Avila

Caguntas

Co

Gonzales

Lampa

Arcega

Bulanhagui

Cabanit

Dela Cruz

Escote

Garcia

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Table of Contents

Poems …………………………………………………………………………. 5

7

6

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7

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9

10

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11

Avila

Caguntas

Co

Gonzales

Lampa

Arcega

Bulanhagui

Cabanit

Dela Cruz

Escote

Garcia

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Table of Contents

Essays …………………………………………………………………………. 13

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26

27

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Avila

Caguntas

Co

Gonzales

Lampa

Arcega

Bulanhagui

Cabanit

Dela Cruz

Garcia

Escote

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Table of Contents

Flash Fiction ……………………………………………………33

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34

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87

Poems

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the

mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all

science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger,

who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt

in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”

-Albert Einstein

I sought refuge on saggy sheets

Letting sleepy eyes drown me dreams

And spaced out in the depths of time

Ignoring the things worth the while

I woke up, choking and struggling

And found myself in dark solitude

Shared by an unseen multitude

Forever in my head been lurking

All at once my senses came back

Crawling swiftly at every vein

And dragged my weighted body up

While fighting off the seething bane

But more I had delved in surreality

And lost hold of thin reality

Reaching the place of eternity

With unknown peace and serenity

Ah! Woe to me, woe to me!

I sought refuge on saggy sheets

Letting sleepy eyes drown me dreams

And woke up finding out I did

Bright, sunny days

And clouds that shall never turn grey

A perfect Utopian dream

But everything is not quite as it

Seems

For once the sun starts to set

Is a great revelation, you bet

All those petty facades

Will slowly start to fade

An eternal illusion

Of peaceful unison

Is nothing more than a mere

misconception

A deception at its perfection

Good and Evil, I dread

Is separated by a thin thread

For at the very slightest offset

The balance would not be met

And as such, the seeds of Sin are sown

Like an epidemic, it has grown

Spreading chaos all around

Its mischief knows no bounds

The world is nearing its end

Just accept the fact, my friend

The era of light has long been gone

And that of darkness has just begun

The boulevard is silent

The sound around brings me horror

The mysteries that this world bring to

me

If only my eyes could see

Darkness filled my surroundings

I never got the chance to live

I never got the chance to experience

Those that others face

I learned to let go of my worldliness

And I go to place where everything I

Insidious Romar Angelo Malabag Avila

Inevitable Destruction Andrew Joelle Fabio Caguntas

Enigma of the Blind Edilberto Ruivivar Co, Jr.

do is valued

The thrill the world brings to me

Gives life and meaning to my dark

World

I am alone, alone in a dark room

No light, no sounds, no feelings

Nothing fills the room, only me and

doom

Or is it only me and the creepy

ceiling?

I may not be alone, still in a dark

room

No light, no sounds, feelings?

Yes, my heart is beating faster in

this gloom

Gloom in a room full of feelings and

shrilling.

My skin is cold, it’s uncomfortable

I hear steps coming closer and closer

The shrill sounds make it more capable

For my goose bumps to be seamier.

I feel the heat, heat of another

Another being, it’s cold as well

I don’t feel good and as I shudder

I’m not alone anymore, I hear a bell.

I am not alone, still in a dark room

No light but full of sounds from a

bell

I am scared not like before, I can

feel doom

I can do nothing for I almost fell!

And as I run away from nowhere

It’s coming, coming here to have it

set

I know no more, I have to go anywhere

I have to escape for this could be

death.

In the middle of the night

Lurks a perverse figure

Waiting where there is no light

To grasp a beautiful feature

In the blinding darkness

Someone strides with a knife

Fighting to hide his madness

Yet aims to end a life

And there where eyes have no power

A forbidden act is done

Lust demonizes lovers

And stains the purity of some

The night that seems so silent

Is actually filled with sin

The nights that lasts so peaceful

Is thronged by emotions yet unseen

Muffled voices coming from the room

next door

Footsteps rapping on the floor below

The creaking of an open door she

locked for sure

In the house where no one lives but

her

Night Light Karlos Federico Apilado Lampa

Home Zarah Elizabeth Lauresta Arcega

Alone? Joseph Paulo Alvarez Gonzales

Things she fixed she finds disarranged

Or the other way around sometimes

Items she didn’t touch lost and

misplaced

In the house where no one lives but

her

For reasons unknown she gets shivers

through her bones

As well as goose bumps appearing all

over her skin

And she gets the feeling she’s not

alone

In the house where no one lives but

her

She had lived in that house for as

long as she can remember

T’was a family heirloom passed from

generation to generation

For the house where no one lives but

her

She now serves as the rightful owner

No amount of riches and money

Equals the value of her home

For the house where no one lives but

her

Holds every precious sliver of memory

And growing up there she finds it odd

That strange things should start to

happen

For the house where no one lives but

her

Was, certainly, not, in anyway haunted

Well, not until she came back from the

hospital

To the house where no one lives but

her

After an accident that in her opinion

wasn’t quite fatal

As she was discharged three days after

She had been relieved when she was

allowed to go back

To the house where no one lives but

her

Her recollection of the accident was

still blank

But she was too homesick to even

bother

Yet a week or two after she returned

To the house where no one lives but

her

She can’t help but be concerned

For things weren’t quite how they used

to be

Now from the house where no one lives

but her

She doesn’t feel comfort anymore

A foreign place rather than her own

It was far from the home she had

before

Now from the house where no one lives

but her

She wanted to go far far away

So she rushed to the door and was

startled to see

The pages that under her feet now lay

Printed in big bold letters the head

line read

With a picture of her shot in the head

and pretty much dead

“Young lady murdered by a housebreaker

In the house where no one lives but

her”

Within the house where no one used to

live but her

A couple moved in days after her

demise

Within the house where no one used to

live but her

She was the ghost though this she did

not at once surmise

One night I dreamed a dream

Where everything seemed low and dim

A vast green landscape, I saw, it

seemed

The atmosphere though was dark and

grim

The midnight hour dragged on and on

So I walked through the fields with no

direction

There was really no purpose or aim for

the action

I just wanted to pass time, who cares

about the reason?

In the shadow of the night my eyes

could still wander

I saw tulips and dandelions, all sorts

and kinds of flowers

Their colors may be tainted by a dull

gray cover

But the relaxing fragrance they bring

doesn’t waver

Strange as it looked like, I saw candy

canes with green lining

The kind one would probably see in

every Christmas gathering

They were scattered all over as if un

wanted and lacking

What a shame that they were dirty but

to them I actually took a liking

I continued my stroll and looked up

for a change of view

Surprisingly the sky seemed to read my

mind through

The clouds shaped as ice creams

blessed the ground with drops of

dew

The uneasy feeling creeping up on me,

probably grew and grew

When it appeared that my endless

idling would take the whole night

A girl on a red dress materialized on

sight

She wore this mischievous smile on her

face so white

A well with a dark hole was standing

on her right

Seeing that hole was like being

submerged to oblivion

Its eye will suck every single thing

that comes close to that location

Something’s just not right from that

situation

Everything came in, nothing came

out—was my keen observation

Just as I was about to feel the chill

on my skin

I comforted myself before breathing

the wind in

I remembered this was all a part of a

dream

So whatever I do, waking up will take

me to the room I slept in

The woman in red locked her olive eyes

on me

Peculiar as she is, I thought I knew

her unconsciously

Far away from her, out of her reach I

should be

The voice inside my head says she

means no good to me

She reached out her thin fingers as if

urging me to follow her

Down the hole of the well is where her

fingers pointed farther

I shook my head as a sign of turning

down the offer

Midnight Stroll Katrice Dawn Balanay Bulanhagui

My world was like a never ending dream

Of eternal light and sky so dim

Separated by a never ending wall

Made of clear glass that soared so

tall

Yet through my wall no one could

perceive

Of what kind my world had become

Only but a never ending dream

Of burning stars and of pitch black

domes

So lost was my life of solitude

Yet bittersweet was the dark bliss

Filled with sparks of unlikely hope

Lighting my world of never ending

dreams

And in this sinister and profound

chaos

I laughed as I had realized so

That the light was never eternal

And my skies were dimmer than before

Dimmer, dimmer, dimmer and dimmer

Deeper, deeper, deeper and deeper

I lay quietly on unseen sheets

Forever trapped in never ending dreams

Dead she moves and dead she walks

Dead she wanders through these halls

Hear her footfalls on the floor

Hear her breathing through the walls

Oh, see her ghost in mirrors

See her shadows in the night

See her lurking in darkness

And vanishing in the light

But here comes the monster

Come to rid you of the ghost

And feed on flesh, feed on soul

Feed on every gracious host

Lock your doors and bar the gates.

Hurry! Run and dare not fall!

But you can’t run from what you are.

Hear the monster in you call!

For the nightmare that you fear

Crawls and moves beneath your skin

You can’t deny what you are,

Run and hide from all your sins

Feel the monster in you live

Shed off your sorry disguise

The real you now comes to light

Watch the terror in their eyes

Become the nightmare you fear,

Child of fright—you child of spite!

Dead you were, now come to life

Rise and walk, devil of the night!

The moon was round and fairly pale

A white spot in the ebony sky

Guiding the road of asphalt grey

Where a leaded horse roughly sped by

Never Ending Dream Patricia Anne De Jesus Cabanit

The Monster Tracey Dela Cruz

Life Blooms Only to Wither Again

Joelean Zephanie Ecleo Escote

Veritas Toni Dominique Ponce Garcia

And on its back, a man one would see

Who had suffered an insufferable life

Who had bore too bearable a burden

Who had despaired so lucky a fate

And thought it had cost him so much

To have been born in such worthless

world

For life’s just a dream soon to be

unfurled

Life blooms only to wither again

And as he went his way on the block

A boy stood, to hitchhike was his plan

Too ready to ride was the young man

But on went the rider; he did not stop

And as he passed the unlikely fellow

Horror was laid in his side mirror

For in the lad’s hand, most dreadful of

things

A cutlass came to sight, gleaming,

beaming

And as hours passed came the good morn

The main news was a truck driver’s

corpse

His meat roughly chopped and sinews

torn

And his head could be found no more

“What’s it for me?” the man said,

unconcerned

“It was his folly, it was his end

For life’s just a dream soon to be

unfurled

Life blooms only to wither again.”

And as he looked contently through the

pane

The driver’s head sat seething with

bane…

Come and find my murderer,

‘Tis but a small and simple challenge

for you.

Come and find my murderer,

I’ll give you evidence, I’ll give you

clues.

The scene of the crime—

The bathroom floor.

My sprawled body.

A once-locked door.

Now look at my body.

No signs of a stuggle.

No violence, no blood.

I almost look peaceful.

Now look at the weapon used.

I died by what means?

See the bottle of pills in my hand—

An overdose, it seems.

“But now it’s so obvious,” you say,

“I know how you died!

There is no doubt in my mind when I say

That you committed suicide!”

Aha! Mm-hmm! So it may seem

That I’m the one who shattered my own

hopes and reams.

But wait! – there’s one thing that

you’ve forgotten

Pray, do tell what you think was the

killer’s motive.

Do you remember all the things you

said?

Like how ugly I was,

How pathetic I was,

How I’d be better off dead.

Do you remember all the things you did?

You beat me hard,

You pushed me down,

And crushed what little confidence I

hid.

You never tried to understand,

Never gave me any care.

I tried to put some faith in you,

But the love was never there.

I never did anything wrong to you,

And if I did, I’d apologize at once.

So what did I do to make you hate me

this much?

I tried to give you more than

friendship—I gave you my trust.

I feel hurt and betrayed.

You laughed in my face and spread lies.

People thought I was horrible,

But you were the real monster in

disguise.

I tried to ignore you, tried to be

strong,

But how could I

When all the things you said and did

Made my whole life go wrong?

No one knew who I really was,

Even I didn’t know anymore.

I just wanted to end it, end the pain,

Can’t you see the peaceful look on my

dead face on the bathroom floor?

They used to be filled with horror,

with terror, with fear.

There was no safe place to hide,

I wanted to run away.

I no longer wanted to be here.

And it was all because of everything

you said and did.

Your rumors, lies, and insults.

Your pushes, punches, and kicks.

I screamed for help and no one gave it.

Now here is all the evidence—

You now know what my death was about.

I had to find a solution,

And for me, this was the only way out.

So come and find my murderer,

I gave you all the clues.

And you can deny and neglect all you

want, but my friend—

The real murderer is you.

Essays

“The final mystery is one’s self.”

