that exited the airship gathered.
Byron stared at the side, as the stout goblin laughed on the way out the airship, being one of the last ones. He was in a group surrounded by similarly aged goblins. One of them came forward and saluted with a left fist, which everyone reciprocated.
He stood in front, glancing at everyone behind him before speaking. "Good afternoon men. We are going to attack the humans around C6. If we can prepare for another bombardment, that'll be great, but keep note of how they manage their mana. Do not attack when you see the particles. They fake them, remember? So contact your team captains first before making the call to attack. Synchronize. Always."
The groups hurrahed, setting foot outside the glade.
Around the forest, various key nooks slowly filled with them. Half aimed bows directly forward, while the other half shuttled to the airship and back, stockpiling arrows to use on demand.
A minute later, a human stepped into view, doing a quick scan before backstepping.
Ten minutes later, a human patrol crept into view and back, all wearing camouflage.
Five minutes later, a human strolled past the concealed goblins before returning.
A "stop" hand gesture from the older goblins spread to the team captains and then to the individual goblins.
Once the airship fully emptied of gear, food, and camp equipment, another replaced it.
As soon as the clock hit 60 minutes, the goblins advanced twenty meters in unison.
One human saw a glimmer. He leaned closer.
An arrow went through his head.
Several more humans fell.
One finally burst their voice out: "Goblins!"
The wall thickened with humans, but they were only beginning to see the full strength of the goblin attack.
The goblins came in sparse wedge formations as the first slow but large blasts of fire consumed the earth glacis around the wall. They rained down arrows on the archer-covered battlements. Behind the wall flew magic-shieled mages immune to arrows, throwing the blasts.
Along with the archer goblins flew the goblin bird-riders, half rushing the mages in the air and the other half releasing bombs over the wall.
The mages and the defending archers dropped dead together.
The second airship had brought explosives.
"Happy anniversary!" chorused a number of men, women, and children who forgathered in a large, high-ceiled home.
From the depths of one leather chair, Martha raised her head with a squint in her eyes, Sprawled with a book, she gave a shrug and returned her eyes to page 54.
Some time after the party ended, her mother ran an affectionate hand through her hair as she went sleepily into the kitchen for a midnight snack.
When her sister Raquel returned home from feasting late at night alongside friends that'd attended the party, Martha's head barely turned at the sight of her, nor did she hear the door open and close.
Sliding onto the floor, she drew herself into a ball.
Smiling her warmest and edging her face close to the refrigerator, she waited for an introduction to the dream fairies.
She waved a comprehensive hand at them.
As the fairies lifted their caps with a flourish and flipped away, she turned on Raquel. "Well? You coming too?"
In her pocket was a golden key from Dad. Dust-puffed, it glowed when she pointed it at the tiny, distant figures of the fairies.
Raquel stared. "What?" she said quietly, giving her own thumbnail a slow massage.
"You wanna come?!"
Martha leapt for her hand as soon as she said okay, clutching her as she led her into the wall.
Gliding through, they entered, fragrant grass catching them as a calm washed over their bodies.
Behind them, the wide, growing forest covered their figures, and through the leaves, the sun sent bright flecks into their thick, glossy hair.
"Where is this?" Raquel said, taking a stick off the ground and scanning it continuously. "What is this place?" Her strained voice fell among soft, brown shadows.
Turning her attention to the world around them, she took slow, deep breaths. The understory off their path sparkled. Upon analyzing the small details, she sighed warmly.
Seeing enough, she stopped in front of Martha to ask her how to get home.
Raquel's eyes dimmed.
The key in Martha's hand was still turning.
Stopping it, Martha instantly turned the world black, returning them to the room they'd just left. She said, "Hmm? We can go, but you don't want to stay?"
Raquel froze before breaking into a guffaw.
Martha's eyes glinted.
"So when can we go again?" her sister said.
Martha's eyes flashed with colors.
"Tomorrow!"
Producing a key from my pocket, I thrust it through the keyhole, pushing my way inside. Clicking my tongue, I removed and chucked my shoes to the side. As I thudded down the hallway, a ring pierced my ears. I cocked my head to the noise. I took off my lanyard and set it on a table over a glasses box. A shadow skittered behind me. I faced about, but the arms already curled around my neck, pulling me down and backward. Gasping, I lunged forward, resisting the pull. A knife stabbed me in the back. With a scream, I bit his forearm, and when he screamed, I kept biting like a rabid dog. He kept stabbing but much weakly this time, and with only one arm around my neck, I shoved him off and grabbed a heavy chair and slammed it down on his far-kicking legs until they lay on the floor flat. I then went for his arms, and when those collapsed, I drove the chair legs directly down on his head. As he fell silent, I panted hoarsely, exhaling lumps of air each time.
As I settled beside the door, I looked past the sun beams at the road that transitioned downhill, with an added azure-blue Jeep Wrangler on the side, under the carport.
My gaze wavered between the man and the scene outside.
"Fuck it." I burst out the shrieking screen door and skipped to the jeep, peering through the left driver window. "Lookie here, what's this I see?" Going back inside, I got my phone from the bedroom vanity desk before taking a wide-zoom picture of the vehicle and its plate number. I phoned the police, got a number, and sent the photo on request.
The dirt gripping under my feet, I went to the back of the house, entered my car, and met the ambulance halfway, leaving the car in a nearby parking lot. After getting care and resting overnight, I set off the next day, buying cheap, bad coffee from a "pick-up" cafe on the way home.
At home, I balked in front of a yellow line. In the distance, several blue uniforms with unfriendly, middle-aged faces came looking at me.
I yawned, coming to rest on a short wall with my coffee, and taking a sip.
Once they got to questioning me, I glued a smile on my face.
I sighed, swallowing through a bone-dry throat.
Cigarette drooping from his lips, he drew a sigh. The previously screaming people overhead hung motionless. Raising his arm, he bent the air around himself. Blasts of wind dragged the people and set them where he gestured.
With the people still mid-air, he fingered their faces. He flicked with his finger, and their jaws opened together. After eying the eroded teeth, he fell to snacking loaves straight out of a bag he set aside earlier.
He filled his stomach, then clapped his hands clean. Sitting beside a tree, he leaned his head against it, falling asleep. The force holding the people up vanished, and they hit the ground.
Two days later, stroking his lower lip, he circled the people as they hung mid-air again. He paused every now and then to inspect a body part.
Halfway through, he turned away and rubbed his lip more intensely.
Making an O with his fingers, he jabbed his hand at their mouths.
Pebbles darted off the ground and slammed into their tonsils. Leaving late, a few more hurried up and squeezed into the little gaps remaining.
Ten hours later, a patch of their skin dropped, revealing stone underneath.
When more patches fell continuously, giving off a delicious odor, he went to take out another loaf of bread, crinkly-eyed.
His smooth cheek bulged at the bite.
Until their whole bodies turned stone, tiny human wrinkles protested against the sun glare.
Two days later, the first golem broke out of the spell, dropping to the ground.
Its eyes flickering as it turned around and gazed at the expanse of shrubberies around it, it soon beheld a figure.
The figure turned, cigarette in hand. He sprung to his feet at the stone-gray, girlish figure before him.
"Thank you so much!" Anne said, meeting his gaze.
Chucking the cigarette and plucking a spear of grass, he paced to her and closed her hand around the grass. "Can you feel it?" he asked.
"Yes." Her face shimmered right before a shadow glanced on the curve of her cheek, drawing their attention.
"How did you do it?" said the second golem that slipped out of the spell, drawing a long breath. Tall and handsome, he laid a cordial hand on the man's hand. The man softened at his grip. "Thank you," the golem said.
"You're welcome, Marvin."
Behind Marvin, more dropped from the straggling line of golems. Their eyes snapped open.
Whipping their heads around, they broke out clumsily into a run at the sight of the man, heaving themselves in his direction. They lifted their faces under the light.
Color rising to his cheeks, the man stretched his arms, closing around the golems in a hug.
Fumbling for his sword, the blood-smeared goblin bounded along before limping up the steps like a flogged animal.
His eyes stung with tears when he reached the balcony, where soot stuck to his damp fingers. After climbing down the wall, he scrambled to the forest edge, brushing himself off reaching hands.
The faces of the human-struck goblins blurred behind him as he left.
The next morning, his gaze bore a hole in the wall. Sitting on a well-upholstered armchair, he mumbled, murmuring the word "clouds" and wheezing softly every now and then.
From the other side of the room, a gray-whiskered goblin said, "Excuse me, Dirk?" He picked at the brocade of his robe. "Do you want some tea?" The cups and platters chinked below him.
Dirk nodded, standing up slowly with a hunched back. It was only when he was fully standing that he straightened himself.
Taking the teacup, he caressed its handle as he returned to his seat, setting it on the low table before the armchair.
The fragance of leaves tickled his nose as he lifted the teacup to his scarred lips.
"What happened?" said the other goblin like an arrow shot to the head.
"Hehe," Dirk said, eyes flitting between the furniture.
"I haven't gotten the full... details of the event."
Dirk got up and walked out, time slowing in the hallway. He made his way down the steps and out the building.
Below him crawled a line of worms. In front of him drove along giant lizards. Beside him passed giant men. Far in the sky exploded purplish blue pops and blossoms.
His ear was ringing, his breath hurried, his eyes snapped-open, his chest deforming between heaves of breaths.
He ran across the city in a straight line.
When he stopped, sweat soaked his clothes, arms, and legs. His feet squelched in his mudded shoes.
"Where am I?" He gasped to breathe.
When I went hunting for some textbooks, I practically sniffed the knowledge off those pages.
It was July 4. I woke up with a red patch across my face. Thought it had something to do with my rashes, but it did not feel itchy. Nevetheless, I chalked it up just to be some form of redness due to the sensitivity of my skin.
I got showering and changed clothes into something neat: purple shirt and yellow shorts with a yellow corduroy jacket and some athleisure pants worn over the shorts. I went outside, hurried down Mane St. and went horizontally along Uff St., at the end of which I turned left out of the subdivision.
By the time I reached the national road, I strolled down the crossing to my right and flagged down a jeep.
I dropped at the terminal and waited in line under the sign that read my destination. After paying, I entered the bus and sat around the middle.
At the end of my trip, I dropped down and walked down to the library, using the footbridge on the way. There, I immediately handed my card and began perusing the books by spine. What a beautiful day! I thought. I looked at my phone, showing a generic fantasy adventure music Youtube playlist playing through my white bluetooth headphones.
Here, I found some interesting books, but most of them were fairly generic and at best decent. I did not find any specific textbooks like "Ecology: The Experimental Analysis of Distribution and Abundance". They were mostly "The Essentials of..." and "The Principles of..."
Boring! I thought.
Given that I had just woken up, I went over to the coffee stall in one partitioned side of the library, naturally not bringing any books from the shelves, and refueled myself.
"Ah, what a simple morning," I wrote in a Google Keep note titled the current date. "Dogs, cars, lights, sunshine."
I later went to the bathroom to tend to my appearance. As I adjusted my hair, I noticed the red patch was gone. I wondered why my skin looked sicker inside than outside.
After returning to the library, I kept looking, going past the first row of shelves I relied on earlier to make my sweeping judgment.
I eventually found a few interesting books: "Dirt Music", "The Devil in the White City", and "Basic Horsemanship." While the last book sounded generic, since it was a topic I've never needed to learn in my life, I immediately took it off its shelf and set it on one of the provided tables near the middle of the first floor. And while fiction was not a textbook, I thought I'd be able to understand words better and how they are used, which would make me keener in reading and interpreting more complex situations than I would otherwise be able to if I relied merely on Latinates.