-Oscar Wilde

Fear: An Analysis Romar Angelo Malabag Avila

There is nothing to fear but fear itself, the old adage goes. All people

encounter fear in their daily lives. But what is fear?

Fear is the natural ability of human beings to respond to certain stimuli,

especially those which may cause the endangerment of the person. We may experi-

ence these situation without realizing it. For example, we tend to avoid hot

things for fear of burns. We flinch when we see a spider crawling on us. These

adaptations helped us as a species to survive in the wild, where things were not

as safe as today’s times. But even now, fear is still a big influence on our

daily lives. When we face a difficult situation such as a robbery or a fire, fear

kicks in. When we are afraid, our brain sends messages to our kidneys to produce

adrenalin, a chemical which temporarily boosts our muscle contraction and deci-

sion making abilities. This is also known as a fight or flight reaction. We can

therefore handle these situations, all thanks to fear.

Not all fears are hardwired into the brain since birth. People’s main

fears differ from one another, because of different past experiences. A boy who

grew up with a dog may not be as scared of dogs as a boy who got bit when he was

young. An event that causes a change in the way that a person perceives stimuli

is called trauma. When a person experiences trauma, his brain reacts by rearrang-

ing its neurons to remember that event. Once a similar event occurs, the person

is more well-equipped to face the situation. However, some traumas cause extreme

and somewhat irrational fears. People who were molested when they were young tend

to show antisocial behavior, for example.

Fear is not all good or all bad. It depends on how we react to it that

makes all the difference. So, don’t let fear prevent you from living your life.

Always remember that once we conquer our fears, we come out stronger in the end.

This world is nothing but a realization of hell itself. Wars have swept

this forsaken land for decades. Crimes have dominated every single inhabited

place on the planet, and its numbers are constantly increasing on a daily basis.

Evil entices each and every soul to do harm to whatever goes in their way. To be

blunt, no hope remains to those who wish to continue to be good.

Call me a cynic, but I firmly believe that people have it in them to do

evil, given the right circumstances. This trait of mankind shall inevitably lead

to this world’s destruction, and its evidences could clearly be seen. It is in

our nature to try to outdo others, which may lead to insatiable greed. Greed, for

me, is the cause of all suffering, which is sadly present in each one of us, al-

though only in varying levels. Greed drives men against each other, which is even

heightened by more misunderstandings. This also leads to several other sins,

which spreads throughout the world like wildfire. At this rate, even the few

righteous ones shall be one of those madmen driven by ill intent. Thus, the fate

of the world is sealed.

Though somehow, I still find myself thinking that there is still a bit of

hope, which is kind of ironic. But as how things are going until now, I could

hardly believe myself. All hope is lost.

Wavering Hope Andrew Joelle Fabio Caguntas

Criminal Demeanors Edilberto Ruivivar Co, Jr.

Criminal activities have been rising in the City of Los Baños, Laguna.

Rapes and killing have been happening from left to right. Recently another stu-

dent of the University of the Philippines, Los Baños was killed while on his way

home. In a surveillance video obtained by the police, they saw that two men were

running away as if they were trying to escape from something or rather trying to

run away from their crimes. Another man was found also running but it seemed as

if he was weak.

About three months ago, a student of the same university was missing and

later on after days from her disappearance, she was found dead at Los Baños. And

according to the autopsy of her body, it was found out that she was raped before

she was killed.

As a graduating student in high school it concerns me that these thing are

happening. I will soon enter college. Some of my classmates here in high school

are going to attend college in Los Baños.

The rising criminal activities is become alarming for everyone especially

those who live in the area.­­­ This is another slap to face of our dear country.

And who is to blame?

In a recent dialog of Los Baños City Mayor Anthony Genuino, people accused

him of being absent from his office and spent his time in Makati where the rest

of his family lives. Despite the allegations, Mayor Genuino denied the accusa-

tions and said that illegal drug activities and informal settlers caused the in-

crease in crime rate in his city.

Although Mayor Genuino’s statements are plausible, I still believe that

anything that happens inside the city he governs is his own liability too. In my

opinion, his lack of responsibility and experience in public government contrib-

uted to the rise in the crime rate and that this should be a learning experience

for the mayor. I do believe that everyone can make a change to their community

but, until Mayor Genuino solves this problem, he will remain in my thoughts as

simply just a politician who does not care for his community.

It will continue to exist as a mystery to all of us of why these things

keep on happening. Is it just some ordinary criminals trying to disrupt the daily

lives of our people, or is there a bigger picture to all of these?

Nothing is something that would always be around us. It is not about a

feeling or something concrete, it’s something about lacking something that is a

requirement or something constant in our brains. Our knowledge is always incom-

plete, we strive to know everything but that can’t fit in our limited memory.

That “everything” is the thing we all want to know, something that we want to

prove and that “everything” for me is our origin not only ours but the whole uni-

verse.

We have a lot of sources which are all invalid in some way; there are some

that are just theoretical and some that are scientifically invalid. Both can’t go

together and if there are objections then we can easily say that it’s not that

viable. If you are scientifically inclined we are going to talk about the Big

Bang but if you’re the other way around then it’s the seven days creation in the

Bible. These are just two and there are hundreds more that no one can memorize.

I am being extremely agnostic, I’m seeking the truth. Science explains that the universe could have started in an extremely small particle-like, high-energy

packed object that can fit in our wallets, it spontaneously expanded in millions

of light years forming the universe, creating the most fundamental of all the

particles, converting mass and energy in many forms and until now it is unfin-

ished, it’s still expanding. Some say that this phenomenon is elastic that after

that enormous expansion it will all just go back into that particle that we can

swallow. What comes after that? It will start all over again? What about the re-

gion where the particle resides? We can never tell.

Science always expanded these ideas but all are theories, no proofs and even

now they are combining the equations from Quantum Mechanics and Relativity to

form the theory of everything but still it’s a theory, no proof still and even

this theory is not yet made. We all don’t know even the greatest geniuses can’t

pinpoint that exact answer that can change everything. For scientists after all

those big bangs comes life, the greatest mystery having a tie with the origin of

everything.

Evolution is the word for life in science. An ape transformed into a human

after thousands of years due to natural selection. Let us all be open minded and

not be ashamed that there is a possibility that our ancestors may be chimpanzees.

This may be true but the question is that if there ever was that missing link,

can it ever give the origin of life? What about the very start of life how did

organic molecules form such sophisticated, perfectly made systems that can move

Everything We Know About The Mystery Of Nothing

Joseph Paulo Alvarez Gonzales

by itself, digest, and think! What about the conscience can science explain that?

We can never tell.

If religion suits you better then the creation in seven days and the story

of Adam and Eve is where it all starts. Conscience has an explanation here, judg-

ment in the end, and the presence of God is always an accompaniment. God is the

central theme and mostly focusing on the emotional and creating something from

nothing. Be honest and think logically without the influence of religion. We can never really tell if it’s true or not especially when most of us haven’t really seen a

miracle. Most say that living another day is a miracle but it’s too usual, it

doesn’t feel that miraculous. Religious persons might contradict to this but

questioning the reality isn’t that bad, it gives us more chance to find the truth

because we would always find inconsistencies in the explanations of our origins.

Making the world in seven days is too unusual, all that we have learned in ele-

mentary and high school never showed that, it’s too fictitious, based too much on

literature in my opinion when being agnostic but I am still a Catholic, believing

in the holy trinity, but being someone questioning the truth is sometimes fun,

I’m not an Atheist it’s too blank, too dull for me.

Searching the truth is still a big conquest today, empowering our minds to

know more is still a strenuous job, proving things mathematically, creating mod-

els to simulate a theory of an origin, searching for God if everything in the

Books in every religion tell the truth or if they are just fictitious literature. We want to know everything but are we enough, are we really capable of

knowing the truth about everything? We learn everything, attain knowledge that no

one can ever steal but if the time comes when we know all the truth, all secrets

have been revealed, would life still be fun? Are we still going to be happy? What

changes are we going to experience?

A quote from a famous author says that “ Once we know everything, all

truths have been revealed; we will be all alone in the universe”. Being alone in

the universe is a big impact of discovering everything but I believe that that

will never happen because knowledge is endless.

“The more I know, The more I do not know”, the more we learn, the more we

know that there are more things to learn. We are all subjected to change, it’s

nonstop, and change is the only thing constant in this world, we change for good,

we change for bad and change will lead us to respect the truth, it will help us

find more clues about the truth.

This is yet another stupid essay about the conquest for truth, I love to

write about this, it’s like an exercise for me to be more encouraged to find out

more, to crave for reality in which for me is the most sweetest thing in this

world. Finding something new is a fine deed for someone, with a good demeanor and

a great determination, I believe that we will all someday find another breathtak-

ing truth that will once again shape our universe, to create a new range of

ideas, that will revolutionize science and to contradict religion again. It’s an

endless story of adventure for the most important treasure of the universe, that

is for me is something impossible to find for there are infinite clues that need

to be organized to solve the gigantic puzzle of our origin.

If not then one of the previous facts would be real and what we are doing

now is just finding our way out of a maze that we’ve actually built.

You don’t get it. You never will. You will never understand the true pur-

pose my smile serves. Your perception of who I am is a person who is cheerful and

positive in every way, inside and out. With just one look, you see optimism all

over my face. Oh, how wrong you are. You will never see beyond the surface, you

will never realize the truth hidden beneath my grin.

I want to laugh at what you think of me, a person whom you suppose sees

the good in every being. I want to actually laugh, and let out a genuine smile, a

smile that has not been seen for so long, I’m not even sure it ever existed. But

I can’t. That would be something the opposite of me would do, something the phony

version of myself would let happen.

I am what you can call an artist or an actor at his best, performing on-

stage in front of the whole world. Don’t be deceived by the attitude I seem to

possess, for what reality lets us behold is not always the truth. Sometimes, they

are the ones that are imaginary. But who am I kidding, I fool everybody. Nobody

would ever see the untidy mixture of the pain, the loneliness, and the rage that

is continuously frying my heart and brain. Instead, what you get from me is a

cool demeanor, a happy-go-lucky kid that knows no burden.

You really think I’m happy? You stupid fool. I am far from happy. You

think smiles are only for the joyful? Then go live in a fairytale. This is the

real world. And in the real world, you don’t smile to express your joy. You smile

because you need to. You smile because you can’t show the world how much you are

hurting on the inside. You smile because it is the only thing you can hold onto,

it is the only thing that can hold you together, keep you from breaking. It is

the only thing that can disguise and hide the shattered mess that is your emo-

tions and thoughts.

I live in a very cruel world, filled with unjust people and their immortal

lust for power. How do I bring myself to let out a genuine smile when the world

itself tries to make me feel everything else other than the feeling a smile is

originally supposed to portray? I live in a very cruel world, filled with hatred

and poor judgment. How can I smile when the principles and everything else I try

to believe in is destroyed by the people that think otherwise? I live in a very

cruel world, filled with apathetic stares and malicious lies thrown by monsters

clothed in pretty skins. How do I even survive?

The society I live in makes the rules. Who cares about right and wrong?

Who cares about what you believe in? If what you think is different from theirs,

then yours is considered wrong. What do you do when you can’t escape the unfair-

Smiles Karlos Federico Apilado Lampa

ness of a society and the never-ending quest to sin?

I smile. I smile in the hopes that, by fooling everybody, I would be able

to fool myself too. And so I keep on smiling, but not to show the joy that I

truly lack, for in reality, smiles are not always about expressing happiness.

Sometimes, they are just there to hide everything else, because you are in no

position to let it all out.

Every country has its own vibrant tapestry of tales that grows in span

with the passage of time. Each uniquely woven to different designs, using differ-

ently colored spools, to reflect a nation’s identity. One such tapestry are the

Yokai.

Yokai are the Japanese counterpart of what we call aswang in Filipino and

spirit or demon in English. The term came from the Japanese Kanji that means

weird or otherworldly. And their origin, like any other folklore, is hard to

determine, since they had existed long before people learned to write. It perhaps

began as a single tale which grew and lengthened as it was told from person to

person.

Yokai are traditional creatures of supernatural origin that could either

bring luck or misfortune with them, therefore, not all of them are actually scary

and bad. Some possess animal-like characteristics and others, spiritual powers.

There exists a vast diversity of Yokai but only some are well-known. Here

are some of those I really know and a short description; they are categorized

according to type to make it easier.

Animal Shape Shifters

These are Yokai that can change their form from an animal to a human or

another creature and vice versa. Under this are the Kitsune or foxes,

Okami or wolves, Hebi or snakes, Bakaneko or cats, Tsuchigumo or spiders

and Inugami or dogs. They often put on their human form to lure people

they prey on.

Oni

The Oni are ogres. Although they are often depicted as evil, they are one

of the most popular Yokai.

Tsukumogami

The phenomena of household items coming to life are said to be because of

the Tsukumogami. A significant event, like for example the hundredth anni-

versary the item or the death of the owner endeared to an item, are the

usual cause of a Tsukumogami.

Human Transformations

These are the Yokai who started out as mere mortals. They’re transforma-

Yokai Zarah Elizabeth Lauresta Arcega

tion to grotesque and horrifying monsters are brought upon by great nega-

tive emotions. Rokuro-kubi, a human who can elongate his neck at night,

and Futakuchi-Onna, a woman who has a mouth behind her head, are examples

of this type.

Others

Other Yokai are classified according to their powers or habitat. My favor-

ite, the Shinigami or grim reaper, probably falls in this category.

There is one such event where all Yokai gather, the Hakki Yagyo. The

Hyakki Yagyo, or the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons, as it is translated in

English, is a Japanese folk lore concept wherein Yokai or spirits are said to

march past the streets of Japan, in lead of the Nurarihyon, an old yokai spirit a

head like that of a gourd who loves barging in to people’s households. Those un-

protected mortals who witness or come across this procession that happens only

for one summer night every year, fail to survive.

This Yokai have inspired many works, from paintings to animes. My own fas-

cination with it was probably because of the animes and mangas I am very fond of.

The Yokai give the culture of Japan a dark yet mysteriously alluring im-

pression.

A Bent Truth Katrice Dawn Balanay Bulanhagui

Have you ever seen a spherical mirror? Or have you ever heard of what it

even looked like? Three years ago, I wouldn’t have had any idea about them and

would probably stop reading this paragraph the moment I see something connected

to a mind-boggling science concept. But then I have to share this, I’m fond of

looking at the deeper meaning of things, stuff not everyone can see. I always

thought if there were many who didn’t care about it, I’d like to be one of the

few who would since it’ll be such a shame to miss it. And that’s where the mirror

came into the picture.

According to encyclopedias, spherical mirrors are either concave or con-

vex, whose surface forms part of a sphere. According to the internet, the center

of the imaginary sphere is called the center of curvature. According to our Phys-

ics teacher, both types reflect a different image compared to what the surround-

ings really appear to be. But nowhere else, be it any logical reference material,

could we read that spherical mirrors are like the people of today.

Of course we are part of those so-called “people”, people comprising the

dirty, corrupt and sinful society. Wow, it sounds harsh, doesn’t it? I feel the

same way. But although a person can see what he chooses to see, it is not always

that we are given a choice. More often than not, a person is revealed even of

things he would rather not see. And a realization came that we have been turning

a blind eye to the very thing that can turn the world upside down—truth.

Truth -- it's supposed to be something absolute and irrefutable. But what

do we do? People tend to "bend" the meaning of truth, just like how concave or

convex mirrors bend the real image of objects.

As we now already know, the two types reflect different images. A concave

mirror shows a magnified or reduced reflection while a convex mirror only shows a

reduced one. Nevertheless, neither of the two can be used to find out the genuine

image of an object or place.

If it was an analogy of mirror versus humans, it would look a bit like

this:

Reduced Magnification: We have a tendency to belittle or give little importance

to things we should actually pay attention to.

Magnified: On the other hand, we also have times when we make a big deal out of

things that aren't significant, and we lose sight of what's really important.

And just like these mirrors who only form part of a sphere, we can say the

“picture” we “reflect” is also distorted because we only focus on a part of the

truth, an incomplete one but that which has the possibility to be turned around

by a simple missing thought.

We give our own interpretations and claim the truth for ourselves.

A person views the world in different ways, based on HIS experiences, on HIS

prior knowledge, on HIS own ability to understand. And since each person is dif-

ferent when it comes to those aspects, in the end, we all have our own 'truths'

which makes most, if not all, situations complicated.

“John 8:32, The truth shall set you free”. This is a statement commonly

heard as advice, sermon or just random information. On the surface, the verse

might seem to be a baloney. How can the truth set people free? It actually gets

people into more trouble especially if a sin is behind the problem.

It is so easy to tell a lie, say that you didn’t cheat in a written test

in school even if you really did, because being honest means being punished. We

are afraid to face the consequences of our actions so we try to take the easy way

out. We mistake pride weighing more than integrity, power more than dignity. Such

cowardice brings pain even to my ear, but these are the “concave mirrors” of the

society. We are. The little acts of dishonesty we can now easily do may be the

same acts of perjury, in a large scale, we perform later.

If we observe our surroundings, we can see the affectionate with broken

families and relationships, the innocent behind bars, the greedy in authority or

the corrupt increasing their wealth. Why? Because the truth was hidden, because a

lie was given. As a child, I learned to get used to it, especially in our coun-

try, and now I understand that the present generation holds the future of the

next few years. Whatever action we grew up seeing from the adults would instill

in our minds that “Mom/Dad/Tita/That stranger was doing it and no one seems to

mind. Perhaps it’s all right to do that.” Even if it isn’t. But we can do some-

thing about it. The teens of today are the adults of tomorrow.

Take a guy and a girl in a relationship for example. Most probably, they

are together because they have feelings for one another. If the “spherical mir-

rors” in them takes effect, the break up might just breed bitter feelings. The

girl may lie, say that going away was because of his attitude even when it was

really because of his looks. The guy could also mislead, saying he had financial

problems when in truth, he was just having an affair with another girl. The

situation might’ve come from the fact that many adults keep looking for more,

changing partners even if they are matrimonially bound to someone. The “big guys”

play around so why can’t we, right? It’s a saddening scene.

We could’ve saved ourselves from further conflicts, severed ties and com-

plicated explanations if only we just tell the truth. You might think that read-

ing about this is really boring since it is such a nerdy topic to talk about. But

before all that, you know that you see these facts happening in your personal

life. Have we thought of the basis of our truth?

Some have this thinking that what the majority does, no matter how absurd,

seem to be the right thing to do. It would appear that the ultimate goal for hu-

mans is to belong. But actually, I think it's not really the right thing to do.

If it was, then the truth changes as fast as time changes. Then it wouldn’t be

‘truth’ anymore because it’s not absolute. The one and only constant in the ever-

changing world is God, which goes to say that the basis of our truth is in Him.

No matter how twisted the world has become, we still have hope and an opportunity

to change because in Him was proven that the truth is unchangeable it will set us

free.

We all have this negative part of "reflecting" our surroundings, and we

better watch out for that. Else, the truth will never be revealed to us. It's

such a waste to let that happen.

Oh, and I'm not writing this out of hate or condemnation or desire for

world domination or whatsoever. I just wanted to share my opinion about a possi-

ble reason for the mystery, why our world seems to be hurt by itself. Perhaps we

can reflect a bit about it and ask ourselves: Why do we bend the truth?

After Life Patricia Anne De Jesus Cabanit

We are born, we grow up, and then we die. We know that after nine months

of pregnancy, a baby is born. We know that after a year or so, that baby should

already be taking its first steps, saying its first word. We know that that baby,

who has grown up to a child, should go to school by the age of six. We know that

that child will soon hit puberty around 11 to 13 years old. We know that that

child, who is now a teen, would go off to college and start going to work. We

know that he will soon meet the one he loves, and eventually marry in his late

20’s or early 30’s. He would have children of his own, and his children would

have children of their own by the time he is in his 60’s. But what of dying?

Dying has always been a mystery to me. Whenever I get the chance to think

about it, tears well up in my eyes. What exactly is death? According to the Ency-

clopedia Britannica, death is the total cessation of life processes that eventu-

ally occurs in all living organisms. Sounds scientific, doesn’t it? To put it

simply, death is the termination of life that eventually happens to every living

thing. If all of us would eventually die and millions more have died before us,

then by experience, shouldn’t we be accustomed of it already? We are, but not at

experiencing it firsthand.

We are not sure of what would happen to us after we die, and we are afraid

that we would spend eternity wandering around this world like ghosts – seeing

everything but not actually getting the chance to feel again; or become nothing

but blinding light and remain as thoughts that will continue to wonder; or cease

to be anything at all. We are afraid of what is uncertain, since no one has come

back from the dead and lived to tell the tale. We do not know when we will die,

which adds more to the fear.

For many of us who are Catholics, we believe that there is life after

death, but in three places. When we are worthy of it, we are allowed to enter the

kingdom of God, which we call heaven. There is never ending happiness there; no

turmoil, no chaos. However, if we still need to atone for our sins, we will be

sent to purgatory, where we can repent. Unfortunately for those who have no way

of redeeming themselves, they will see themselves in hell, suffering eternally

for whatever they have done here on earth.

When it comes down to it, we do not fear death itself, but what comes af-

ter it. As science has helped us understand how things work in this world, relig-

ion will help us understand and accept what awaits us in the after life. Only our

faith would be our solace when the time comes for us to leave this world and step

into the unknown.

They say a picture speaks a thousand words. One picture can convey so much

more meaning than books and essays and scriptures. One picture can say everything

that needs to be said without any words. It’s nice to view pictures, watch the

people in them, stare at the lines and the colors and try to decipher what they

mean.

What had they been thinking when that photo was taken? What had they been

feeling when they drew that?

Some pictures say a line. Like the picture of a girl smiling. It says that

she is happy. Or rather, tries to be. Some smiles are just for cameras but isn’t

that a good thing? At least once a photograph is developed, the smile will be

eternal. The smile is preserved. It will never change. And when that girl sees

her picture she will say, “Ah… Yes. That was the time when I could still smile.”

Some pictures whisper secrets. A hint of the lips. A shine in the eyes.

Some pictures tell of tales with the folds and creases and wrinkles on one’s

face. Some pictures are pleas of justice, of freedom – pictures of children

starving, of people dying in the streets, of arms reaching out to the sky begging

for something to keep them going. Some pictures utter words unspoken. Some pic-

tures cry for help. Some pictures deceive with lies. And, still, some pictures

echo the truth that can’t be told.

And there are some pictures that can’t be deciphered; pictures that are,

yet can’t be understood; pictures that speak but their words can’t be compre-

hended. There are pictures that are simple yet complicated; pictures that can no

longer be broken down but are still not in their simplest form.

There is a picture that speaks of mystery; a picture that contains but the

face of a girl with clear brown eyes gazing towards nothing. The corners of her

lips are turned up slightly, making it appear as if she is smiling. But her smile

is a puzzle. It is happiness one second that turns into grimace. Next it is scorn

only to become gentle once again. In an instant it changes from intriguing to

teasing. Her smile seems inviting and at the same time haughty. Her smile is mag-

netic and at the same time terrifying.

I cannot understand what it is behind her smile. Why is it the way it is?

Why does it seem to change every minute? I wonder what she’s thinking of. Is that

humor that I see in her eyes that gaze far away? Or is that sadness that I see?

When I had first seen that picture, I used to think that she was happy.

Her smile was faint but the tinkling of her eyes held so much hope. Yes. I remem-

ber back then that I used to imagine her eyeing her dream. She was bold, confi-

The Picture Tracey Dela Cruz

dent, sure of herself, and ready to take on the world! I used to watch that pic-

ture and think that she was hopeful.

A few years later, that smile had turned to a grimace. No longer was hap-

piness there. She had become sad. Her eyes were gazing no longer at her dreams

but at the broken shards of her life. Her smile existed not to reflect the bliss

she felt inside but to hide the pain that was threatening to break the surface.

And still, more time passed and the girl was no longer sad. Anger had

taken the place of her melancholy. Her smile had become full of scorn. Her eyes

had become mischievous. The features of her once gentle face had hardened with

hate and spite. No trace of sadness could be found. There were only malice and

bitterness.

How about now? Now her face had calmed down but she looks aged. She looks

like she has been defeated yet in the midst of her defeat she finds the strength

to grow stronger. Her smile is one of acceptance. Her eyes are bright with re-

newed expectations. Her far away gaze holds some bit of uncertainty yet she per-

ceives something that keeps her going.

The picture of the girl is still full of mystery. It shifts from time to

time, changes along with the weather – today, stormy; tomorrow, sunny. Her pic-

ture is a puzzle that is yet to be solved. The truth behind her smile is yet to

be uncovered. Is she happy or is she sad? The way she looks changes every day,

every season.

Yet I wonder, is it she who alters or is it I who changes?