"What a gladdie day!" said a voice, booming from behind a barrel. "We're going on a trip to Sambaog!" Out stepped a sparse figure, with a shrivelled face, gaze settling on the young, almost childish figure before him. "But first, what do ye have here?!" His expression stiffened to get a better look, his brows beetling. "There's still much to your blessings we haven't cracked open yet!" He whimsically waved around his prosthetic wood hand cannon.
"We're about to cross the bridge," said the boy, eyelids lowering to slits, tracking the cannon with his eyes. "I suggest you keep your head low, Captain."
"Right!" Captain said, striding past. After heading down the staircase, the shadow of the bridge covered him. The mast of the ship then slammed into the bridge, and the ship stopped before it could cross under. He tripped and fell on his knee before leaning over the side of the ship. "What a hellfire!"
After taking a few heavy breaths, he scrambled to his feet before trudging over to the deck.
There, several individuals waited. One of them rolled their eyes at him. Another heaved a groan.
"OKAY! Is everyone ready!?" Captain said.
Only ten minutes later, someone found him sleeping on his haunches against the side of the ship.
After rousing Captain, the boy from earlier helped him up and walked him to his room.
"Man, I would have loved to meet some town-knights," said a young man. "Haven't seen one in forever! This has got to be the boringest field trip I've been on!" His closest classmates nodded energetically. The rest of the class were laughing and teasing along.
"What we'll be getting is no lesser than that," said their teacher, walking on the procession's left flank, next to the young man who had just spoken. A blue-garbed, scarry-faced woman, she was known among the students as the quietest of the teachers, yet her voice rung as deep as a monster snarling beneath. "Calm yourselves."
The young man yipped. "Yes Ma'am!"
Their teacher later raised her hand at the sight of a golem, stopping the students close to her. Behind her, several other teachers nodded, spoke to each other, and gestured at each section of students spanning the entire long line to stop. By the time the group came to an abrupt halt, the golem slowly tilted its head side to side.
Taking its first step off its small circular stone pedestal, it plodded toward them. The students kept their heads straight, eyes following the golem. Once the golem went along the whole line, it went back, returning to its pedestal.
A geometric, sharp-edged being of metal, the golem raised its hand in greeting before leaning aside, gesturing them forward.
While the children passed the golem, they hummed and hawed.
Once the golem was way out of sight, their hushed voices trembled, and grins broke out in their faces.
They began gossiping about the event.
"That's so cool!"
"He's going to kill me!"
"What does he do!"
"How much can he carry!
He clambered to the shotgun, racked a shell into the chamber, fired, watched the cloud of shot fly, and heard the crash.
As the grasses around him rustled in the breeze, he lifted his head and looked around, eyes halting at anything that resembled the edge of a corpse.
After a while, he stopped, left with a pinched expression.
Stepping behind a tree, he lowered to the ground, eyeballing the red pooling on his shoe. He jolted as a bullet pierced the trees.
For a moment, the murmuring of the trees filled his ears.
Taking a deep breath, he counted to three and peeked around.
He jerked back at the sound of full-auto.
Facing away from the spray, he tightened his grip around his shotgun, his finger rubbing shakingly against the trigger guard. Below him, the red on his boot was spilling to the ground.
When the spray finally stopped, he craned his neck while advancing to the next tree.
There, he removed his right boot and held his breath before wrapping it with a bandage, jerking his chin up as he drew them taut.
A shift in the air drew his gaze up.
Coming out of the bushes, a group of men pointed their guns at him.
He guffawed.
Issachar rotated the bean-filled manual grinder for 15 minutes before pestling some black peppercorns in a mortar. "You appreciate it better."
"And?" said a voice behind him.
"And I'm broke." The cat below him, Oreo meowed, stalking through the gap in his legs. "Plus, it's relaxing. The mortar and pestle can be used for anything too, unlike an automatic one. But yeah, no difference in taste. Well, instant does leave a bad taste."
He smiled to himself for a while before continuing, "But yeah, ain't it funny? That I even?"
"It's a personal passion of yours, I get it."
"I mean, if you think about it, why do we even?"
"You said it was relaxing."
"A lot of things, really. Minecraft."
"Huh, where did this come from?"
"Yeah, that game? Why do we even mine? Why not just go do something more productive? I guess... we just like it. It's gamification too. But yeah, Minecraft. Fun, right?"
"Uh, I guess? What are you trying to say?"
"I mean, a lot of the things we do are pretty arbitrary. If it's fun, it's fun, right? Reinforcement. Something Gabe said."
"Wait, I don't get it. Who?"
"Gabe from... the creator of Half Life."
"Oh, ohhh, ok... Wait, how does that relate?"
"I mean, gamification. Relaxing. Coffee. Mortar. Pestle. Grinder. All of it is just me taking my time. Enjoying something 'cause it gives me a sense of well... reinforcement. Like Pavlov's Dog."
"Ohh! I get it! I think."
"Yeah."
The other person's eyes drifted from Issachar's face, resting on the clock. For a moment, their lids were slits. But then they jerked open.
"Hey, are you going to?" Issachar beat her to it.
"Oh! I am. Are you coming!"
"Yes."
"Great. Are you going to take a... right now?"
"Yup."
"OK then..."
"Brothers, what do we have?" David swung his greatsword, pounding it against the mossy, crumbled cobblestone with a web-like shatter. He finished with a snicker.
"Time. That's what we got. Let's use it." Peter stabbed the air multiple times with his double daggers, his hands blurring through the air before he made a cross with them, clenching his teeth and growling.
"This is all we have. This is our final stand." Timothy threw his spear in the air and caught its butt with his palm, holding it up as he weaved and whirled his hand through the air. He shifted into a crane-like stance, a bola dangling from his waist.
"Ha, as if. Let's just get the hell out of here while we still have the chance. But OK, I'm ready when you guys are ready." Danielle thrust her staff forward before ramming the earth and then lifting it against the heavy air, slamming it again and again, jarringly thwacking over the murmuring of the leaves.
"I hope I don't die today." Paulo flew up before settling comfortably high in the air.
"You won't, haha." David swung left and right in tight arcs, bursting a white blast of wind.
Out from a nearby dank cave, the golems whirred closer, thudding rapidly along the verdure. They smashed the ground to stop, catching themselves. One fell, slamming its head on the ground. The bola around its left leg sagged to its ankle.
The golem got up and tore apart the bola. Gaze shooting to Timothy, it snarl-roared, spittle flying as mist.
"Even with rare Jarvan bolas..." A drip of Timothy's sweat tapped the ground.
As for the rest, he threw them into a single large container, watching them clatter to the bottom.
His gaze bore a hole through the mess.
Laying a hand on the rim of the container, he rippled his fingers, edging them around the rim.
Chest swelling slowly, he puffed out his breath like he took a cigarette hit. "I muster everything that I have, yet I am left with this." Thumb and index finger pinched the rim hard. Eyes drifted between the lying figures to his left and the container's dirt-mottled interior.
"His jaw clenched. Taking a deep, whistly exhale, he tapped the rim with both hands before backing off with a casual push. Strolling to the figures, he thudded each step, chin low. He dug his nail into his fingertip.
Finger tracing the edge of his pocket, he thrust his hand inside. He lifted to the opening the edge of a black squarish steel object, breath drifting past his lips.
He exposed his gun, firing at the startled figures. He snarled as he pressed the trigger repeatedly, finger cracking, dominant hand breaking, body burning.
At the end, he watched. Rain dripped at first before shaking the earth.
His figure on that road in front of the parking lot zoomed out, making way for a wider vista of the flanking forest and city-covered landscape.
Drawing a whistly breath, he wafted it out.
In the foggy distance, a flash of light struck Sang's eyes. He stabbed himself with a golden sword, blasting a burst of golden wind behind him. He lifted his chin, as stars popped from thin air above him and eddied into his face. Absorbing them, his face gleamed, gradually forming a mask on top.
From the fog, shots slammed into the air around him, combusting. A golden glow rippled across the translucent sphere surrounding him.
Steps rupturing rock and earth, he advanced. A narrow beam broke out from his face. Its angle gradually widened, creating a floodlight.
Reaching for a floating blade materializing in front of him, he snatched it with a wide arc. A grin tore across his face.
He stepped on a cliff.
Below stretched a dale, murmuring between the crests.
"Well?" His bark ripped through the wind, slicing the billows of cloud.
Wearing brown-banded red robes and an airy smirk, a man levitated from behind the cliff.
"Well?" the man bit back.
A sword fell upon the man. Sang's hands were empty.
It impaled him.
The man gasped, arms drooping, sleeves sagging, eyes whirling.
With a chuckle, Sang materialized a spear and stuck it through the man. Making another one, he did it again. He repeated this seventy times seven.
Later, screaming, the man woke up in rare moments, but the cudgeling knocked him out every time.
Glimpses in between the beating caught a glint of sunlight. In the darkness of sleep, he drifted in the depths of the ocean.
He woke up. Craning his neck, he scanned the forest hemming him in, no longer on the cliff.
Nature's murmurs slowly distorted his expression.
Tapping the table, he laid out a parchment, tapping three different places on it. He turned to his left, nodding. The woman in front of him nodded back and took his place. With her gaze, the two lines of figures stopped. Palming the table, she whispered, "Three villagers, four swordsmen, and seven archers." The two men closest to her on her left hummed. The three elves farthest to her on her right hawed. The four dwarves around the other end of the long table's length eyed each other.
She sighed, palming the table again. "We need reinforcement of the Canat flank, but before that, the new operation needs to be adjusted."
"How?" said the faces of the line on her left. The right side bit their lips, eyes lowered.
"According to our new estimates, an adjustment of about 50 men is needed. Elves need to be pulled back to make room for the Cussus magic. Dwarves, as usual, will facilitate, forming the bulk of our infrastructural efforts."
"Right," said the man behind her. "You heard her! 'Keep the pace' is the bottom line. Stabilizing at this point is not suggested. We need to 'up the ante' that our opponents have established. Bring the fight to them and have them scatter in the face of our steadfastness."
The woman, with compressed lips and gaze cast aside, nodded. After the man fell silent, she snapped her gaze back at the crowd. "Now, first, you three." Pointing at the dwarves, excluding one, she made a wringing gesture. "Wrestle out Muff Fort. Then the gemrings are yours." With the unified nod of the last party addressed, the meeting ended, and everyone dispersed.
The man and the woman shared one glance before parting ways, stressing their tones in the face of the royal guards standing at the door. "It is complete," they and the rest of the the attendees said one by one, each passing through the same guarded doorway.
Emerging from the earthen pillar, they sloughed down the steps, prating along.
A chorus of hooves rumbled below, riders' eyes penetrating the descending figures.
Beside the horsemen waited carriages in a line.
Once the figures reached the bottom, they strode to their carriages.
Forming a procession, the carriages and riders pulled out, streaming down the trail.
Three towers rose from the distant hills.
Ahead ran a road, first frayed, dirt-studded, and tuffed, but gradually solid, earth-free, and weed-cleared as they approached the heart of the city.
He sauntered out the front door, bottle of water and phone in hand. Growing more and more sun-bruised, he left his subdivision. When he arrived at the main road, he turned left to walk down its sidewalk. A number of eyes fell on him as he passed. The lavender shirt and mustard-yellow shorts made him pop out like cherry on a black pall. With fair skin and layered, tousled, shoulder-grazing thick, dark curls, he was broadcasting his presence whether he liked it or not. Yet his eyes and people-passing gait were immediate, weaving along. Behind him blurred figures in fraying, mottled, dimmed clothes. He scudded past an unrolling scroll of transient expressions, faces, and postures.