I am not afraid of anything, except for the dark, bugs…and change. I’ve

always been aware of my fear of the dark and of critters ever since I had learned

to understand things. But never did I realize that I’ve been scared of change all

my life, not until now.

Metathesiophobia, as defined by Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, is the

persistent, abnormal, and unwarranted fear of change. It may be caused by insecu-

rities, but this is not always the case. Symptoms include shortness of breath,

rapid breathing, sweating nausea, irregular heartbeat, and overall feelings of

dread. My case however, may not be as serious as having symptoms and such.

Still, having the phobia itself can be very alarming, especially when I do not

know up to what extent the phobia will control me, if that’s the right word to

use.

It was just this March I realized that I’m metathesiophobic. To be

exact, it was on the third of March, nighttime, right after my discussion with my

mother. My father was out, that was why no one stopped me from discussing with my

mother all the way. It was a stupid discussion, actually, for it revolved on my

personal hygiene and my not taking a full bath at night. But the goal of any dis-

cussion is to win in the end no matter how deep or shallow the subject is, so I

held my ground to the point I was already shouting and that I was hitting her as

a form of defense whenever she hit me.

As I reminisce on what had happened that time, I regret that I even

started a thing so idiotic, since I ended up taking a full bath even if it was

against my wishes. But I came to realize something which I think was more idiotic

than the first and mysterious at the same time: Why did I do it? Why did I start

a quarrel with my mother when I could’ve just listened to her in the first place?

And then it struck me. Whenever somebody would try to correct me or advice

me on things which could help me improve myself, I gave them a nod, yes, but I

never actually did listen to any of them. At first I thought it was because I

don’t want people influencing me with an environment which can make my life for

better or for worse. I also thought people may think differently of me if I let

myself be exposed to new environments, and that exposing myself to such environ-

ments may ask more from me than what I am really capable of. But the root of it

all is simple, and it’s because I was, and I am, afraid of change. If there’s one

thing that the Lord will permit me to ask, I’d like to know that of all the mys-

teries there’s in the universe, why I should have an irrational fear of change.

But no matter how hard I ask, I know I may never know the answer, for there are a

Fear of Change Joelean Zephanie Ecleo Escote

lot of questions in this world, and most of them are best left alone.

Everything happens for a reason. And whatever the reason may be,

only the Lord knows what it is. So what’s the best thing left for me to do now?

Overcome my being metathesiophobic with the Lord’s help and let myself be open to

change. It’s not going to be easy, but nothing is ever easy till one believes it

is, and that’s what I’m going to do.

There are many events that have occurred in my life, and in the lives of

others, that I cannot explain. One instance would be my friend and her bracelet.

This friend of mine bought this piece of jewelry as a Christmas present to her-

self and she never lost it. There was one time when she tells me that one day at

school she looked down at her wrist and found that the bracelet was gone. She

panicked and she looked for the bracelet everywhere all afternoon, but she could-

n’t find it. Dejected, she went home. On the taxi ride home, she found her brace-

let lying on the floor of the taxi. She has lost her bracelet again a number of

other times, but it always comes back to her somehow…always.

I cannot explain how my irrational seven-year long fear of dogs suddenly

melted away after just one touch of the new pet my parents had given me when I

was eight years old. I was sitting in bed and reading when they arrived home

bringing my new friend with them. He was a toy poodle, barely six months old and

the size of my hand. He was so friendly – the first thing he did was jump off the

hands of my parents and run over to me at once, and he looked so cute as he en-

thusiastically ran to me. He was barking cheerfully and licking me, and I knew

then that he knew that I was his owner, his master. The thing is that before then

I had been scared of every single dog on the earth — from the tiniest Chihuahua

to the largest St Bernard, but now all of it changed in just one second when I

held him in my arms and he peed in my hands. I have been in love with every sin-

gle dog on the planet ever since. Whenever there is a dog show or a TV show about

dogs, I am excited to watch it. Whenever there is a book about dogs, I am excited

to read it. Whenever I see a dog, I am excited to meet it and befriend it. I am

no longer afraid of giant dogs or small ones, and it is all because of one tiny

dog—my tiny dog—named Sancho.

I cannot explain how my grandmother and my mother could be so indifferent

about the loss of almost all the books I loved so much when they promised to keep

them safe. I was thirteen years old, and we were moving to Manila. There was no

more space for all the books in our small house there, and I could only choose a

few to bring with me, so my mother said that my grandmother would keep them hid-

den away safely in her house. I made both of them promise to keep the books safe

and they promised. However, when I came back around a year later, I ran to the

bookshelf where all of my beloved books were supposed to be only to find most of

them gone. Only one or two books remained. I was so angry then, because they had

promised to keep the books safe and instead all I got was news from my grand-

mother that termites or something had eaten away at the books and only a few had

Miraculum Toni Dominique Ponce Garcia

remained. I wanted to cry then; I was so heartbroken. Those were all the books I

had ever had since I was a baby. I trusted them to take care of those precious

books! They were more than words on paper to me and my mother and grandmother

knew that! I had read so much and there was still so much there that I had not

read. Those were books filled with stories and worlds of their own; they were all

great little adventures all by themselves, and they were adventures that I did

not want to forget. And my mother and grandmother — two of the people who had

made the most effort to foster my love for reading — felt no guilt. My mother’s

face was emotionless as she told me to just “Accept it, get over it and move on.”

This only broke my heart more.

I cannot explain how someone I had given all my love and trust to

could leave me. I literally gave him everything, and in return he left. However,

I think the truth is that I am just too stubborn to accept any explanation, be-

cause none satisfies me. Anyone can tell me that I don’t deserve him, but this

still doesn’t make me understand why he left. Anyone can tell me that he didn’t

want to hurt me anymore, but this still doesn’t make me understand why he left.

Anyone can tell me that he left me for another girl, but this still doesn’t make

me understand why he left. I guess I will never understand, and this is another

thing I will never be able to explain. I guess some people just weren’t meant to

understand some things.

And I cannot explain, for the life of me, how a boy can buy a girl a neck-

lace with the same exact design as a necklace he had bought for another girl be-

fore when there are a hundred million other necklace designs out there! The only

explanation for this is that he is cheap, and he probably bought the two similar

necklaces at a Buy-One-Take-One Deal. Therefore, I cannot explain how this boy

can be so cheap and uncreative when it comes to buying gifts for his girlfriend,

when she obviously deserves more than the recycled echoes of gifts he had already

given other girls.

But perhaps the biggest mystery of life I will never be able to explain is

how people miss out on all the small things that they will never be able to ex-

plain, despite their curiosity—such as the force that drives us to wake up every

morning, the feeling we get when we hold a baby in our arms, the beauty of a sun-

rise, and the existence of a simple thought in our minds. We think this is nor-

mal, and we treat it as mundane, when in truth our existence is probably the

greatest mystery and miracle the world will ever see.

Flash Fiction

“The story you choose to tell isn't always the story

you believe.”

Vehemence Romar Angelo Malabag Avila

It’s 2:00 AM. I was alone in my bed.

I woke up in the middle of the night covered in sweat, my heart beating

fast. “It’s another nightmare,” I thought. “You’re alone, George. She’s gone

now.”

Ever since I found out about Brenda’s affair with some mysterious guy, I

wasn’t the same person anymore. I began having these sleepless nights. But to-

night was different. I slept soundly, but I was woken up by a nightmare that I

can’t seem to remember.

“Well, better get back to bed. I need some sleep.” I was about to sleep

when suddenly the phone rang. “Who could it be at this hour?”

“Mr. Ramirez? Am I speaking to Mr. Ramirez?” the voice in the phone said.

“Yes, it’s me. What’s wrong?”

“Your wife. She was assaulted by an unknown assailant. She’s here at the

county hospital.”

“Oh. I see. Thank you, I’ll be on my way.”

Who could have done this? But, that isn’t important. Brenda was hurt, and I’m

coming for her.

My feelings for Brenda started flooding back. I remember we met two years

ago. Since then, we’ve had our ups and downs. A few months ago, I heard the news

that broke my heart.

“You’re leaving me? I’m sorry. Whatever I did, I’ll change for you. I

swear.”

“That’s just it, George. You never stand up for yourself. I need a man who

can take care of me, not a wimp.”

“I’m sorry, I’ll make it up to you, I’ll -”

“Goodbye, George. Take care.”

And then, she was gone.

“Thank God you’re here, Mr. Ramirez. Your wife is just down the hall.”

As I walked down the hall, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for Brenda.

True, she may have gone off with another man, but a part of me still couldn’t let

go of her.

“George? Is that you?”

It was not the voice that I expected. It was my best friend, Paul.

“Hey Paul. Thanks for coming.”

“Umm, hey, I knew you’d come. She’s still legally your wife, after all. I

just came to, umm, check on the two of you, you know, to see if things are okay.”

“Umm, thanks, Paul.”

“Hey, you know what, I have to go. I still have work in the morning. I’ll

leave you two alone. Bye George, say hello to Brenda when she wakes up, will

you?”

“Sure.”

My heart pounded with anticipation as I reached out for the door. I imag-

ined Brenda waiting for me, missing me after all this time. I wanted another

chance for love.

But when I opened the door, I was in shock.

Brenda was not the same woman whom I fell in love with two years ago. Her

once rosy cheeks were now a dull shade of gray. Her eyes which were once soft and

innocent are now just emotionless circles fixed on the ceiling. And her beautiful

face, the face which I used to kiss, was now masked by a breathing tube down her

nose and a couple of blue bruises.

The look in Brenda’s eyes changed as she caught a glance of me. They

transformed quickly to a look of fear as if I were a ghost.

“No George! Please, go away! I never want to see you again!”

My love for Brenda disappeared in a flash. What was left was the anger,

hatred, and frustrations that I had bottled up for quite some time. A sudden

burst of fury engulfed me, letting loose all the turmoil inside me.

“Hey Brenda. Remember me? I hope you’re happy, because I am. I never

needed you anyway. You were just a parasite who used me and who took up space in

my life. Thank you for having the guts to break up with me after two miserable

years. Look at you now, Brenda. You’re a disgusting little piece of shit. I can’t

believe how crazy I was to claim that I ever loved you. I despise you more than

anything in this world, you understand me? You sick whore. I hope you’ll die

soon, because your life is meaningless anyway. The only difference is, in this

hospital, there will be someone to mop up your guts once they blow out of your

face. Goodbye, Brenda. I hope you die a slow and painful death.”

My heart was a bright star when I was in love. But, Brenda’s betrayal

caused it to swell with rage and explode like a supernova. Now, my heart has col-

lapsed. There is nothing there but a great emptiness that sucks out all my emo-

tions, leaving me cold and numb.

My heart had become a black hole.

Brenda’s eyes went blank.

“No… Brenda, I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to…”

Brenda didn’t respond. She was declared dead a few minutes later.

My conscience couldn’t take the thought of me being responsible for the

death of another person. What happened to me back there? Where did those awful

words come from? Have I been holding these feelings all this time?

I decided to pass by Paul’s house. I needed someone to have a beer with. I

couldn’t help but feel guilty over what happened last night. At least I know Paul

won’t judge me. He’s a good guy, that’s why we’ve been friends since the seventh

grade.

“That’s funny, no one’s here.” I thought.

The place was a mess. There were piles of unfinished food everywhere.

Scattered along the house were dirty clothes.

And then, something caught my eye.

A blouse. A blue blouse.

The blouse Brenda wore on our first date.

“It can’t be.”

Under a pile of clothes, I discovered pictures of Paul with some girl. One

in particular got to me, because Paul and the girl were making out in the photo-

graph.

The girl in the photograph was Brenda.

In a flash, my whole world collapsed.

“My best friend… and my wife?” I said, unable to comprehend what I had

witnessed.

“George?” a voice behind me said.

“Paul… What’s the meaning of this?”

I held up the picture of them together.

“No, it’s not what it looks like, George. Don’t be like that…”

“Then please explain to me why I have a picture of you kissing my wife.”

A great silence ensued.

“You’re the guy Brenda ran off with, aren’t you?”

“I’m sorry!” pleaded George. “At first, I really didn’t want to date her,

but she wouldn’t give up. One thing led to another, I don’t really know how, but

I fell in love with her although it felt really wrong. So, she moved in with me.

I didn’t know how to break it to you, George. I mean, I care about you and all,

but I only followed my heart.”

My brain was empty. I had nothing to say.

“But now, it makes no difference. She’s dead. The doctor said she had a

heart attack a few minutes after you left. I know you’re still in shock, but, I

still consider you my best friend. Can’t we just forget this and move on?”

“I loved her, Paul. You knew that.”

“And I loved her too. I’m sure it’s not your fault, some people aren’t

really meant for each other. I guess we had the same fate not to be with her. So,

how about it? Friends?”

I walked out the door involuntarily, my mind still a blur trying to proc-

ess the information.

“Hey man, I understand. You need time to take in all of this. I mean, your

wife just died. I’ll be waiting here for you. I’ll make it up to you someday. You

don’t know how sorry I am, buddy. I’ll be seeing you.”

I slammed the door shut.

I headed back to my house. I didn’t realize it until now, but I was both

physically and emotionally exhausted today. Maybe, after a good night’s sleep,

this will all be better. Or maybe, this is all just a crazy dream. I’ll wake up,

with my wife beside me, as if nothing happened for the past two months. I’ll be

happy again.

12:30 PM. I wake up in the middle of the night.

Something’s wrong, like I had woken up in the wrong house. Did someone

break into my house and rearrange my furniture? I couldn’t see clearly because of

the dark. There, I could make out the figure of a person in the room.

Paul was staring blankly at me.

But, his body was missing.

The sight made me want to puke. Blood stained everything from the curtains

to the ceiling. The smell of death literally covered the entire house. Paul’s

bowels were scattered on the floor like he was a cow slaughtered by a butcher.

But the house was not mine.

I was in Paul’s house.

What happened to Paul? What was I doing here? Did I do all of this?

Fear immediately set in. If the cops found me here, I’d be imprisoned for

life. I went to his kitchen and found some gas. I quickly doused the whole of the

house with it, and, with a match, I watched as the remains of my best friend and

his house were engulfed in flame.

I returned to my house as quickly as I can. The event traumatized me. When

I close my eyes, I still see Paul staring at me as if to remind me of what I had

done. But, did I really do anything? And how did I do it in my sleep?

The next morning, I decided to see a psychologist. I don’t know if unlock-

ing my subconscious memories was a good idea, but I wanted to know the truth.

“Ah, Mr. Ramirez, here for your appointment?” said the doctor.

“Are you the psychologist?”

“Yes, I am. I’m Dr. Robert Li, but you can just call me Bob. Now, take a

seat. We have work to do.”

I uneasily sat on the curved brown chair.

“What I am going to do is called the Rorshach test. I’ll show you a bunch

of random blobs, and you tell me the first thing that pops into your mind when

you see one.”

“Sure.”

“Okay, here we go. What do you see?”

“A dog being choked.”

I was taken aback by my answer. I felt as if someone was answering for me.

“Hmm, interesting. How about this one?”

“A pig’s body being mutilated.”

“Okay, lastly, how about this one?”

“A large house burning like hell.”

“I see. Mr. Ramirez, I got some very disturbing answers, honestly. Now, I

shall try to refresh your memory to see what’s been causing your anxiety. Now,

close your eyes. Follow the sound of my voice…”

The next thing I knew, I was in my car.

I was driving along this road alone. Suddenly, I saw Brenda getting home

from work. She was all alone. I got out. I approached her. What I did was unex-

plainable.

I strangled her.

“George? How could you….” she said weakly. A few moments later, she

fainted, being unable to breathe. I walked away as if nothing happened. A man saw

her unconscious body and pulled out his cellphone.

Then, I was transported to another place. It was Paul’s house. I got in

through the back door which he kept unlocked. I went to the kitchen and grabbed

the steak knife from the knife set I had given him on his birthday. Then, I went

up to his room, and struck a blow, cleanly slicing through his neck. Blood

spurted out like a fountain, and Paul woke up to utter his final words.

“George! Don’t! I’m sor…”

He stopped speaking. The blood stopped spattering. He was dead.

The knife was a dark shade of red. I licked the blade, marveling in my

deed. Bloodlust overcame me. I wanted more. I started stabbing his body like a

madman, letting out an unearthly laugh.

The scene vanished. I was in total darkness.

A mirror materialized in front of me. I saw my own reflection, but it

seemed warped and distorted. There was a look of spite in my eyes, and my hands

were covered in blood.

And then, it spoke.

“Hello, George.”

“W-Who are you?”

“I’m you. Don’t you see? We’re exactly alike.”

“No I’m not! You killed Brenda and Paul, didn’t you?”

“Once again, YOU did all of those yourself. You see, I am the anger, rage,

and fury that you’ve been keeping to yourself all these years. You thought that I

would disappear, that I would simply go away if you forget about those who did

you wrong. But no, I did not go away. I grew stronger as time went by, because

you kept on hiding your emotions behind the mask you call a face. Finally, after

all these years, YOU gave me a chance to escape.”

“You’re a monster!”

“You can’t blame me. You’re the one who created me. You’re the one who

killed that bitch Brenda and your bastard friend Paul. But, that’s not all.

Slowly, I’ll take over your life. I’ve already started by eliminating those you

despise. Soon, when my power is complete, your soul will be taken over by my con-

sciousness.”

“No! I won’t let you!”

“But you already have. Look.”

A window appeared out of the void. I saw the doctor’s office.

But it was the wrong shade of red.

The dark crimson red of blood covered the entire room.

“No! You murderer!”

“Don’t act like that” he said with a malicious grin. “Aren’t you happy

that you took revenge on the people who hurt you, the people who were supposed to

love you? Can’t you feel my power surging through your veins? You should thank

me. I’m using your body for a much more gratifying purpose.”

“No! Please stop!”

“It will all be over soon. Enjoy your last few moments of freedom, George.

Soon, your body will be mine!”

I woke up holding a severed corpse in my hand.

I am George L. Ramirez, 33 years old. I have brown hair, I’m about 5’8”,

and I am of Hispanic descent. If you ever see me, please do not get close to me.

I am being overcome by a dark power within me, so take this seriously. Do not

approach me for anything no matter how important. And in the case that I approach

you and attempt to kill you, use whatever means you have to get away, even if it

means my death. But please, have pity on me. I have two things to ask of you.

First, please take pity on my soul. Pray for me, that someday I may be

freed again. My body may be taken over by malice, but I am still here, deeply

buried in my unconsciousness. It’s a nightmare for me to watch as these hands

which were once mine are now taking the lives of countless innocents. But please

know that I am in no way enjoying this. I hope that one day, my soul would be

cleaned of the blood of those I have killed. I still believe in God’s saving

grace, that he is the shelter of those who are oppressed. So, again, please pray

for me. I may not be able to give you anything in return, but the Eternal Being

will reward you in the afterlife.

And lastly, do not make the same mistake I did. Keep control of your an-

ger, but learn to release it along with all your frustrations. From what I hear

from ‘him’, all people have their own inner demons. They wait patiently until

their host is at his weakest. Then, they grab hold of all the spite and rage and

use it to gain control. I do not want another soul to suffer the same fate that I

did. Most importantly, in spite of all your problems in life, do not lose your

faith in God, for He is your salvation.

This I ask of you. May you keep your sanity.

Resolve Andrew Joelle Fabio Caguntas

It was February 23rd. The day was cold and dim, giving off a gloomy atmos-

phere. It was like any other day, except for the fact that it was utterly boring.

I was wandering aimlessly around the surroundings of our neighborhood, hoping to

find something fun to do. Little did I know that my carefree life was about to

change on that fateful day.

By the way, my name is Ven Walker. I’m 15 years old and currently in the

4th year of high school. Though I’m not much of an exemplary student, I still be-

long to the upper half of our batch. I’m also a socially introverted person. I

never mingle with others, other than my parents, unless absolutely necessary. My

hobbies include solving puzzles and reading mystery novels. Other than that, I am

also familiar with taekwondo and a skilled marksman. My parents told me that

these were for self-defense, though I never found a reason to use these skills.

After a while, I got tired of exploring. I got so hungry and decided to go

home immediately for some snacks. My parents were home for the weekend, so I was

expecting mom would already be preparing our lunch. By the time I was already

near our house, I felt something was off. And by the looks of it, something was

definitely wrong.

The front door was left open.

My parents were security freaks and they would never, under any circum-

stance, leave the front door open. It may be just my imagination, but my in-

stincts tell me that something was definitely wrong. I carefully approached the

door while scanning the perimeter for the signs of any intruder. Upon realizing

that nobody was around, I went inside.

I was right, something was wrong.

The inside of the house was a bloody mess. And I mean it literally. Every-

thing was a wreck as far as I could see, and blood was spattered everywhere. I

rushed to the living room to see how my parents were doing. I almost immediately

regretted my decision.

Lying on the living room floor were my parents, surrounded by a pool of

blood.

I didn’t even need to check their vitals. I could clearly see that each of

them has a single bullet hole through their head. Just a single bullet each ended

their lives. My dad already has his gun in his hand, but apparently didn’t have

time to react. And that was already something, since I knew that my dad has a

relatively fast reaction time. This was clearly the work of a professional.

I was hopelessly hysterical upon the fact that my parents were dead. I

didn’t have enough time to mourn for them properly, since I sensed that someone

was already in the vicinity. I took my dad’s gun and aimed it the intruder.

“It looks like I was too late.”, the unknown man said.

“Who the hell are you?”, I asked without much enthusiasm.

“You can say that I am one of your parent’s friends, Ven. By the way, the

name’s Roxas.”, he said.

I was shocked that he knew my parents, and even knew my name. He summa-

rized everything he knew and told me that my parents and he were part of a secret

organization of assassins. Roxas said that the people who killed my parents were

probably after me too, being the only survivor of this incident. He asked me to

join the organization and gave me his number in case I needed help.

“You have the will, we have the resources. We can both work together to

avenge your parents. Give me a call when you made up your mind.”, Roxas said.

“This is none of your business. I could handle myself and solve this prob-

lem on my own.”, I said afterwards.

I packed up my belongings and took the money my parents left in case of

emergency. It wasn’t much, but it could help me travel the world and look for

their murderers. I left the house without a second look, determined to kill if

necessary. The only clue I have is a wallet with a lone ID, which I found under-

neath my mom’s corpse. The hitman probably left it behind in a hurry, or pur-

posely left it for me. I hid it from Roxas in case he would try to take it from

me. The picture was faded, and the name also unreadable. The only salvageable

information was that it was addressed at London. And that is my destination.

For almost a year, I have been searching my parents’ murderers. I became

aware that I was not only finding them, they were also trying to find me. I was

ok with the fact to continue this chase for as long as I can.

Quite unexpectedly, I met an usual sort of friend, which is almost impos-

sible in my case. I didn’t even ask for her name, mainly because I didn’t really

care about her, but just enjoyed her company. She gave me a tour to places around

London which I didn’t even know about. In a way, I became attached to her.

While we were walking at an alley, someone had shot her in the head. I

turned and immediately retaliated with my dad’s gun. I was able to kill the

shooter, but was still shocked by the incident. I couldn’t help but feel the same

sorrow I felt when I lost my parents. These bastards took everything away from me

yet again. I couldn’t take it anymore. My heart is filled with pent-up rage and

an insatiable desire for revenge. My views were changed at that moment. I vowed

to do everything to avenge those that I held dear. I picked up my phone and di-

aled a number that I have almost forgotten for a year.

“Roxas, I’m in.”, I said with such a resolve.

December 17, 2011

Today is Saturday. I started off my morning the usual way. I woke up at

four o’clock, the same time I wake up when I go to work. I prepared my meal – the

usual microwaved macaroni and cheese. I never had any real breakfast ever since

my house help left. To think of it, it has almost been a year since my last real

breakfast.

After eating breakfast, I took a bath in my newly renovated bathroom, then

I went downstairs in the lobby. As usual the lobby was so silent. 501 Scarborough

Homes has always been this quiet. Only 15 people lived in the building. In my

floor, there was only I and Mrs. Kelso, a widowed woman whose husband died in a

plane crash seven years ago. All I knew was that Mr. Kelso was a soldier and he

was on his way to South Korea when the plane he was in crashed.

As I walked out of the building, I noticed three unusual things. It was

already six o’clock in the morning but, the lampposts were still on. The village

maintenance would always turn them off at exactly 5:30. Another was that there

was a firetruck in front of the building just next to ours. It was not odd to me

that there was a firetruck. It was rather unusual that there was a fire truck

but, there were no firemen nor fire in the area. There were also mysterious peo-

ple around. They were men in black suites.

I wanted to go closer to the area. But I was running late already. My boss

asked me to go to work for a special case – the Antario-Marella disappearances.