Reaching a footbridge, he climbed and crossed the darkness under an elevated highway, peeking at the river of cars below. He sighed as the map on his phone led him right. Below spread the world in sections. Once he climbed down, he climbed one final short footbridge before his eyes admitted the mall massif. He lifted his phone, took a picture, and sent it in his group chat with a message: "I finally walked to Santiago by myself lol better late than never."
Kicked in the face, the boy fell to the ground.
"Sensitive little shit," said his attacker.
Tears streaming down his face, the boy crawled in place, stumbling to get on his knees, caterwauling.
*God, smite this man.* The boy's mind whirred, chugging, sputtering, bursting, spilling. His eyes flickered before flashing.
Beaten repeatedly, the boy raised his hand to the sky, making a clutching motion at it.
*Kill him.* His cracked, split-lipped, red-dribbled face smiled.
Producing a rock from the abysmal earth, he waiteed for David's blessing. "God, sharpen my aim."
Throwing it, he missed, yipping.
He fled, heaving breaths, wheezing.
From the distant hills, three towers rose.
"Help!" he screamed.
Behind him, a distorted silhouette in the form of a man chased.
Thudding along the hillside, he picked at the blades of weeds below him, his eyes whirling. He snapped his head to the trees, caws breaking out across the leaves. Turning and rolling, he rushed uphill, pricking his forearms, face, legs, and toes on the grasses. He bawled and snatched his throat, cutting off his primal screams. In a wide arc, he hurled his body over the hilltop, his figure growing in size as he rose to his feet. The world drifted downward from there as he melted between the trees, closing the distance with one of the three towers.
The door squealed open. With a smile, a man strolled up. "Hello, who are you?"
The boy glimpsed a square-headed, thick-robed, musclebound-armed figure before starting away.
Overreaching, the figure's hand pinched his arm, halting him completely. "Hello? Who... are... you?"
Falling to his haunches, the boy covered his ears and burst into tears.
Frowning, the man glanced around before eying the boy, gaze traveling his features. "So... who are you?"
The boy wailed for thirty minutes before the man sighed, stepping inside and slamming the door, snap locking from inside.
"Hubert." The boy crept up.
Opening the door ajar, the figure materialized. "Hmm? Hmm... Hmmm... Good." He swung the door open and gestured him inside.
The boy faltered inside, head forward, grimacing.
Humming and hawing, the figure trudged up the staircase inside. "Wanna come up? There's nothing here." A bunch of crates, straws, and small bones were strewn around.
The boy nodded and followed like a snail.
Adjusting his belt, the figure rattled his trouser pocket, taking out a toy dagger and handing it to the boy. "Here you go."
Both hands raised palm-up, the boy looked between the dagger and the figure's face.
Smiling, the figure gestured him to continue following along as he resumed up the steps again.
The boy held the dagger point-down butt-up with both hands, pressing it against his chest as he strode along.
When they reached the second floor, the figure waved his hand, gesturing to the room. "This is where you can stay." A small bed stood in the middle.
The boy blinked twice, scuttling toward it before balking in front of the bed. Shooting the figure a look, he compressed his lips.
The figure heaved a nod, waving his hand loosely. Turning away, he continued upstairs to the third floor.
The boy set the dagger under the bed before placing both hands on the bed. After pushing down several times, he smiled slightly.
He got up one leg at a time, then crawled over it.
Lying down, he rested his eyes on the ceiling. He jabbed a finger skyward, drawing it along the lines.
Hours later, the rain drummed on the room's window-pane, trickling down the sill. The boy snored, eyes shut, one arm flat on the bed, the other resting on his face.
He pressed his hands against the edge of a table, craning his neck under the table to view the patina that had reached the underside. Getting up, he hummed and nodded. "You seem to be correct, Miss Sam. There has been differences since our last visit. What could have happened during our absence?"
Sam pressed the back of her hand against her chin, stretching it. He watched her from the side with doe-like eyes.
Eyes darting to the shine of the table in front of her, she leaned forward from her chair to get a better look, elbows flat on the table. "Well, a plethora of things. I wonder if it is related to Zeus."
"Zeus? The god or the stage name of that friend of yours?" He darted her a lighthearted smirk.
"The latter." Sitting on the edge of the chair, she got up unevenly, rattling it.
She took an object from the table, padding to him. "By the way, try this. If this doesn't work, try again."
"Is this metaphor? What would a compass have to do with anything?"
With a playful scowl, she grinned. "This isn't a compass, doofus. It's a gemstone, but metal-plated to maintain its aesthetic."
"Oh!" He took it and thrust it into his pocket, taking out a copper coin. "Is this enough?"
Shoving it against his chest, she frowned. "What do you mean? Did I ask for anything? This is a gift for your mom. You said she needed convincing for your thing with your girlfriend." The sun beaming through the window sparkled her eyes.
"This is your solution?" He took out the gemstone and lifted it just shy of his face, rotating it.
Lowered to slits, Sam's eyes tore into him.
Drawing his head back, he looked aside before slipping the coin back.
"Well, let's go." Bumping past him, she hollered on the way downstairs, plodding along. "Whoever caused this, Zeus or not! Someone is to blame!"
Standing at the edge, I gripped the metal zipper, worrying the hem and trying to get it to rip. But no success followed. I continued up and pinched the jacket's shoulders, pulling at it with both hands to make a tear. But I watched in silence as the fabric remained firm. I gritted my teeth and slammed the jacket with my fist while holding it with the other. The fire coursing through my mind flared at each punch, the force bursting a blast of wind behind the jacket. When it finally exploded apart, I threw a sigh, a redness burning my cheeks. I went on my knees, pressing my arms against my chest as tears stung my eyes.
Getting up, I stared out the window.
The sun, moon, and stars rapidly descended and ascended.
Instantly drying, my tears gradually wore away my face.
The letters on the desk cracked before crumbling.
Falling off its hinges, the door banged on the floor.
The scene melted away, revealing the ceiling on the other side.
I woke up and stretched out of bed, working my way to the door. After opening it, I closed it softly. I went over to the kitchen table with slow breaths. Sitting down, I lifted my hand to my face, squinting. As I rotated it, I curled and uncurled my fingers. My eyes dove into my nails, resting on every black fleck. After looking over the last nail, I dug my nails into my fingertip, rubbing it along their edges and lifting my eye at the cragginess. Picking up a nail cutter from the countertop, I resisted the quiver, pointing the cutter at the nails. I snapped the ends off one by one.
After a whining blast from a plasma gun, the wall crumbled. A woman in combat gear peeked before stepping out. Her gaze swept the hallway, stopping on a man wearing a heavy backpack. He gave a thoughtful hum. "Ready?"
"Yes." She pressed several glowing buttons on her shoulder pads, turning them off. Wafting out of them, the slight mist dissipated.
The man, rubbing the hem of his black-banded purple cloak, offered her several metal cylinders, eyes glued to the end of the hallway. After racking them into her gun, she shook it, feeling the weight. She nodded.
Around the corner, an officer in green uniform with the GOA insignia appeared, raising a red-lined pistol and pulling the trigger.
The beam slammed just shy of the man, dissolving. As blue rippled across a translucent sphere around him, the man barelled to the wall behind the woman. She steadied her fingers, shooting from behind a crate already. To the other end of the hallway, her beam zipped, overshooting to the wall and evaporating with a sizzle. She glared. Fuck.
On her left, the man sighed and shouldered a dusty cannon onto a crate with damp, dirty hands. He flicked a number of its switches to arm it before scrambling off. The two ducked, heads down. As soon as the gun roared, a scorching laser hummed inside it before flashing across the wall, slicing the officer in half.
Resting in the darkness for a few moments, the two raised their heads, eyes gleaming at the sight of the fiery scene. Metal, flesh parts, and flames were strewn throughout.
Getting up, she brushed dust off her gray fatigues and threw a playful sigh. "Why did it take so long for you to get it out?"
The man shrugged as he swaggered down the hallway, slipping the cannon back into his unzipped backpack, sweat dripping. "Blame Ada."
Skirting over the debris and flame, she stopped and turned halfway. Her nose wrinkled at the acrid scent of skin burning. "What?"
"She had the part!"
Stopping, the woman stared while he walked backward.
She dashed to him, clutching his arm and yanking him against the wall. Finger at the distant shadows around the corner, she covered her mouth. "Someone's there."
Picking the heavy coat up, he whooshed his arm through it, thumping it on.
A woman sat on a crate behind him, adjusting her bottom several times to get it just right. "So what have the box-people been doing?"
Before exhaling, the man inhaled deeply through the nose. "Sitting. Idly. I haven't seen them move an inch since we arrived here."
He sat down next to her on the same crate, craning his neck toward her, eying her necklace and expression. "Do you know anyone who could task them to do something?"
Shrugging, she gazed at the foams, crests, and waves, her crossed arms resting on the edge of the crate.
He lifted his chin with a grimace, turning away. "It's getting irritating watching them do nothing and sit there." Jabbing his finger around, he drew his tongue taut before breathing out a pungent scent. "It's like they're a bunch of statues. What are we here for?" Her expression tugged his eyes again as he continued, "A sculpting? A carving session?"
Leaning forward with a hunch, she folded her hands casually. "Well, as long as they're doing what they're supposd to, it's fine." She darted her gaze out to a group of figures standing together in the distance. "Lord Songraitu doesn't seem to have any problem with them doing that, given that he's sitting there laughing with his guests." Slowing her breath, sighing, eyes shut, she dug her nail into her fingertip, puckering her lips in concentration. "If they're doing anything wrong, he'd say."
He bit his lip imperceptibly when he glimpsed her face with that expression. "Yeah. I guess so."
Red blurred. Breathing glacially, I fastened my eyes on my dirtied nail. I stabbed with a dagger in my left hand, breaking, shattering, cracking, striking repeatedly. With a heft of breath, I repeated my steps, cascading forward. My blade bit into fabric with a snag, digging into it and removing flesh. Gasping, I stepped aside, a halving arc overshooting me. Bucking back, I narrowly avoided a blinding fiery burst blasting from thin air. One eye stung with sweat, while the ozone of morning flushed through my lungs. Against my callused skin, the roughened fabric of the dagger handle chafed. The distance filled with high-pitched whines, bellows, and shouts, my vision slowing and dragging along. As my chest burned and throat swallowed dry air, I made a misstep, falling and catching myself on my arms. I coughed, getting up, as silhouettes danced in the fog. On the ground beside me, a rugged-haired man lay, blood pooling, wearing layers of sharp-edged clothes, arm dirtied. I thrust my hand into a muddy puddle while crawling, splashing my face. I scrambled up as dark horses mounted by full-armored soldiers bearing red-tipped poles thundered along my left side. Shrinking in their eyes, I averted my gaze.
Through a portal, russet-clothed goblins went out in fours, dragging along cannons to the edge of a battlefield.
Goblins in purple, yellow-lined robes thronged the edge in eights. In their hands, pulsing, swishing whirls of brilliant blue floated. Each blue wafted off their hands into one giant, red-glowing, hovering eyeball. It hummed, slowly brightening before flashing. In front of it, spinning coronas of white fire materialized one by one. its bellow gradually crescendoed into a howl after it reached one hundred coronas. Once it hit its loudest, it blasted them to the distance.