The Antonio-Marella disappearances is one of the hardest cases I have ever han-

dled as a part of the Riverside City Police District. It is also my first case as

lieutenant. Ever since the corrupt chief got fired, things around the police de-

partment have changed. The lieutenant before me got promoted leaving our depart-

ment lieutenant-less. When cases started to pile in our department, the captain

needed to assign a new lieutenant. Sergeant Mike Bautista was the officer next in

line but, the chief wanted someone with a clean slate, so they ended up promoting

me from detective to lieutenant, skipping one step above.

I knew from the start that my promotion was just another political maneu-

ver for him.

At first I was afraid that Sergeant Bautista would get mad because he

wanted to become lieutenant. He never got mad at me. He even convinced me to ac-

cept the promotion.

As I drove going to the police station, I stopped for a while at my usual

coffee shop at Leviste street to buy a cup of hot chocolate.

The Machine Edilberto Ruivivar Co, Jr.

I arrived six minutes late at the station. The captain was already brief-

ing the other lieutenants. Mr. Mark Jacobs was assigned to the Raffleson Building

Bombing, being the Bombs and Explosives Department lieutenant. Like what I said a

while ago, I was assigned to the Antario-Marella disappearances case although I

don’t get why the captain would assign a disappearance case to the homicide divi-

sion.

Captain Karl Rodrigo and I were not in terms with each other. Last month,

I filed a case against him for taking $100,000 from the homicide division for

himself but, my actions backfired. I got assigned to cases too hard for me back

when I was a detective. Eventually, I had to suck up to the lieutenant.

After the briefing, I immediately went to my office. There was a pile of

paperworks on my desks. I have 3 desks in my office. One of them is my computer

table, the second table beside the file cabinet used to be a display table but

now paperworks are piled there. There is also another table at the center of the

room and that is my main desk where I do my regular work. My cork board had tons

of pictures pinned on it. Some were from the previous cases I held when I was

detective and mostly are data collected from the Antario-Marella case.

I looked at my desk and found a brown envelope. It contained a letter from

the Office of the Riverside City Police District Chief.

<Letter>

Lt. Hans Russel Bennet

Lieutenant, Homicide Department

Riverside City Police District

Tis the Season!

The Riverside City Police District Department will

be having its annual Christmas party on December 24,

2011 at 8:00 in the evening at the Neil James Inter-

national Convention Center.

Sincerely Yours,

Chief Armando Rodriguez

<End of Letter>

The letter was quite weird. The police station never had any Christmas

Party for years. The last one was probably a hundred years ago. Anyways, maybe

its because we have a new chief.

For six hours straight I reviewed the Antario-Marella case. The case was

very puzzling. I have handled disappearances before but not like this. Document

403s were found in the Antario residence as well as the Marello residence. Docu-

ment 403s were not supposed to be given to regular citizens. Only the Federal

Treasury was supposed to have these documents. These papers contained confiden-

tial information about development plans of the Federal Government. There were

also blood stains found on the carpet and also the wall of the houses. Usually

blood would not be found on these cases. The blood stains were brought for analy-

sis and the results would be out by monday.

I realized that I missed lunch. It was quite unusual for me to miss lunch

because I always had an alarm clock that activates every hour when I am at work.

* * * *

It was five o’clock in the afternoon already. It was time for me to go

back home.

I arrived home at exactly 6:30 in the evening. Before I drove home, I or-

dered some Chicken Pastel at Margareth’s Italian Bistro for dinner.

After eating dinner, I went straight to my bed.

December 19, 2011

It is monday again. Flag ceremony starts at eight o’clock at the Riverside

City Plaza in front of the City Hall.

I did my usual morning routine.

When I went outside our building, I noticed that the lampposts again were

still on and that there was a fire truck again at that building in front of the

building beside ours.

I arrived at the station at exactly 7:30 in the morning.

Before I could press the button for the elevator, my phone rang. It was a

private number. I answered the phone, “Hello?”

“Good Morning. Is this Lieutenant Bennet speaking?”, the man answered

“Yes. Who is this?”

“Lieutenant, please go the utility closet beside the elevator.”

I opened the utility closet and went inside.

“Thank you lieutenant.”

“Who are you? How did you know I was in front of the elevator”

“I am Mr. Carter. I am the director of the Federal Treasury. And the

source of our information is none of your concern. We believe that your depart-

ment has something of ours.”, the man answered.

“I know. The Document 403s are in the evidence room.”

“Lieutenant, we know that. We would like to ask your office to return

those documents as soon as possible. Those papers are confidential and the sole

property of the Federal Treasury. We know that releasing items from evidence is

illegal if the case is still on going. We hope that with your cooperation, these

documents will be returned to our office at Burginham City. We will send you a

text message of the address of our office. Thank you for your cooperation and

good day”, then the director cut off the line.

That phone call put me in a difficult situation. It was odd that the

treasury would ask me, a lieutenant, to return important confidential documents.

Why not ask the captain, or the chief? It was quite mysterious.

Suddenly, my phone vibrated. It was a text message from an anonymous num-

ber.

Mr. Bennet,

Kindly return the said documents

to this address. Thank you very

much. We expect your coopera-

tion.

Basement 12, Department of

Treasury Building, 1006 Saragoza

Avenue, Capital Plaza, Burginham

City

-Director Carter

I wandered why on earth would the Department of Treasury have a twelfth

basement.

I know for a fact that the Department of Treasury has many important ob-

jects inside of it. The place was built to store gold, money, documents, and ar-

tifacts. Who would have known that the Federal Treasury would do illicit actions

just to obtain data.

After receiving that call, I wanted to go to the captain and tell him

about it but then as I walked towards Captain Rodrigo’s office, I received a text

message again.

Mr. Bennet,

We are watching your every

step. Please don’t share what

we discussed or else we will

detain you.

Director Carter

I looked at the surveillance camera and it seemed as if camera was watch-

ing me and only me. I was being watched.

* * * *

It has been three hours since the treasury director called me. It was al-

most lunch break and this time, I was aware of the time.

As I stood up from my executive chair, I took a glance again at my cork

board. I then decided to go down to the third floor to the evidence room. I

walked into the room with the nameplate Antario-Marella Disappearances Case, Riv-

erside District Homicide Department. It is a 25 square meter room dedicated only

to this case. I took a look at the Document 403 from the Antario residence.

Document 403

Article 1

This is to certify that the state government of Eton has emi-

nent domain over the 10-storey building at 503 Scarborough

street, Juliano Village, Riverside City, Eton and paid Juliano

Development Corporations the amount of $ 400.00

Jack Haverford Carter

Director, Department of Treasury

I then realized that those men in black suites were not just ordinary

citizens. They were Federal Treasury Agents. But why is the government so inter-

ested on a residential building?

I looked at the other files in the evidence room. I took the blood stain

samples found in the apartments. I wanted to ask Daniel Zimmer, the homicide de-

partment blood analyst, to check the blood samples and look for matches in River-

side City.

As I was about to leave the room, the Evidence Custodian, asked me to

leave the evidence containment facility because he was going out for lunch.

I immediately left the room. I went back to the sixth floor–the Riverside

City Homicide Department.

I left the blood samples at Daniel’s desk and left a note saying, “Please

analyze and find a match. Thanks -Lt. Bennet”.

I had lunch at the pantry. I ate chicken fillet and mashed potato. I was

alone in the pantry because everyone was at a newly opened burger restaurant at

the Riverside City Plaza. I never really liked hamburgers. I preferred chicken or

fish.

December 23, 2011

Two more days until christmas. Half of my department is already on vaca-

tion. I was supposed to take a leave for today but I had a lot of important

things to do at the homicide department.

As I walked out of the building, I received a phone call from a private

number.

“Hello?”, I answered the phone.

“Good Morning Lieutenant. Again, we would like to remind you about the

documents we are asking for.”

“Yes. I do remember.”

“Well then. We expect to have it by tomorrow evening.”, the caller re-

sponded.

“But--”

They once again hanged the phone before I could speak.

When I arrived at the police station, I immediately went up to the third

floor but the entire floor was closed. I did not understand why the Evidence De-

partment suddenly locked their floor. I tried the other elevators but my keycard

did not work. I also tried the stairwell but the door to the floor was keycard

protected. I did not have the master keycard to the floor. Only three people had

a master key; the Evidence Custodian, the Police Station Chief and the Captain.

I had no other choice. I had to steal the master keycard. It was either I

return the documents or get detained at Treasury. One thing I am sure of is that

the Department of Treasury had special powers. I did not know what type of execu-

tive powers they had but I am sure it could put me in big trouble.

After failing to access the third floor, I went up to the sixth floor.

I went straight to my office. I saw the blood analysis report. It matched

no one in the entire state of Eton. It either means that the person who owns the

blood is not a registered citizen or is being hid by the government. No other

authorities could remove data from the police database other than the Department

of Defense or the Bureau of Police and Law Enforcement.

I went to the eight floor after and went straight to the office of the

captain. Surveillance cameras were all over the place but then when I walked in

to the office, all the cameras turned away from me as if someone wanted me to

sneak in the captain’s office smoothly. The captain was not in the building that

time. He was at a conference in Burginham.

I started looking for the key, then suddenly my phone rang. It was a pri-

vate number again.

“Hello?”, I answered

“Lieutenant. The keycard is at the back of the picture frame of the cap-

tain with his family”

He hanged the phone.

He was right. I found the keycard there. I immediately went down to the

third floor.

I inserted the keycard to the elevator and it brought me to the third

floor.

The third floor was totally dark. All the windows were shut with the metal

blinds. The room was so cold and when I looked at the thermostat, the room was at

12ºC. The surveillance cameras once again turned away from me, leaving a blind

path for me to get into the evidence room of the Antario-Marella Case.

When I opened the door to the Antario-Marella Case room, I saw the entire

room was a big mess. Evidences were scattered all over the room. It seemed as if

someone was looking for something – the Document 403s. Good thing the documents

were below the pile. I took the files immediately and left the room. I went

straight to the elevator and went back up to the sixth. I took my laptop, car

keys and other files I had to bring home and rushed to my car. It was only eight

o’clock in the morning. Burginham is 164 miles away from Riverside. It was a long

drive but I was forced to do so.

December 24, 2011 (Christmas Eve)

I have been driving for 14 hours already and the highways were so clear. I

have to drive 20 more miles until I arrive at Burginham.

I had a total of 5 stopover already and I had to take another one.

* * * *

I arrived at Burginham around four in the afternoon. I drove straight to-

wards the Capital Plaza. I have never actually been to Burginham before. Every-

thing there was so different. The buildings were all made of marbles and most of

them were five to ten storeys high.

When I arrived at Saragoza Avenue, I saw the Department of Treasury Build-

ing, a 12 storey structure. It was heavily guarded with three layers of gates of

6 meters height. It was said that the middle layer was an electric fence. It

seemed as if the Treasury had so much to protect.

I parked my car in front of the building and went to the gate.

“I am here for Director Carter.”, I said to the guard.

“Lieutenant Bennet. Good day. We have been expecting you.”, the guard re-

plied.

The pedestrian gates opened and then closed immediately the moment I was

in.

“Sir. Here is your keycard.”, the guard gave me a keycard and then showed

me the way to the elevator.

When the elevator opened, the guard entered some kind of passkey. I in-

serted the keycard and then pressed the basement 12 button. The elevator ride

took a very long time.

* * * *

I suddenly woke up as if I fell asleep for hours.

“Good evening Lieutenant Bennet.”, a mysterious man said.

I couldn’t see him clearly but he looked familiar. He was Mr. Antario.

“You’re Mr. Antario!”, I shouted.

“That is right. I am also Director Carter.”, Carter replied.

“Why did you disappear?”

“Well, I had to disappear. Terrorist were after us. I had to change every-

thing – my entire identity”

“Us? Mrs. Marella?”

“Ms. Marella died when I escaped. We had to hide her body so we put her

body in the evidence containment facility back in Riverside city. She didn’t make

it back here. ”, Director Carter explained. “We were working at Riverside for a

top secret project of the government. But when terrorists learned about the pro-

ject, we had to move out of Riverside. The fire truck, it moved our materials

from Riverside to Burginham. Burginham is a safer place especially for the De-

partment of Treasury. Our project concerns the security of everyone in the coun-

try. We work in cooperation with the Department of Defense. Every single thing I

said will stay as a mystery to everyone until the right time. The Machine will

one day rise to protect humanity.

“Good bye Lieutenant Bennet!”