The coronas hurtled, screeching across the battlefield. Slamming multiple defenses, they darted up earth and ruptured stone. Cries chorused, as bodies flumped, perfuming the breeze with putrid fluids.
Catching fire, the scene gradually distorted before burning away. The other side revealed a desk inside a room.
Removing his translucent eyeglass, a man dissipated it into dust with a wave. He shook off his vision of the battlefield, blinking hard. Turning his head to the door, he stood up, grazing his armchair. He squeezed along the edge of the desk. Padding along the floor, he passed several ajar drawers, peeking inside. Strange metal objects, ancient papers, and arcane scrolls collected dust.
Leaving his house, he walked down the colonnade outside. He saw the goblin fours lined up and dragging their cannons through the portal.
Traveling outside of the area, he headed into a cul-de-sac. A woman threw a bag onto a horse-drawn wagon beside the sidewalk.
Throwing a brisk wave, he jogged to her in his white cloak. "Hey! Attending the party?"
She wiped the sweat off her forehead, shaking the wrinkles out of her damp, dark sleeve and trouser leg. "Yeah, don't sweat yourself. I have to set up the stall and all."
While he rode along, she drove the nicked, scratched wagon.
The door chunked open and closed. Setting his foot against the door to stop it from closing, he heaved in a large, heavy bag, placing it in the hallway. He trudged to the dinner-table, dropping his house key, a folded bus ticket, a crumpled straw wrapper, and several coins. On the table sat a fish-covered platter covered with another platter to keep the flies out. He looked inside the fridge, taking out the rice container and sliding it onto the table. From the kitchen countertop, he took a spoon, and from the drawer, a plate.
He scooped rice with his spoon, eying the paddle in the utensil holder, stopping at four spoonfulls.
Hitching the monobloc chair out, he sat down. He took his phone out of his white athleisure trousers. In the phone, he swiped up several tabs, deleting them. He tapped Youtube and scrolled a little before stopping at a music video, pressing the power button and putting it beside him. Right as he was about to eat, he knitted his brows at the sight of the plain fish. He went back to the fridge to grab the sauce platter, dousing the fish.
After eating, he washed the spoon and plate, leaving the fish and sauce platters on the table. The hallway flashed before darkening. Lumbering through the door, several black-shirted, dark-trousered figures removed shoes and hauled crates inside.
He strolled inside his room, lying on the bed, knees up.
The man barked at Paulo with a knife.
Handing him the nozzle, Paulo jerked his head at the truck, radioing the engine man inside. The knife man hauled it, trudging toward his burning home.
Increasing the water pressure, the engine man radioed his affirmation. The nozzle burst and blasted out of the knife man's hand, slamming into his face. Collapsing, the man darkened as Paulo's shadow passed over him. The engine man decreased the pressure, radioing Paulo to retrieve the nozzle.
With nozzle in hand, Paulo wet the dry houses near the burning ones, even as people yelled at him to stop. Another team fought the fire itself.
After they finished off the fire, a number of months later, Paulo sat down in the cafe, eyeballing the computer set up in front of him. "Don't go to Manila. Lot of volunteers there. Have to go because fire is big, 5th level. Need fire trucks. Some friends ask for assistance. That's why we respond, but normally we don't, because it's not safe in Manila, especially in Tondo."
The man at the computer hitched his chair farther from the table. "I didn't know that!"
Tossing several spears, Ron swung his body, grabbing them as they formed out of thin air. The spears left behind sparkling, dusty, glassy trails, slamming, hurling dirt and rock.
"OK, next. I want to test out the new ones. You have them?"
"Yes, but these are still experimental—"
"Doesn't matter. As long as they don't fizzle out midair, we're good."
"They won't, but they could explode prematurely."
"Prematurely? What does that mean? I could die?"
"Yes—no. It will just explode midair. Not fizzle. But yes, it won't hit because... destroyed."
"I see. OK. Give them to someone else. I want something that hits. You got any experimental ones that hit?"
"Yes. But those are still only few in number. We don't want to—"
"Hand them to me. I'll just use [Retrieve] to make sure they're not in the rock too long."
"That's... That will still break it."
"It will, but at least, it won't be broken too long."
"What? No. It will still break upon impact."
"Doesn't matter. Hand them to me."
"Sorry, we can't do that."
"...Fine."
After the training session, they descended along the mountainside, stopping by a stall. They bought a few goods, namely rice, cranberries, and squash. Hurrrying home, Ron's companion led him through a shortcut. They arrived at the mouth of a narrow valley trail beside an exposed portion of an underground river.
Traveling along the trail, they sighted the black, sharp-edged, lofty-steepled tower.
They saw the path that led them through the marshes ending in the wetter road-paved side of the city edge.
Once there, they greeted the guards, paying the one-coin toll. They went along a familiar circuit, stopping at the door of an apartment. Inside, they glimpsed several young women standing in front of a colorfully dressed man. They passed by them and saw in another room ten children singing in front of three teachers all wearing white, wide-brimmed hats. Further inside roared a beast in a cage beside a staircase. They climbed to the second floor, entering one of many rooms in a hallway. Sitting down, Ron and his companion greeted the room owner, an older woman wearing russet clothes, sitting with closely clasped hands and a slight smile.
"Where's Mr. Richards?" Ron eyed the winged lizard in one of the dim, dusty shelves behind her.
Deepening her smile, the woman looked down and aside. "I haven't seen him in a while."
Ron's companion, Sol, stood up and, with hands grasped behind his back, leaned to the window, staring at the street peppered with children and old, black-hatted men below.
Samuel got out of bed, staring out the window. In the distance, birds streaked across the sky, clouds scudded, and trees swayed. How's Kuya David's band been doing?
He strolled out his room to the dining room with a thoughtful hum. I wonder if Tanja's going to be there at NPG.
Through the window screen wafted an early morning breeze. He closed it. Hopefully, I'll learn how to sing that part of Dakila Ka O Diyos.
His eyes flickered as he read a digital book. Talking about video games and movies, two siblings passed him, settling beside the TV.
Settling on the couch, Samuel devoured five chapters in 45 minutes.
A violin note screeched in his ears, and a whip-like whoosh shook his head. He collapsed. Running to him, his siblings shouted.
"Sam!"
"Mom! Sam fell!"
His vision blurred, and around him, the world dissolved into dust. An acrid, muddy scent clogged his nose.
On the ground, he woke up, face planted. He scanned the forest around him. "What?"
From the bushes, goblins darted and rattled toward him in boots and mottled russet clothes, rusted swords, maces, cudgels, and spears in hand.
He screamed. Shoulders heaving, he dashed around a tree and bolted along mud grooves resembling a trail.
From the bushes along his left side, pigs ran, stumbling into his path. He almost tripped when one of them bumped into him. Catching his breath, he watched as the goblins dug their blades into a pig and tore into its insides. Blood and growls filled the air. From the sky, sun beams dappled entrails through leaves.
He sprinted around a turn, winding among trees.
Behind him, two goblins climbed a tree and launched themselves off it. They landed near him, charging through greenery to intercept him.
Halting, he dodged them. Clutching branches, he climbed a muddy bank onto the upper field and fled.
A dagger thudded the tree beside him. Another penetrated through a distant pig. A third went through his leg.
Samuel fell and reached out. Scrambling against the grass, earth, rock, and mud, he tore a hole in his shirt.
The goblins crowded the path behind him. At the sight of them, he squealed, turning to the sky, expression crumpling.
He yelled and seized the next branch, hauling himself forward. From the distance, a horn roared through the forest.
The blades fell into him, whirling through skin and muscle. Gurgling, he jolted, yowling.
Across his face, shadows drifted. Arrows and potions flew, stunning and taking out goblins.
Clanking, thumping, armored men tore into the scene, slashed, and pushed aside goblins.
A green-glowing hand, smelling of honey, dropped to him.
His vision returned, and from thin air, his fingers and limbs grew back, wiggling.
A gasp tore out of him. Wheezing to the ground, he panted, eyes wet. He screamed, eyes glued to his fingers and limbs. "They're back! They're back!"
Around him, the bloodshot-eyed men darted. The sweat-drenched, clammy-faced goblins bolted. Wheezing for air, they caught the edge of a blade one by one.
Beside Samuel, a woman rose to her feet. She flicked her hand aside, removing the green glow. Wearing a colorful, floral dress and a silver skirt with a blue pattern, she drew his gaze.
He fixed his eyes on his hands and body before returning to her. "Thank you." Behind his ear, he tucked a strand of hair.
She glanced at his strange clothes, nodding. "You should rest. Don't worry about us. We'll talk later."
When the last goblin fell, a man blew a horn. Samuel snapped his head to it, eyes flashing.
Now that he had space, Samuel's eyes darted around, looking for gray concrete.
The woman turned around and joined the men.
As his mind whirred and flashed, his hands jittered. The men dragged and stacked the goblin corpses in a pile before forming a circle where they ate and drank to celebrate.
From the circle, a tittering man wearing a large fur cloak got up and trudged to Samuel. "Boy, why so far out? Anyone with you? Where's your group?" His voice boomed across the field. Drawing the attention of the rest of the circle, he raised his palm at them and gestured himself and Samuel. The other men nodded, turned away, and resumed their conversations.
Meanwhile, since the woman spoke to him, Samuel's attention barely left her. She was smiling and talking beside two other women in the circle.
Beside him, the fur man stopped.
Samuel took a breath, facing him. "I don't remember how I got here. All I know is that... Boom! Gone! Then I was here." Out of the man's cloak, the pungent scent of blood wafted.
Before smiling, the man locked eyes with several of the men in the circle. "Wanna come with us?"
Samuel turned left and right. "Uh, excuse me, where?"
"Home... Suti." The man beckoned him to the circle.
Samuel followed. Lord. Please help me.
After he slid the large book onto the small book, its already split and loose hinge sheared. "Ah shibal." Even without his seeing, the snap vibrated through the larger book and into his hands.
He inhaled deeply through his nose, compressing his lips before sighing through ajar lips.
With a thud, he rose to his feet and hesitantly padded outside, strolling along the sidewalk and then down the middle of the street, where several crowds were yelling and throwing molotovs.
He passed by them, stopping by a shop with broken windows. "Hello?" He smiled weakly.
The woman behind the counter with blood dripping from her forehead waved with fluttering fingers. "Hello Sun!" How're you doing!"
Sun turned aside, gazing at the vinyl titled "GREATEST SHITS" littering the floor. "I don't know. I haven't really heard from Mikey recently. Have you?"
She raised her brow, gesturing him to the menu, with her business smile.
Sun's eyes shot between her and the menu, his mouth slowly opening. With a jump, he pointed. "Oh! I'll have an Americano."
"Right on it!" The woman handed him the coffee cup she already knew he'd get. She had been preparing it since she saw his distant figure.
"Thank you!" He went to one of the toppled tables and stood it up, sitting down, one arm leaning over the backrest, the other over the table.
Once he got a sip of his coffee, he looked up tearfully, smiling. "I haven't gotten something this good in a long time. Thank you."
The woman stared at him, eyes vacant. "You're welcome."
Sun looked outside, tapping the cup as he held it with one leg crossed over another, sitting against the chair set against the wall.
Smoke wafted, and in this little world, fresh, bruised colors burst in the air.
"Death to those who know not the plight of those whose lives are being desecrated and imposed upon!" A man, holding a book, pointed at those who lived just beside the informal houses. The pain in his eyes flared into a bitter curl of the lower lip. Wearing the white-golden cloth of the Righteous, he should have been a part of them, but he was here now, dirtied, bloodied, and split-lipped. His eyes struck the white-golden walls. "That they even mocked them for their suffering!