Would it be possible to witness the most magnificent but the most mysterious

place in the whole planet? Well it is possible for Albert a fifteen year old boy,

the biggest nut head in school but has the most magnificent gift of intuition and

has an incredible ability of being extremely lucky for five situations a day.

Nobody knew his gifts even Albert didn’t know only I who will tell you one of his

great adventures that happened in just one day.

Normal day at school, boring physics class before lunch time but there was

an interesting thing that his teacher said before dismissing the class, “Do you

guys know that worm holes exist microscopically and that they can actually expand

as physicists suggest.” It had no effect on Albert it was another blah blah blah

speech of his know-it-all teacher. Little did he know that these words spoken by

his teacher will be his guide for this fateful day.

After physics was chemistry class, he didn’t like it as well. They made an

electrolytic apparatus and all he knew about this experiment is that in the end

the light bulb attached to the apparatus will glow brightly. He hated it, every-

thing about the class, the hard lessons, the teacher, and even the stupid hot

oven room which made him suffer every day. While he was daydreaming the teacher

called him to assist her in setting up a model sample for the class. There were

two things that happened, he was electrified successfully making his hair rise

with a little bit of smoke, and he drank the electrolytic solution in which the

teacher greatly disapproved.

After classes he went home by himself but he knew that something extraordi-

nary would happen so he took a new path towards his house. This time instead of

walking, he rode the train which would actually take him away rather than towards

his house. He loved exploring new things, and getting involved in dangers that he

shouldn’t be a part of. As the train approaches the next station, the impossible

happened.

All the people riding the train had briefly disappeared by slowly becoming

blurred in his vision. The train was empty, only he was left, and the surround-

ings became very unusual. Light struck the insides of the train, and outside was

colorful. Swirling colors of different patterns amused him and he felt that all

his movements were becoming extremely slow. Lifting his foot took him a minute.

He was confused, what was happening?

He panicked he needed to know what this magic is. The only hope he saw was

the driver, amazingly the driver was there and he is asleep! He approached the

comfortably snoozing driver. “Sir! Wake up and see what’s happening” the driver’s

still unconscious. The ride was smooth there was no bumps nor any inexplicable

The Magical Mystery Ride Joseph Paulo Alvarez Gonzales

movements that may occur. The other mysterious thing he witnessed was there were

holes outside showing different scenes or pictures. One showed a picture of a

running boy, the other hole showed a girl who was in her mid twenties and he rec-

ognized that it was his mom, very curious. Another showed a terrain that he never

saw before, it was blue and he knew it was not earth. At the next hole he saw a

clock ticking slowly and another ticking very fast. He realized that it was some-

thing like time travel, he was time travelling!

Things are so peculiar, he didn’t understand anything even the things which

he concludes that he understand. The ride was so long it was not ending and he

estimate that it almost took him five hours in this wretched train. Different

holes with different scenes pass by him. He was bored, he needed some change. He

wanted to know every blasted thing that’s happening.

Albert fell asleep for about eight hours. He woke up and now he was in an-

other mysterious place once again. He was at the blue terrain that he saw from

awhile ago at the holes. It was magnificent. The place was a blue wonderland, it

wasn’t large and he saw that there were blue hills, and pink swirling things that

are protruding from the ground. It was all too weird. The place was a large

chunk of something like space land that was floating. Stars surrounded the skies

and he noticed that the chunk of land had a ring similar to that of Saturn, it

was marvelous. The place was so colorful, it is untouched and he can’t wait to

get off the train.

Suddenly what happened on earth happened again, he was back to the long ride

in the place of swirling colors filled with holes.

Hidden Karlos Federico Apilado Lampa

It all started with the dreams. And I blame them for everything. Though I

can’t say I regret having them. I know it was unusual to dream of those kinds of

things, but whenever I woke up from those “bad” dreams, I would find out I was

unintentionally smiling.

I experienced them first when I was 14. My big brother and I just had a

fight. He was a real bully to me, you see, though I never really figured out why.

One time in school, I was talking to a girl I liked, and he just had to pop out

of nowhere and pull my pants down along with my underwear. Everybody who saw

laughed so hard. I felt so humiliated that I skipped all my classes, went back

home and locked myself in my room all day. And when night dawned and sleep fi-

nally came to me, it started.

I opened my eyes and saw I was in dark cave, but I wasn’t alone. My

brother was lying on the ground beside me, but not comfortably. He had ropes

around his hands and feet. He was trying to say something, but his voice was muf-

fled by a handkerchief stuck in his mouth. I was about to help him take the ropes

and handkerchief off of him but I remembered the humiliation he brought me. My

whole body shook when I recalled every detail of my embarrassment, and revenge

became the only thing I thought of. And that’s when I noticed the set of weapons

hanging on the wall behind him. There were so many. Guns, daggers, bows, swords,

you name it. Yet, instead of being freaked out by them, I was intrigued. I ap-

proached the wall and saw one that immediately caught my eye: a flanged mace. It

was my first time to see one in real life and I was curious to see how it worked.

I turned to my brother and saw him staring at me with widened eyes. I must

have looked really scary holding that mace. But his fear alone wasn’t enough. I

wanted to see him crumble before me. I wanted to let him know how furious he made

me. I slowly walked over to him as he tried to retreat. But because his hands and

feet were tied together, he couldn’t move that much, and when I finally reached

him, he was already screaming. His screams were loud, especially considering that

they were muffled, and it annoyed me more.

I raised the club and hit him in the stomach. Screams were replaced by

whimpers as I watched his yellow shirt turn red. Tears flooded his eyes. I guess

it must really hurt. And it made me smile. But it wasn’t enough. It didn’t fill

my need for total revenge.

I withdrew my mace from his bleeding stomach, only to raise it up again and con-

nect it brutally with his left shoulder. His whimpers became screams again, and

this time they were louder. But it still wasn’t enough. I wanted more blood. I

wanted more hurt. I wanted to see him suffer more. I hit him again, on the back.

And then I hit him again. And again. And again. Every time the mace met his body

was for every memory when he made me feel like shit. And every memory gave me

strength to hit harder. Eventually, the only sounds that echoed through the walls

of the cave were the mace connecting with his body. He finally stopped crying out

in pain. And at last I felt satisfied. I let go of the mace and watched the piece

of art before me. I couldn’t even recognize my brother anymore. The usual smirk

on my brother’s face wasn’t there anymore. His face was utterly disgusting. His

mouth was open, and was gushing out blood. His eyes, too, were open, and one look

at them and you’d instantly see fear. It made me giggle in excitement. I was

about to return the mace back and get another weapon but as I looked around, I

saw the color black eating up the whole place. And before I knew it, I was back

in my bed.

If people dreamt of the same things, I bet they’d be freaked out. After

all, if you were normal, no matter how much you hate anyone, you’d be scared to

dream of torturing people and killing them slowly in the end. But even when I was

still a little boy, I knew perfectly I wasn’t normal. I wasn’t scared. More like

excited. And when I woke up from that dream for the first time, I became disap-

pointed, not because I dreamt of such a thing. But because it was only a dream

and I had to wake up from it.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

After the first dream with my brother, more eventually came, but this time

with different victims. The victims would usually be the ones who I fought with.

I dreamt I was killing my dad the night after he hurt my mom when he was drunk. I

dreamt I was killing a classmate of mine when he didn’t invite me to this party.

I even dreamt I was killing the dog of our neighbor when he bit my best friend.

I dreamt of killing so many people that went against me, even if some of

the reasons were so low. What I was sure of, though, was that every time I killed

in my dreams, I felt revived. I loved having them cower before me in fear. It

made me feel superior. It made me feel unmatched.

There were only two people who I’m sure I would never dream of killing: my

mom and my best friend. They mean the world to me, and they never frustrated me

before. Whenever I’m alone, either of them appears. Let’s just say they know me

the most.

Of course, I would be stupid to tell my mother I dreamt of killing my

brother and father. But I told my best friend about it.

He was Nathaniel Weiss or Nate for short. He was a contrast of who I was.

He was the class favorite, the one that gets picked first whenever teams choose

their members during games, while I was the extra, the one that is left. He was

the smart class president; I was the lazy bad-ass class ditcher. Overall, he was

the good guy; I was the bad influence. His only flaw was his cruel stepfather

that treated him like a dog and slave.

I told him in the middle of History class. About half of the class was al-

ready dozing off, while the other half tried their best not to. Nate was taking

notes beside me, and I nudged at him to catch his attention.

“What?” He mumbled while he focused his eyes on the board, trying to un-

derstand the mess that is the teacher’s handwriting.

“I have something to tell you that’s been bothering me for quite some time

now.”

“You fancy your new maid again?” he snickered.

“No,” I spat at him. That only happened once when I was nine and much to

my annoyance, he always brings it up whenever he gets the chance. “, never mind”.

I guess he must have sensed I was going to say something serious. After

all, he was the one that knew me the most. He finally looked at me and saw the

annoyance that was plastered on my face. “I was just having fun, dude. Light up.

What is it?”

I don’t know what is it with Nate that made me befriend him, or the other

way around. We were total opposites, and we have very few things in common. But

with my best friend, I actually felt normal and it was as if I could tell him

anything. I sometimes wish he became my brother instead of the real irritating

one, the one I first dreamt of killing.

I told Nate about my dreams: the way I tortured my brother, the way I shot

my father at the back, the way I strangled the boy who got the girl I fancied. I

told him every dream I can remember, every beating I did to others. There was one

thing that I didn’t tell him, though. I didn’t mention the fact that every time I

wake up from my dreams, I’d be upset because I was happy with what I was doing in

them.

I didn’t look at him while I specified every detail of my dreams. I was afraid of

what he’d think of me. He knew I’m far from being nice. He knew everything bad

I’ve done, from changing the test scores of my enemies to locking frogs in cabi-

nets and leaving them there to their deaths. But, this was one of the weirdest

yet. If I were to tell anyone else, it was a no brainer they’d be terrified of

me.

Fortunately, Nate wasn’t anyone else. He wasn’t terrified of what I just

told him. He even became more concerned for me.

“Dude, have you ever tried to find out the cause of your dreams?” He

asked.

“No, I haven’t,” I answered. “I’m scared to know why.”

I didn’t know what force made me say that. I never really thought of it,

but when the words came out, it made me realize that I really was scared to go

further into my dreams. I didn’t want to know why I dream of torture, and more

so, I didn’t want to know if I’d be able to do the same ruthless actions I do in

dreams in reality.

I could tell he was about to say something, but the bell rung and it be-

came the only thing we heard. Everybody else was standing up, happy to leave this

boring class, so we followed. The good thing about it was History was finally

over for the day, but Nate and I had different classes next, so we needed to part

ways.

But before he left, he whispered to me, “Look, those dreams of yours

aren’t usual to say the least, but try not to be freaked out about it. I don’t

know. Maybe it’s just a phase.”

I was ready to go when he pulled my arm. “And before you go, might I sug-

gest you avoid telling anyone else. Don’t want them hiding from you or some-

thing.” And then he was already running to his next class.

I almost laughed at what he told me. Of course I wouldn’t have told any-

one. One was because I’m afraid of what they’d say. Second, if anyone else I was

kind of close to aside from Nate asked me if I already dreamt of killing them, I

would probably have told them yes.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

I wouldn’t be writing this now if the gore stopped in my dreams. That

would be pointless. Dreams, no matter how great or terrifying, are after all,

just dreams.

But the dreams went on for three years. By that time, I had already gone

accustomed to them. They actually helped me control my anger. Whenever someone

irritated me too much, I would meet them in my dreams and I’d be able to kill

them in any way I choose. And when the next day comes, I’d greet them with a for-

giving smile because I felt like they already got what they deserved, even if

they didn’t know it.

Nate told me that maybe it was my own way of cooling down. He made it seem

like my dreams were so normal. And now that I think about it, for those three

years, they really were. I actually became normal again. Because of my dreams, I

was able to manage my rage, and I ended up with more friends, better grades, and

even a girlfriend, Diane.

Things changed during one of the days I was about to categorize as a good

day. It was a Saturday and I was going over to Diane’s home. Diane was my ideal

girl. She wasn’t shy but she wasn’t too confident. She wasn’t a genius but she

wasn’t dumb. She wasn’t the prettiest girl in town but she wasn’t someone you’d

call ugly. She was too normal, and it made her stand out.

Diane had just arrived from a family trip, and I didn’t see her for three

weeks. She was alone in her house, because her parents and her brother were still

on their vacation. She went back home early because more than three weeks of va-

cation for her would be too much classes missed. I realized how much I missed her

lips and yearned for her touch.