"They bathe in churches and lather themselves with the joys of goodness, but their eyes know no evil. The 'evil' of men, women, and children whose lives lay in darkness and in pity. They know not the hatred they spit at the sight of those pitiable, patronizing stares. How dare they!"
The chins of the men around him rose higher at his words, gazes clutching the gate.
"These 'evil' people. They cry out..." He nodded.
"Now!" One of them screamed, bolting toward the tower, toward death.
The gunmen cocked their rifles at the heads, bullets flying and chopping them off one by one, reducing them to pitiable shreds. The mockery imprinted in their bullets distorted and tore through flesh and blood, the pure-blood of the true righteous, the sufferers of this hellish gate! Of this ghetto boundary!
As the cacophony of trauma and war raged and the runners screamed in terror, the man was quick to assert over the prevailing winds of a rout: "This is the final rite! The honorable life. The ones you heard from the books! This is what they speak of! That they never accomplished in their own lives! That you all have accomplished!"
More rose up and laved the wall and gate, ascending and tearing through concrete.
The Righteous flinched as the walls cracked for the first time.
The man went forward with a hammer and slammed the nail embedded into the concrete, snapping a vibration across the gate that sheared the edges of the gate. The fighters pushed and toppled the gate, rushing in even as their feet clattered and snagged on the hooked metal and caltrops.
In their flight, the gunmen fell apart at their ravenous hands, dying one after another.
"Well." He raised his hands. "Isn't it funny?" Smirking, he tensed his voice. "That we as people like to enjoy ourselves so candidly, so nicely. To have our souls so perfectly arranged? Isn't that our duty, our goal? Ha-ha-ha. I've seen enough of you people to know what it's like, to be broken, to be unadored. I get it. But here's the thing. Here's the thing. I live a life, oh yes I do, I live it so gently, so carefully, hoping no one or nothing gets in my way, but hey lookie here, a bunch of dudes decided that it was perfectly so straight and all a-okay to just waltz up and try their hand at being, well, a bunch of cool people. And it's fun. It's fucking fun. It's nice in fact. I like to imagine that yes, it is the nicest thing..." He shook his pocket, thrusting a finger in, as he held the last syllable he said. "Well, here it is!" He took out a gun. "I've never had the opportunity to use this. I was scared, really. I mean, look at this." He raised his trembling hands. "I can't even—ha-ha-ha! I can't even get myself not to feel this way. It's unstoppable, un-sto-ppa-ble. It's funn-y!"
The group of teenagers in front of him stared back at him, dead silent.
"I can't do it, you know. All of this. I did try." The man sighed. "I can't pretend not to be me anymore. This is who I really am. It's everything I've been set up to be. All my life... I've never known what it was like. But I know now. This is what it's like. This is what it means to be one of everybody. I am fulfilling my role now and embracing it.
"I've always liked people like you. I see the beauty in it, you know. All of you. People, genuine, honest, kind. I used to be kind too. But I guess, that kindness is outdated. I know now that true kindness is honesty, and honesty, well, is communication, and communication is real, re-al-it-y. I know that now. I have spent all of my life trying, art, writing, drawing, music, everything... I tried to say hello. But I couldn't. A face-to-face conversation never got me that hello. I never got to say it, I never got to be heard. I never got to feel like I was there. No one saw me. I felt like a tool, an extension, a thing of a thing. But I'm here now. You can see me!
"Hello~!
"I never wanted to hurt anyone. I just wanted to be kind, to help others, to be a part of everybody. But I lost that. I lost everyone I ever knew. And now, I'm here, after so many years of trying. I am thankful to all of you for being here with me. I guess I never got to thank you. If I didn't, well, let me say it now. Thank you. I thank you for taking time with me. I will not hurt you. I just wanted to talk to someone, to express these feelings inside." He dropped the gun. "Now, kill me. Actually, wait, I can do that myself." Picking up the gun, he tried to point it at himself.
But he couldn't. "Actually, I don't want to die. What am I doing here? Where am I? I NEVER WANTED THIS. I NEVER WANTED THIS. I NEVER WANTED THIS.
"NOOOOOO!!!
"DON'T KILL ME PLEASE! DON'T KILL ME PLEASE!"
His youngest brother Timothy pointed.
Samuel went to the table.
"No, not there!" Timothy pointed again at the shelf. "There!"
"Oh, I found it!" Samuel got the nailcutter from the shelf. "Whoopsie-daisy!"
Timothy, sitting at the table and using his laptop, said playfully, "Of course you found it, dumbass!
"Woaw! Mean much?"
While cutting his nails, Samuel stopped to watch some Twitch before looking at his nails again. "Oh right." He stared at his large thumbnail. "Haz damn!"
Later, the second-to-youngest brother, Peter, went down—long-haired, thin, and shirtless, wearing earphones, clinging to his Ipad.
He saw the rice on the electric stove. "We have brown rice, we have brown rice?"
"Yeah..." Timothy said, curling his lips imperceptibly at the sound of anything not white rice.
"YEAHHH! THANK THE HEAVENS!" Samuel imitated a viking's guttural voice and threw his fist in the air.
Five minutes later, David, the older half-brother, went down, also shirtless.
While still on the stairs, he asked Timothy, "Have you seen Mom? Have you seen Mom?"
Timothy swiveled to him and swung his head left and right. "No."
When David lay on the couch, Timothy briefly hitched his monobloc stool closer to him. "You're a fatso, just like me. Just like me. Just like me!" He broke into song. "I'm just like you! You're just like me! And something cannot see!"
Ten minutes later, Samuel stood up and passed by Timothy's table. "Yo, thanks for the water bro!" He grabbed the iced water and raised it to his lips.
Timothy threw a mock gasp with both hands on his face.
Samuel let out a guttural "Ahh!" after sipping the water. "That tastes so good!" He returned to his computer desk.
After a moment, he stood up, clapping, drawing Timothy's attention. "Finally did it!"
He snapped his gaze at the empty iced tea container. "Oh, I should get more hoo-se (a playful butchering of 'juice')!"
Upon getting to the back of the house, he saw the three banana hands beside the sink. "Oh, there's ban-an-a?"
In a city built on a gigantic stone palm, a round, brown home crested a dirt hill edged with stone paths. Inside the home lived a creature with an eggplant-shaped, orange body.
After eating supper, he exited. He gently shut the rattling, wood door and hopped off the doorstep.
His people teemed around him alongside cluttered workshops and castellated towers.
Strolling down the streets, hemmed in by rows of buildings, he dipped his two-horned head to get under the awning of one workshop. Inside sat red-faced, sweaty Thorn, with one leg extended on the floor, thoughtlessly eating tongue-parching biscuits. Raising his head to look, he rubbed his nose at his visitor's strong, woody scent. "Need anything, Gernd?" A warm smile spread on his face, and his eyes gleamed despite the shadow Gernd cast.
Gernd turned his head side to side before meeting Thorn's gaze, whispering. "Are they..."
"No. Two months since." Rubbing the sweat off his throat and forehead, Thorn exhaled.
Gernd nodded, tight-lipped. He headed out.
From the street, he looked up.
The clouds scudded above.
He dropped his head. His eyes swiveled. His cheeks heaved. He panted through his nose.
A figure ran to him.
Gernd jerked away. "Hey-o!" shot the voice of smiley Adrian.
Adrian knitted his brows at the sight of his expression. "Anything...?"
Gernd stiffly uncoiled. "Hi." He looked away.
Adrian dropped his shoulders and frowned. "Is it something I shouldn't know?"
Gernd bit his lip.
After giving him one more long look, Adrian sighed casually. "I'm leaving!" He zoomed away to outrun the wind. "Wooooooo!"
"I am the entirety of self." He tossed his spear up and grabbed it midair, rotating it along his hands as he whirled it behind and around him. He smirked, standing amid eddies of tiny silver sparks.
A goblin threw itself at him.
He stopped it and sat it down, snapping his finger. From his hands snaked a tendril, clutching the goblin's wrist. "OK, I see you're upset, but right now, I don't want to fight. If you want to play-fight, but killing? No. We have to think about this. Why don't we start by talking about why you want to attack me."
The goblin snarled, raising its blade as if to attack. But its expression contorted at the thump of the tendril. Seeing no way out, it dropped its glare to speak. "Disgusting human, you don't get it, do you?"
"What do you mean?"
"As if you haven't been goading your human buddies to loosen the restriction on dungeon exploration. That's our home, bastard!"
"I get it. You're right. It is your home, and having humans enter your home at all is unfair. The fact that human systems give them permission is unfair too, even with due process, since it benefits the 'us' in the human–goblin question in the end, even with all of our internal factionalism."
"Yeah. Wait, why're you saying all this? Aren't you the one who supported it?"
"Yeah, I did. But I understand what I'm taking away from you. I'm not doing this because I believe humans are superior, but I believe simply that I would rather benefit from it. For lack of a better word, I think in results, you see."
"Disgusting! You're... Disgusting!"
He took a long, slow breath, softly smiling, eyes closed. "I used to feel like you. Kindness, hope, dreams. I used to believe that one had to do the right thing. And the thing is, I still believe that. But here am I. Wanna know how I got here?"
The goblin eyed the treetops. Out of them bore three birds. One struck the other two and, after felling them, flourished its wings in the open air. At the sight of this, the goblin clenched its teeth and dropped its head. Its sweat trickled to the soil. It stuttered. "I wanna know."
"The things that I do, I do for a reason." Muttering, he strode down the steps.
In front of him surged people left and right. Yells, whispers, mumbles, and cries squeezed past his ears.
"This world. I cannot cope with it." Upon arriving home at his studio, he cut his heart out and bled it against the canvas, sticking and dragging it along, sketching out the essence of humanity.
Along thumped and breezed his hands and fingers, releasing his wrist-sprayed floral scent, even as the moisture in his throat dried up. The bottled water on the desk before him fell off, spilling against the floor, laving his feet.
By the end of it, an ugly face met his gaze, in terror and agony. When he finally took a swig, it was cloying sugary iced tea, sliding down the walls of his throat. He unleashed an openmouthed "Ahh!"
His fingers dried with crusty flecks of red paint. He pinched them off little by little.
Later, he snuck to the window. Below blurred lights that never resolved.
From his desk, he yanked his glasses and, after flicking his hair aside, clamped it on. The hazes, streaks, and halos of the lights turned into street lights with mast arms, alongside Japanese-car traffic.
His eye wandered back to his room, stumbling upon his computer desk. He stared.
He went to his computer, sat down, and scanned the keyboard.
After turning on the nearby electric fan, he booted the computer up.
On the screen flashed his desktop. His wallpaper was a digital image with a graphic novel aesthetic. It depicted a town set in the dark, rainy, slate blue–fogged early morning. The internal outlines of the houses in the background were absent, replaced by a shade of muted, grayish blue. Only three glowing windows and the top, outer outlines of the houses remained. Two anthropomorphic characters hung around inside a bedroom beside two windows in the foreground.
He went to his thousands of folders and double-clicked one titled "4561-BOOK". It contained ten text files, variously named. He opened the one named "Robert D".
In the text editor read the following:
I have longed for a state, a state of mind. Deliberate. Cause: the thing of that thing that allows me to be. Conclusion: I had to create a device, one that allowed me to operate unhindered. SIDE: Something keeps me going.
He gazed.
He changed the word "Something" to "What-a-dog-is".
Around the bazaar, people sold fruit, fish, and melons, hardware, ironmongery, china, and books. In the middle, a man stood, eyes piercing through the crowd. His focus, a young woman, strode left and right, eyes swiveling around, her hands pressed against her bag.
The woman unknowningly passed him. He watched her from the corner of his eye.
As she left, he shadowed her.
Turning off the road, she hurried down an empty alleyway.
He waited behind a corner, peeking a few times. When she turned the corner, he sprinted and stopped where she turned.
He peeked and saw her turn left.
He repeated this until he found her stopping by an older man seated outside his house. She greeted him, smiling. The older man, even with weary eyes, smiled back.
At the sight of the woman revealing the fruits inside her bag, he turned and left, taking out an orb and throwing it against the ground. From the shards formed a lever. He pulled it, and from it flew red sparks that stopped midair and gradually formed letters.
They read, "Message?"
He said, "She's with him. And... it's fruits."
The letters changed to read what he said before dissolving along with the lever and shards.
He set off, passed by the bazaar, and rode a wagon. He dropped upon seeing his lodge. Inside, he gave the several men at the table a quiet greeting and headed upstairs to his room.
On the bed, he sat down and stared.
The next day, he went to her. She at first rebuffed him, but after he showed her his insignia, her face crumpled. "What happened?"
"Your Mom..."
Red. First thing in the morning. Cocked rifle. With a little sound, down the left corner. Small chickens picking at seed feed. One man in another corner padding, slightly drunken or exhausted in posture. Weakened. Two men. No, three men padding in a group, coming in full swing, with no turn of the head toward the drunken man.
I readied my rifle, steadied it on the sill, and waited for any strange noises.
The cock cock-a-doodle-dooed.
Eyes squinting, I tilted every two seconds, halting at every 15 degree. Once my scope aligned with the cock, I hemmed.
The three men walked back, carrying what looked to be small junk food packages from a sari-sari.
I shot one of them dead, accounting for wind. My hands glowed. From them coiled and ran slate-blue sparks along my rifle.
As the other two and the drunken man fled, I pulled back my rifle. The gun shot and screaming drew people's attention, and doors were slammed shut.
I hurried down the staircase to the bottom and, upon exiting the building, slipped inside a van.
The van cruised through the city and stopped at a corner printing shop. Entering, I nodded to the man at the counter and steadily stepped down the steps at the back, descending to the basement level.
There, a number of variously formally dressed men stood and played at billiard tables. Each darted me a glance, then resumed.
Matthew crept toward the tower. "I lived a long life, and in this world, nothing but that same tired notion repeated itself in my ear." His hands gripped the soft, steel edge of his blade, pressing the butt of its handle against his chest. "I am prepared to halve anyone in my way."
A group of guards stared at him, slithering along his left side.
He chuckled before striking the ground, a force rippling across the ground and blasting a burst below the guards, flicking them off.
The guards backflipped and landed perfectly, then separated into two groups, circling him on both sides.
He palmed the floor, and a spinning circle materialized, creating a force field. The guards threw rocks. The rocks stopped midair and slammed the ground upon entering the field.
He removed his palm, and the circle vanished.
The guards eyed each other and dashed before leaping away, doing this multiple times to bait out his palm.
Smirking, he raised his left hand and made a clutching motion. One guard fell to the ground, suffocating. The rest of the guards regrouped and dragged their comrade away.
Matthew thrust the air thrice one after another with his blade, flourishing it afterwards.
A giant palm appeared out of thin air and smacked the guards aside. They flew, thudding the wall. Wheezing and gasps filled the air.
Matthew rotated his sword, screeching it against the earth as he strode toward them. "Well?"
One guard reached out with his green-glowing hand, and a whirl of flame shot out, whipping at Matthew.
Matthew swung his blade up and down, unleashing an arc of wind that extinguished the flame. "You know... it'd be nice if you guys actually stopped and listened to me." He snapped his brows up briefly.
Mark noted the few goblins who passed, his eyes snagging on some of the collections of valuables they brought with them. Since they were here to visit a friend, he couldn't really do anything about them, but passing the border at all screamed red to him. And if they ever were to conduct themselves unaccordingly, he would render them whipped and bridled. The visiting goblins stopped to smile at another group who had been waiting for them on this side of the border. He eyed their gestures and handshakes and the distinct way they verbalized themselves. Without squinting, he breathed, casting his gaze off to the side, where he then went and sat down, resting his chin on his lifted palm. "What a boring day," he wanted to say. But his fellow workers nearby would flag him to their boss, and that would be a whole shebang he didn't want to deal with himself, having never gone through it, but having seen others do, to great effect.
After the day ended, he yanked his things and returned home, a small apartment in a row in a gated community. Living alone, he took care of all his needs and the chores around the house. He had a washing machine, a dishwasher, and an air-fryer, so he was pretty much solved in terms of easy, self-handled maintenance. After finishing his tasks of the day, he sat down, around 7 PM, and turned on the computer. Checking the forums, he scrolled a little before stopping at a post titled "Goblin Territories Seceded!" Sighing, he stood and went to make some coffee. Returning with a manual grinder, he turned it for 15 minutes, scrolling all the while. He found a gameplay video to watch for that duration. After he ground all the beans, he dumped it into the French press and poured boiling water. After finishing the video, he went and pressed down on the press, releasing the coffee into a cup. With the heat and scent wafting around the room, he set it down on his desk beside his computer and monitor. "Finally, we're done!"
He grabbed a bunch of notes from a cabinet desk next to his computer one and lined them up so he could read them all before transcribing them into his text-editor on the screen. One paragraph read: "Goblins have increased. I noted behaviors slightly more disagreeable than normal. Has this reflected on the political climate? I need to collect more data as per my interactions."
He took a sip, turning right to the street outside the window. No smoke. Nothing exploded yet.
The next day, while groaning through his work, his phone rang.
"Hello, yes, yes. Ah, I'll visit you later. Yes, please. I have to go, sorry, bye."
He cocked his head around him, but the closest co-workers were in the middle of a conversation, laughing and chuckling. The rest were dealing with the business. It was still their turn, and it would be his several minutes from now.
After his work shift, he visited his friend, the one who phoned him, and asked first thing: "How's the goblin warren going?"
"Not good. We haven't seen any changes in their behavior. But we've already picked up one who's been talking dangerously about the climate. We don't want any more interruptions, so please don't have Glen visit them."
Mark backstepped, turning away, head stopping at the sight of the window. "I thought it would be a kind of trigger for a broader... thing."
"Well, it wasn't effective. Try again. But no, I don't mean do it again. I mean this time, don't snoop around. We don't want to destabilize the effect that's already on them. Remember, this is a study, not an entrapment."
"Right. I just needed to verify—"
"No, no 'verifications' or whatever. We need proof, not contrived provocation."
"Right... I just wanted—"
"No. Listen to me. Stop."
"O-OK."
When Mark got home, he lay down, staring at the ceiling. On his desk sat his parents' picture. "Mom, whatever happened to you. I'll find it out, like I always do. You told me I could do it. I know I can. I know I can live this life out. This time, I won't be a sluggard. I'll make it right. Whatever happened, I'll find it out."
The next day, while looking at goblins, he caught a glimpse of one of them glaring at him. He turned to his co-workers, who didn't seem to be paying attention at all.
He took out his pocket notebook and scribbled a line before slipping it in again.
Once he got home, he verified one crucial thing. While he did write that the goblins were disagreeable, this was his actual first obvious "glare." Of course, he did consider whether this was just a mistake or some stomach ache, but the glare was wrinkled and sustained. So that is what he wrote: "wrinkled and sustained". He also wrote "'glarer' height: ~1.2 meters" in case height was correlated.
One foot struck the earth, hurrying past. Around, friends emerged along a row of leaves and herbs. They swept under branches, bulled through dense greenery, and cut by the chinks of overgrown bushes. They bore across the forest.
At the sight of another group, they brawled. One shot another with a bow, while a third split a fourth with an ax. Three quick thrusts cut a fifth. Loot items dropped on death and gathered across the battlefield, floating up and down mid-air. A sixth figure built up with dirt blocks, screaming, as arrows riddled her body. Her body hit the ground, and she vanished, her voice cutting off.
The attackers split up. They hunted down those who fled and followed and cornered those who dug down, cutting all of them down. They collected all the loot and put them inside chests in a circle.
A man with an Irish voice stood beside the chests, looking out at everyone else. "OK, we're good? Let's set up here."
Four from the group started building foundations. The number in everyone's vision ticked down: "4:20", "4:19", "4:18". The rest dispersed toward the outer edges of the area, keeping a circle of eyes out.
One saw the edge of a blur, eying the train of nametags through the trees. He shouted, "Guys! Attack from my side!"
He and several others nearby bolted back to the chest circle.
But the train slammed into them, eviscerating them.
The rest of the group fled, melting between the trees.
Later, in a glade bosomed in the forest, Henry, one of the members, stopped and sat down, eying the treetops and the ground for any sign of a nametag.
While circling the area, he saw his friend Mhej sprinting. "Bro, where's the others? Wait, did you see what happened to Ian? He got fucking destroyed!"
Mhej slowed to a walk. "They're coming. They know where to go already." His voice was heavy, low, and mumbly, as if panting. "I can't bear with the fact that they didn't cover the whole area. I thought we had it all planned."
Three, Ciara, Felicity, and Kyra, skidded to a stop and settled behind a bank. They squinted at the two nametags, recognizing their friends' names. After one look behind them, they rushed out. Kyra switched out of her ax. "Guys, where's everyone? How did Ashley get caught? I thought she was with you guys."
Felicity sighed dramatically. "I don't know why we're not grouping together on time."
Ciara pressed her lips. "It's fine. Just cut losses and catch them off guard this time as revenge."
Behind them, the remaining nine appeared, walking. Neo ran ahead and greeted Henry and Mhej. He turned to the three. "OK, do we know where the fifth group is? And I don't want to be seeing anyone break out of group now. We have to get ready. Anyone who isn't in the group should just stay behind at this point. I don't want another Ashley situation."
Ciara turned to the sun and gestured forcefully. "We saw them already building along the river. Actually, we should try going across the river and then attacking from there, no? What do you think?"
There's a part of me that wanted to lose, because I know that whoever won moved on and carried the weight of the one who lost. "Win for me. You can't lose. You beat me, so you must win. Show me that I didn't lose for no reason." It's not just about carrying it. It means waking up and doing it all over again. The rollercoaster of anxiety, excitement, thrill, and potential emotionally catastrophic loss. And if you survive, it feels like you were gifted it, not that you earned it, because you know that you can lose at any time. It's just a matter of time, and even if you keep winning, you will never truly feel that you're done and won, because too many greats have lost. There is no winning. There is only relief.
If I could, I'd let both of us lose or win together. That way, we're together, carrying each other all the way, whatever the result. We're together. That's all that matters. But no, we have to leave behind those who lost, and we have to watch as those who won carry the pressure that was on us. They have double the pressure, and us, a sense of depression, but also relief that we don't have to go through what the winners are going through right now as they continue into the tournament and get into the quarters finals, semi finals, and finals. To lose so close to victory. I can only imagine how catastrophic that is.
I can't even win. One moment of arrogance is enough to give the hungry, upstart underdogs an edge. I know that. I must win into another loss mindset. Always work from a disadvantage. Always operate from the caution of one so ignorant of success, too aware of never succeeding. Always operate as if one has never felt the crippling devastation of a victory. The emotional complexity from it can tear a person apart.
That's why I'm friends with everyone. I don't really hate them. We're people first, players second, competitors third, and entertainers fourth. We all know just how hard it is. We're all the oppressed in this system, while everyone gets the benefit of pitting us against each other and forming entire antagonisms over who wins and loses. Entire personalities born just to see a team shatter. We the players can never see it that way, because it's impossible. One misstep is all it takes, and for many, there is no misstep. There is only invisibility, always at the bottom, or even worse, in the middle, there, but just stepping stones for the top teams. And again, it never ends. Even if you do win, you're praying that you enjoy it at the very least, because that's what it's all about, right? In the end, it never ends. People forget, unless you keep getting up to fight another day, proving to the next generation every single time that the accolades and the flattering and legacy are not fake, showing them in the now as they are watching that we can subvert expectations and truly get the win. It is a fight against object impermanence and anecdotal and emotional reality.
Those who finally retire look from the sidelines and thank everything that they don't have to bear with such pressure and then with such loss. They're free. They're looked at as failures, but they have escaped the rat wheel, the fleeting victory. It's all just a brief high for a year spent breaking your knees just to get up and not drop out of the entire year or get pushed back to tier twos and then tier threes, forced to retire. It is a hell. There is no "dream". There is only the thankless work of entertainment, whether you're the victors or the losers who at least put up a fight to make the win feel satisfying, credible, and truly compelling. But it is true. It really is fun. I shake when the stakes are so high, but they're not of anxiety. When you're finally there, it takes control. It moves for you. Your body knows what to do, and when you do it right, it feels like you've done it all right. Like here right now, everything has been justified. It's funny just how much it convinces you of a kind of omnipotence and invulnerability. When you get that win, and you get it again and again, that truly warps your brain. For those who learn how to manage it, they come to terms with the weight of winning and of carrying the burdens of friends who should have made it. You are carrying all of their dreams now. One step at a time. Waking up, the piercing light burning into your retina. There is no escape. There is only Sisyphus' hill.
I don't know why, but every day, I can feel blood on my hands. I know what I've done. I've killed my friends. I've hurt them. I've made them feel unwell, even if I know so well that they're actually relieved right now, even while feeling a sense of loss and self-confrontation about everything that they've ever felt and believed about their potential. I know that they have that relief that I so badly want, but I cannot for the life of me say that it's just that simple. No, they wanted it. It's unfair that they get to feel that way. It's a torture in its own way, even if I am also just as eviscerated. I am lucky. I am fortunate. I am grateful. But you cannot tell me this isn't hard. I'm not saying I worked hard to get here. I'm saying that there is no way you can deny me that hardship, because doing that would be denying all those people that I knew and was close to and saw completely shatter at the weight of it all. But they're lucky. I say that with the most venomous voice I can muster. They may envy me, and that makes me feel frustrated and even angry. Don't envy me. Legacy is meaningless if you can't even drink coffee without all of it rushing through your mind. The loss, the victory, seeing your friends come and go. It hurts, and it is so hateful. I can remember things from a year ago, from two years ago, three years ago. It goes on and on. I can remember it picture-perfect and so viscerally that a single drop of sweat I remember as purely as sunshine. But... that also goes for the hellish joy. You're burning with potential, with unstoppability, with all-power. You are the one. The Hero! The Person! The Victor! Hell yeah! YOU ARE IT! YOU ARE HIM! THAT IS TEARING YOU APART. THAT IS BREAKING YOU. It is causing you so much grief. It is breaking your capacity to feel anything but a joy, a joy seemingly everlasting. It really is the plight and advantage of being me, of being us, of being a person, of being anything at all. To feel, to feel. I imagine that everyone feels. It must be nice to be me. It must be so nice.
THERE IS NOTHING THAT WILL STOP MY LEGACY. WHO I AM. THE POWER THAT I WIELD. I FEEL SO INTENSELY. YOU CANNOT DENY ME WHAT I'VE ACHIEVED. IT WILL NEVER LET GO OF ME. NEVER. I AM THE ENTIRETY.
Hello. How's it going?
They love me. Haha. I can see them. I genuinely used to feel that way. I used to believe their words. Now, I keep to myself. I am just happy to be here. That's all it takes. That's all I need. If I say anything that could be perceived at all as some complaint, it will be a whole scandal. Something someone will latch on every single day just to entertain people who are so into this entire pitting-players-together thing. Yes, sounds great. It does. I will do as I must. I hope no one ever knows what I truly feel, because no one will care, at least in a way that comes without that absurd blowback and backlash. It is a hateful thing really. I know that my friends can empathize, even if they will never really reach this station or whatever I'm supposed to call it. I am just a person who is at his station. That is really all it is. It is better to start from that, and anything else should just be whatever allows me to live a fulfilling life and do well. Nothing else. Excess go away.
But oh how I wish I could be playful and arrogant. That would be entertaining, fun, and just so carefree. But this isn't a movie or a web comic. I'm not some playful, arrogant top player. Because that's unsustainable. You want to lose and get torn apart? Go ahead. Do that. I can only be this simple thing and make a few comments here and there that reveal that I truly am a person who can get whimsical. Yes, that is all that I wish. Let me be. When you carry a responsibility like this, you act accordingly. The entire world is watching me now. I must not crumble. If I do, let it be a demonstration of my prowess, that even someone like I who carries all this weight, still pushes himself to win and feels the 100% of anxiety, of victory, of loss. I am a newborn baby. Let's go.
Let's go!
Getting off the couch, Glen nodded to the people around him. "Yes, yes, we've done the preparations. It's time to start the first planning phases, but yes, we're going to have to think first over the roadblocks that we faced in the middle parts last time because repeating that mistake would be troublesome."
Ram waited ten more seconds, squinting several times as if Glen had more to add. He turned to the others at the long table with a smile, dark circles below his eyes. "OK. How about we fix up a cake? How about that? Anyone up for that?"
"Alright!"
"Woohoo! Finally, I've been dying all day!"
"Yes, good job Ram!"
"Yeah, Ram!"
"Dang, how long were you guys going to yap? Hell."
Seeing their faces, Glen settled back into his chair, his unblinking eyes resting over the utensils. His expression barely changed.
The thudding of shoes clamored around the room and out the door, resounding in the hallway.
Ram closed the door behind them, staying inside the room. Taking a breath, he sighed.
"Glen." Ram turned around to Glen. "Stop this. You can't expect them to listen if you don't want to listen to them."
Glen's mouth slid open, absently gazing at the ground. "Yeah." His voice had fallen to a mutter.
Ram hissed. "I get it, man. I get it. But your responsibility is to keep them in line, not force them into your agenda. We've been tasked to do one thing. Manage them. This is not managing. This is making decisions for the board."
Glen smiled briefly, then made a sharp smirk. This gradually transformed into a dazed, soft smile.
Ram rubbed the sweat off his forehead and threw a sigh. His left hand wafted to the door, turning its knob. He pushed it open and closed it behind him, leaving Glen in the room alone.
Glen grinned, even as his eyes unfocused, thoughts flickering behind them. His right hand clenched, sweat dripping down his brow onto his nose.
Flames roared in the silence, as thousands of eyes snapped open. A form stretched out of the earth, morphing violently, tossing streaks of mud and sand, as winds rapidly formed around it—a fiery swirl.
Below the swirl, a hand broke out and clutched the earth. Along the ground, smaller hands rapidly formed out of brittle sand and hardened instantly, dust puffing out of them.
Some of the dust flew and wound in an arc. Midway, it rewound backward, snapping into place. They fused into a humanoid. From its chest, a hand tore out, grasping the air. The rest of the body stretched into shape. He opened his mouth. He inhaled, his finished eyes gaining sight.
His voice split the air.
"I am."
In the distance, a young boy looked at him. "Hello!" He shot him a greeting wave.
The humanoid's posture relaxed. A smile edged into his face.
"Hi!" The wind streaked across the field, slamming into the air around the boy. The sphere around him remained still.
The boy grinned, covering his mouth, and chuckled.
"You're so cool!"
The humanoid's eyes flashed through several emotions before he cut it off with a laugh. "You're cool too!"
The boy swayed from side to side, with his hands clasped behind his back. "Do you want to see my castle?"
The humanoid's brows lifted. "OK... S-sure! Where is it?"
The boy looked left and right, then he turned around and pointed in the direction of the sun. "There."
In the distance, a fort rose out of the hills, piercing skyward into the bruised orange.
He approached the boy, and they walked there together. "What's your name?" The boy's voice carried across the field.
"I don't have one."
"What! You don't have one?"
"Yes. Do you want to give me a name?"
"Uh. I don't know. I'll ask my mom."
"OK. We can do that."
Shelves launched across an endless stretch. Their countless books thrashed against the battering gale.
Upon stopping, they spanned billions of civilizations.
A man appeared in the middle, curving through the air on his floating wood board. "Whoo-hoo-weeeee!" His green cloak billowed in the wind.
"Captain, Sir, Captain." Nearby, a figure from the sky landed, slamming the earth. The force rippled across metal, hard clay, and rock, and his voice carried across the canyon. His necklace swung.
"Yessireee!" The surfer hooked the board's nose and flipped it onto his shoulder.
The figure hurled off the ground, banging against the shelves. His purple tunic flapped in the gale, while he hung on. "There has been a disturbance in Crevolucius. Seven this time, not four like you warned."
The surfer whirled his fair hand in the air. "Why ask me? We talked about this. I may be new, but I have made my point clear already."
The figure swiveled his curly head with a slight, brief wince. "Yes, but I cannot just leave the decision to myself, even if I come after you. That's not why I went into this."
The surfer catapulted his hands upward, tossing his white ruffled sleeves. "Haha! It's nice to feel things, isn't it?"
The figure almost face-palmed.
Their gazes settled into each other's eyes, one smiling, the other biting his underlip.
The figure let go. Hurtling through the air, he hit the ground with a boom. He balled his hand into a fist and clenched it until his whole arm coiled taut. The energy stuck in his palm smoldered, threatening to explode.
He blasted it out. A hundred motes of light streamed out of his opened palm, forming the pieces of a portal. Once the last mote combined, the portal's rumble crescendoed into an ear-shattering roar. It snapped into place and hardened with a gust of dust. In the middle swirled a translucent purple.
His dark-skinned face looked back one more time before he vanished into it. His expression was contorted.
The books' pages continuously rustled, fluttering in the wind.
Peoples' cries echoed across the library.
The surfer rested his palm on one of the books, picked it up, and leafed through it. His elbows rubbed against the hem of his silky cloak as he read.
The sky bellowed. The air smelled like fish and bread.
His sunlit figure reflected in the eyes of a cold, musty corpse. He turned to the man beside him. "I see. Bruises under his neck" The two coated men stood in a cemetery, and around them, large crowds were forming. The corpse wore a blue suit and a lapel pin. The people leaving behind them wore the same.
The man beside him scanned the crowds, craning his neck and tiptoing. "What do you think?" He turned back to him. "Think it's our guy?"
Someone swore in the crowd, and another person threw a string of curses back. The crowd separated as a fight started. Matt met his friend's gaze. "Not sure. Red said Zimen tends to perforate at the ear and then move down and around to the nape. This one feels different somehow."
His friend, Rob, rubbed his chin. "Wait, how about that detail you mentioned? The one you said did not fit last time?"
Matt looked up for a second, rippling his fingers.
He froze. "I lost my keychain."
Rob frowned. "To your mind palace thing?"
"It's not a palace. It's a cottage."
"OK? So what now?"
Matt pressed his lips together.
Rob's head jolted back. "Don't tell me you're going to use it this early."
Seeing the shadow of the crowd and the sweat threatening to drop from Rob's chin, Matt whirled his hand. A breath of blue dust blew out of his palm. His eyes unfocused, and his retina flickered through a hundred different colors. He blinked and looked at Rob. "Yeah, it should be our guy."
Rob snapped forward and gasped. "Hey, hey! We should only use that when we can't find the guy!"
Matt smiled, his eyes piercing through Rob. "This is bigger than us."
On the causeway along the verge of the babbling canal, the local stood. Mud blotched his ankles and feet, some having flicked to the back of his hairy calves. The surrounding paddy field snagged in his vision, and anything not water or plant came into focus. The wide, flat plain's breeze rippled his dark, lined running shorts and old white sando. Coconut and banana trees rose from a distant hill, towering behind a cottage.
Sometimes, he caught a whiff of floral scents or glimpsed a person in shorts and a polo shirt walking. Rarely, a jeepney lurched on the pebbles over the nearby dirt stretch—a sight for the locals of San Andres. It compared to a horse ambling down bustling Epifanio de los Santos Avenue.
One day, a primeval-garbed sun-eyed figure floated in the skies, observing life. His hand whisked elegantly from side to side, and he took on a deep, full-chested voice. "The world is born from flesh and from flesh a grand awakening of spirits."
The echo of his voice soon died down.
Barefooted, he lowered to the ground and took his first earth-mired steps. A panorama unfolded before his eyes.
With a hiss of breath, he joined his hands and whirled them over each other. Within his palms, a green glowing dot snapped into existence. It drew the soughing breezes into itself and unleashed them as whining gusts dotted with glittering yellow dust. The dot's low buzz crescendoed into a monstrous roar, and it grew ten times its size. His arms spread out to contain it, but it spun around so violently that the glimmer in his eyes flickered.
The gusts whipped the grasses and tore along the ground, making grooves.
When the look in his eyes finally settled, he rippled his fingers and jabbed one finger into the sphere. It shrunk back into a dot crackling with fading sparks. The noise and winds vanished. Only the plain's murmur and rustle remained.
He relaxed his shoulders and sighed. His childish, high-pitched voice broke out. "Whoops! Energy here's stronger than I thought. Fortunately, I was notified of this before I released it. But I was still surprised. I could've destroyed this beautiful place for nothing!" He swayed from side to side, whining.
A shadow in the skies streaked toward him. "Bro, what're you doing?" She resolved into a blue-dressed figure with a gigantic ball chain that passed through objects. Blackened fires rumbled all over her dress.
The man swayed his ancient cream-yellow sleeves. "Just walking."
The woman snapped the back of her tattooed hand at him, shaking her blue butterfly sleeve. "Ey, they're waiting for you up there."
"Right!" He lifted off the ground and launched to the skies, disappearing above the clouds. The woman caught up.
The hem of Lunn's clothes dragged along the ground, and he stalked with a heavy tread, each stomp puffing dust. He craned his neck around, and his features hardened each time something snagged his gaze. The longer he ambled, his head grew to resemble a steeple, and his figure a lich with a frayed cape tromping around.
While idling in the streets, he ran his eyes across the passersby. When a person noticed him staring from the corner of their eye, the hair on their back bristled. If this went on too long, their posture fell slack.
One day, he travelled across the labyrinthine city to the border and planted himself there in front of the grumbling gate. Here, inbound russet-outfitted passengers from the morning flight crowded the plaza with a diversity of faces.
Once the last person disembarked, the passenger dragon moseyed onto the pasture beside the border wall. Here, an order of dragon-tenders fed, cleaned, and healed it and took care of its waste.
Now within the borders, the passengers boarded a convoy of stagecoaches and rumbled away. They rolled down the dirt stretch and passed by the city's natural sights. Workers like these trickled daily into the maturing city.
In the next batch of passengers, one blur in the sunlit crowd resolved into a feathered hat. It belonged to a green-attired man. He rushed to embrace Lunn. His arms wrapped around Lunn's shredded collar, and the force of his hug drove dust off Lunn's body.
Lunn's mouth snapped open for a moment, but his face softened in the visitor's warmth.
"Drive them to the park. Drive them to the training. Drive them to school."
Later...
"You're already sweating too much. Let's go."
"It's OK. It's just a little!"
"No, you might get sick. Plus, you're going to go inside the aircon. So you'll get even sicker."
Later...
"It's getting hot. Let's go."
"It's not that hot."
"You're playing barefoot!
"I'm hiding from the sun!"
"Yeah, I'm getting sweaty already. Let's go."
Later...
"The mosquitos are biting around my ankle already. Let's go!"
"It's fine. Mom gave me repellant!"
"OK then. But only one more hour."
Later...
"Are you guys still playing? We have to go to your basketball training. You guys have ten minutes." Holding Arendt's The Human Condition, he flipped back several pages, picked up his bookmark, and moved it to his current page.
Later...
"How's Coach?"
"He's gonna tell us to do burpees again. I hate that exercise."
"It's fine! You'll get used to it. I got used to it!"
"No, you didn't. Coach said you hated it 'till you graduated."
"I mean I got used to it at home in my own time."
"Liar! I haven't seen you do it!"
"It's 'cause you're always at school. Come with me to the gym next time, when you're ready. Maybe not until you're 18. I think I remember them not allowing body-building. But actually, you can come just to do bodyweights. Or treadmills."
"Really?!"
"Yep! Just ask Mom."
Later...
"How was Coach?"
"We did carries." (referring to an exercise where people pair up into twos and one carries the leg and the other crawls with arms and goes back and forth across the court)
"OK, how was it?"
"It was the easiest."
"Really?"
"Yeah. My favorite exercise."
"Speaking of favorites, who's your favorite classmate?"
"What do you mean? I like almost everyone."
"Right. But you don't know anyone you particularly like? Not a crush."
"Hmm. No?"
"That's interesting. Because I don't remember liking anyone much. I mean, it's just a bunch of high school students."
"I'm a high school student."
"Yeah, I know. I'm just saying that around that age, you have lots of fun, but once you get a little older, you realize how small that place was. I promise you. You'll only need 10 years for that, if not 5. It all gets really, really... juvenile once you look back."
"Holy unc."
"No, really, I used to think that was the only thing that existed. Imagine my surprise when you see a whole world beyond that."
"That's why I wanna grow up. I want to finish studying, graduate, and finally get a job. I want to make money! I need like a stable job and like a stable house and like a stable life. Nothing else. I just want to play video games with Zion and Vince and Drei and Gelo and even John. I want to live life like that. That's all I need. All of us just playing together side by side every day. Maybe every day after work. That'd be fun."
"I see what you mean. I also wanted something like that. Maybe, not video games, but independence and all. I wanted freedom so I could read my books. I wanted a home library, you see."
"We already have a library at home."
"They're just shelves."
"We have hundred of books already."
"I want a whole big library as a home."
"Oh. Like the ones you see in movies?"
"Yes. Imagine a big library. I prefer if it was just simple, and it's all just books. It doesn't have to be fancy. It just needs lots of books. I've been researching with LLMs on how much it'd cost, trying to find ways to simplify and make it smaller and smaller so it'd be possible. I was thinking a loft, but then, I wasn't so sure anymore. I had the LLM generate prompts that I fed into an AI image generator to look for depictions of what it could look like it. I wanted to see it all."
"I don't get it. Why?"
"Books are my video games."
"But you're alone, no?"
"I'd love to start a book club with it. I used to know people who'd want to do that, maybe not as much as yours with video games, but they were still willing to visit if I ever made something like that. But I don't know them anymore. It's been a while. I'm 32. So you can see where that got me."
"You're 32!"
"How do you not know that!"
"I don't even know when your birthday is!"
"Of course. I guess we don't celebrate it anymore like we used to. Makes sense why you'd forget."
"OK, we're here. Mom's inside."
He dropped them off at the unloading area, and the kids ran off inside the mall, heading straight inside the nearby cafe where the mother was laughing, talking to some church friends. Then he went to the parking before riding the elevator upstairs to meet them.
Tramping down the road in the driving rain was a hatted hooded man. "How long left till we reach the London Hospital, Mr. Treves?" From within his hood, through the eye holes, he peeked at the black river of blurs all around him amid the towering giants of granite and plate-glass windows veiled by a freezing war-like haze.
The man beside him swiveled his head as he strode in that dark coat, vest, and shirt. "Just a little bit more, Mr. Merrick. You still have my card with you, right? Whatever happens, have them call for me again."
Around the two a loud sea of umbrellas and woolen coats flowed along the streets, each darting a look at his concealed companion.
Merrick squeezed a look at Treves's face. Treves pressed his lips tightly together, and he flicked his eyes across the facades and over the crowds, hemmed in by a curtain of smog and rain. He would frequently lift his boots, skirting along darkened puddles and beaten mud.
After a long wade, the two finally lowered their umbrellas and ran their boots on a metal boot scraper. They entered through the door, and in front thronged nurses and people. With barely enough time to process the cries, coughs, and plights, the two hurried past. While Merrick lowered his head and tucked his arms in to make himself small, Treves charged a clerk, getting right in their face. "My good friend, Mr. Merrick, is beset by distinctive troubles only revealing his body will confirm. However it'd be more polite if we were to show it in a private room. Upon my friend here I wouldn't want to inflict any more embarassment." Despite his genteel speech, he said it rapidly.
"Does this concern a member of a freak troupe?"
"Former, but yes, you ascertain well," he answered before the clerk finished.
"What is his name?"
"He is Mr. John Merrick."
Holding his breath, Henry swirled his ax and spun it continually like a propeller. He angled it against the wall.
He brought the blade to bear, and it chewed at the metal, banging like a thunderous roar. But his initial strikes were too scattered.
The closer he aimed at the same spot, the deeper. Once he was hitting the same groove, cracks formed.
The motion of his strikes became smooth to his grip, and the shock of the ax resounded through his arms more sharply.
By the time he hefted the weight along like butter, he splintered the wall with a puff of dust. The holes this created enlarged enough to allow deep cuts.
He stopped spinning the ax and prodded inside, like picking a lock. The tip of his ax shook at the touch of a strand buried deep inside. He then flicked the handle sideways. This severed the blue-glowing strand, and the wall dissolved into piles of dust, falling with a muffled sigh.
Behind the wall stood a man wielding a machete with both hands, pouncing immediately. He struck Henry on the armor over the shoulder.
Panting still from rending the wall, Henry clutched him and shoved him back. His ax far outranged the man's machete. He swept his ax twice from side to side in diagonals and took a forceful step with each whooshing swing. The machete man scurried back. Henry mirrored his backsteps and began striding sideways around him.
The machete man looked at the men fighting behind Henry, and Henry saw the same behind him.
They charged each other, halting right before the sweet spots of their weapons' ranges. But their weapons now reached each other.
The machete man backstepped and side-stepped along Henry's left side, right where Henry's arms strained to have the brunt of his ax reach. Henry clutched his ax harder, eying both his exposed legs and the machete man's blurring figure.
Henry raised his arm to spin, and the machete man stopped and crouched to sunder him where his raised spinning ax couldn't respond. Instead, Henry turned the other way around and brought down his weight and ax down at the man. The man caught the ax with his machete, toppling to the ground. The jolt shook across his body, weakening his grip. He quickly rose to his feet, but Henry already recovered and chopped down, cleaving along his chest. Henry struck his machete off his hand.
The machete man ripped out a scream, trembling.
He fell silent, dead.