When I reached her house, I went to the backyard and climbed the thick

veins she set there for me so that I could go to her room on the second floor any

time without her parents knowing. My desire for her presence gave me strength to

climb faster but when my head was already on the same level as the window to her

room, I saw her presence entertaining somebody else.

Diane wasn’t alone. A man who I recognized as Allen, the famous school quarter-

back, was in her room too. And he was on her bed. Beside her. Kissing her. Touch-

ing her. And with only a few garments left to cover their bodies. My eyes widened

and I lost balance. The veins I was holding betrayed me as if they knew I wasn’t

welcome to her room at that moment. I lost hold of them and before I knew it, I

was on my back on the ground and pain soared throughout my whole body.

I must have made a noise because when I looked up from where I was lying,

I saw Diane looking down at me with an expression filled with shock, fear, and

guilt.

I didn’t even need to think of anything else. All I felt was pain from the

fall and from what I saw before it. Blackness soon engulfed me and my conscious-

ness slipped away.

I opened my eyes and saw animals painted on the ceiling. It didn’t take me

long to figure out where I was. I was in the room of Diane’s brother, the room

that is never used because he sleeps in the room of his parents. I didn’t think

of why I would be here. I was dreaming.

I went to Diane’s room and saw her sleeping form under her sheets. The bed

made me remember the events that happened before I became unconscious. It made my

blood boil.

I approached her and reached for her through the sheets. Diane was a light

sleeper and my touch was enough to wake her up. She made a sound and revealed

herself from the sheets. Her face reflected surprise and remorse. But before she

could say anything, I pulled her into a deep hungry kiss. She responded to my

touch and the feeling she gave me was so good I almost forgot what she did to me.

But I didn’t

I touched her body, and traced every curve of her body while our lips were

still connected. My hands started from her thighs, going up to her waist, then

her chest. When both of my hands finally reached her neck, I choked her with as

much power as I can while managing to keep my lips on hers.

She reacted forcefully to it. She tried to scream loudly as she can while

her lips were still locked to mine. She tried to escape from my tight grip and

kiss, but I was stronger than her and her strength was slowing depleting.

I pulled my head away just in time to watch the light leave her bulging

eyes. Soon after, her body became as lifeless as her room. I felt the same feel-

ing of satisfaction whenever I kill somebody in my dreams. I felt relieved.

I retreated back to a chair at the other side of her room and stared at

her pathetic form while waiting for the dream to fade away. It was always like

this. After the death, the dream will soon end, and all will be well and forgot-

ten.

But an hour passed and I was still staring at the dead Diane. And sometime

later, I checked the clock only to find out it was already three in the morning.

I had been staring at her body grow colder all night.

I became cautious. Even after three years of having dreams like these, I

had no real basis for what was real and what wasn’t. Dreams usually start when I

open my eyes and I’m somewhere I don’t know how I reached.

So how could have I opened my eyes and belong to the room of Diane’s

brother? Could Diane have put me there with the help of the guy I saw her making

out with? Of course she could.

The answers to these questions were never really answered. But I was sure

of one thing; what I did wasn’t just in a dream. I wouldn’t wake up from it, be-

cause I was already awake. And then the bittersweet truth hit me; I had killed a

person. I had killed my girlfriend. And for the first time ever, I could say I

smiled a smile that reached my eyes.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

After realizing I wasn’t dreaming, I went back to my house and thought of

what I should do. I was dealing with something I have never dealt with in my

dreams before: what to do with the body after you kill.

I decided I would bury Diane somewhere they’d never find her, along with

all evidences that would suggest I killed her. And one of those evidences would

be the guy she cheated on me with.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

It was a good thing Diane’s parents were away. I wouldn’t have gotten out

of that sticky situation with them in the way. It calmed me. It felt like every-

thing was going my way. I even felt like killing Allen was easy. And you know

what? It was.

I followed him after school the next day I killed Diane while he was going

to her house. He must have wanted to check on her to see if she’s sick or some-

thing that would make her skip school. It was also in her room and on her bed

that I killed him, this time with a knife. It made me laugh. I even thought they

looked good together when they’re dead.

I dragged the bodies somewhere a bit far away where no one would ever pass

and buried them there with the knife and bed sheets. After doing so, I went back

and grabbed a random notebook in Diane’s room and copied her handwriting to make

a note supposedly by her saying that she has left with Allen to start their own

lives filled with love and all those cheesy things I never really cared about.

And then I was done.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

Diane and Allen soon became the talk of the whole community. When Diane’s

family arrived, they were devastated to know their child leave them for a man she

hardly knew. Nobody could believe what happened.

I never told anyone about what I did, not even to Nate. I knew I had gone

too much, and he wouldn’t support me in what I did. If I told him, I would defi-

nitely end up in chains. But, I did tell him about my dreams.

The dreams stopped coming to haunt me and to feed my gory hunger. Nate

said it might be a good thing. But it wasn’t. The dreams have become a way to

control myself from doing anything outrageous, and without them, I probably

wouldn’t be able to stop myself from pulling off another “Diane and Allen”.

“Dude, you okay?” Nate was looking at me. “You look so deep in thought.”

It was our English class. And we were supposed to be reading something in

our textbooks. He must have already finished because he wouldn’t be speaking to

me if he hasn’t yet.

“Oh, yeah sure,” I mumbled.

“Huh. You’ve been hiding a lot from me lately. Don’t reckon I can’t sense

your hurt over Diane. She was a nice catch, bro. But you need to go back to your

senses. She’s gone.”

I tried my best not to laugh. If only he knew how gone Diane really was.

But I couldn’t make him suspicious. I was, after all, supposed to be sad that my

girlfriend left me without even saying goodbye. At least that’s what they think

of me. I decided to play along.

“I’m trying, Nate. But it’s hard you know, I felt like we really con-

nected.”

He snickered. “You’ll get over her in a few days. A lot of girls have

their eyes on you now. With Diane gone and all, they think you’re emotionally

unstable and sensitive right now, and I bet it turns them on.”

I smiled at him. A genuine one. It made me think that maybe a normal life

could still be possible after all and that now that the dreams were gone, maybe I

could still live happily and freely.

“By the way, dude. Can I borrow your textbook? I need to read.”

“Where’s yours?” I asked.

I looked at him weirdly. It wasn’t like Nate to talk during classes with

tasks undone.

“My stepfather burned all of my books and school stuff yesterday. He said

I wouldn’t need them anyway. He reckons he’s just wasting his money on my tui-

tion.”

I thought I wasn’t hearing correctly. I looked at him but before I could

say anything, he cut me off.

“I did try to retrieve some of my stuff. But when he saw what I was doing,

he got pissed off and pushed me towards the fireplace along with my things. It’s

a good thing I wasn’t that hurt. I quickly got away.”

Only after what he said when I was finally looking at him did I see his burn

wounds. There was one behind his ear, and it looked so disgusting, it was like

raw meat. I also saw one hiding under his sleeve. And there were probably more he

was trying to hide. It made me angry at myself for not noticing.

“How could you let him do this to you?” I exclaimed.

“My mom made me promise I would stay with him no matter what before she

died. You know I can’t break that.”

Of course he can’t. That was typical Nate; the good boy, the one that

never breaks his promises, even if it means being abused.

But I wasn’t like him. I wasn’t good. And I wasn’t going to let anyone

hurt him. He was my only true friend. He was a brother to me. And anyone who lays

their hands on him would pay.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

I hid in front of Nate’s house, waiting for the right moment. It was

ironic how before this moment came, I was actually thinking of finally living

peacefully again with nothing to hide. And yet, I was there, in front of Nate’s

house, holding a knife from our kitchen, with intent to kill. I told ‘the new

life’ to wait until after Nate’s stepfather dies.

It was only a few minutes past nine when I decided to barge in their

house. Knowing Nate, I was sure he would be in his bed by now. I went through one

of their windows, avoiding any thing that could make a sound.

Once I was in, it wasn’t hard before I found Nate’s stepfather. He was by

the fireplace, the one he used to burn all of Nate’s school stuff. It was the

perfect place to kill him.

I approached him and aimed the knife at his neck. It was all too easy. It

was even easier than in my dreams. I wanted to laugh. And I did.

The sound my laughter caused made Nate’s stepfather turn around to face

me. But I didn’t even flinch. He had no chance against me. He was already dead

even before I killed him.

I slashed at his neck and blood seeped through the wound. But it wasn’t

enough. I pushed him towards the furnace and let him burn there.

It was over. I let out a big sigh of relief. Everything will end once I

bury the man I just killed somewhere. My new life was about to start.

I let go of the knife and went to the couch and closed my eyes to rest for

a while. There was no rush. I would make this moment last because I will be a new

man tomorrow.

“Don’t. Move.” The two words that ruined everything.

I opened my eyes to see Nate standing in front me, pointing the knife I

left on the floor at me.

“Nate,” was all I could muster.

It was a mess. Nate wasn’t supposed to see what I did. Nate wasn’t sup-

posed to know the killer side of me had reached reality. Nate was supposed to be

upstairs, sleeping while I took care of his trouble.

“What have you done?” His eyes were wide with fear and confusion. I could

tell he refused to believe what he saw. He was probably thinking of things in his

mind that could explain what was happening.

“I saved you from him, Nate,” I told him. “You’ve been locked up here by a

stupid childish promise and you’re letting yourself be stomped upon and abused.”

I tried to explain everything to him. But I knew Nate well. I might be

able to convince him that I did it for him, but that doesn’t mean he’ll let me go

away with my crime.

“I thought the dreams stopped, man,” he said, “I thought you were finally

okay!”

“I wasn’t lying to you. The dreams stopped the first time I killed in real

life, Nate.”

That didn’t really calm him much. His eyes widened more, if that was even

possible. His whole body was shaking. I couldn’t read his mind anymore. He looked

both scared and scary at the same time.

“There are more?” He shouted. “How many have you?”

“Two,” I looked at him. “You know who they are.”

Comprehension lit his face. He finally understood why I didn’t talk to him

much about Diane after she disappeared. “Oh, dear God. Diane and Allen.”

Nate lost balance and landed on one of the couches beside me. But he kept

the knife pointed at me. The thing was, no matter what knife he held or how he

pointed it, I was sure he wouldn’t dare use it to kill me. Nate wasn’t a killer.

He was my opposite.

And while he sat there, trying to think things through, I was trying to

find ways to escape. Leaving his house was easy, I ran faster than he did. But if

I left him alive, he would surely tell the police. I mean, he’d have to. Other-

wise, he would be responsible for his father’s death.

The only choice I had was to kill him too. But, I couldn’t kill him. He

was my only friend. He was a brother to me. He was the only one that made me seem

human. He made it look so easy to have a peaceful life. And he was part of the

reason why I wanted to live normally again. But I knew he wasn’t Nate, the friend

of mine, anymore. I lost my only friend the moment he saw me kill his stepfather.

I needed to stop kidding myself. Normal was out of the question. I could-

n’t turn away from the life I had because then I would be nothing. I couldn’t

pretend all good while knowing I had killed people and let them rot somewhere

nobody would ever find them. I couldn’t try to interact with others as if I had-

n’t dreamt of killing almost every childhood friend, foe or family member I had.

And then I saw the silver bat near the couch I was sitting in. It was

within my grasp and it was shining, as if tempting me to grab it and end the life

of the person before me. Holding it would mean the end of my dilemma. Nate was

already planning on calling the police with his cell phone, and I knew had little

time left.

I grabbed for the bat, stood up, and swung at his arms. Upon impact, the

knife and phone flew from his hand to a distance he won’t be able to reach with-

out being hit by the bat for more than ten times.

“Nate, before I do this, I have to confess something,” I looked at him in

the eyes only to see fear and only fear. “The dreams I told you about? They made

me upset every time I wake up from them. I wanted them to be real.”

He was about to say something but I didn’t let him. I didn’t want to chal-

lenge his words in changing my mind. I just swung my bat at him repeatedly. He

screamed for his life. But he stood no chance.

I remembered the first dream I had with my brother. It was exactly like my

situation with Nate, minus the flanges and ropes. I then smiled as I thought that

Nate had it easy compared to my brother in the dream.

I kept on hitting him even after I was sure he was dead. I don’t know what

made me, but I loved the feeling of killing him even more even after he has died.

Or maybe it was the sound of the connection of the bat and his body that I liked.

I laughed so hard at the thought that I promised to be a better person and

yet there I was, killing the only person that could help me achieve it. Of

course, promises are meant to be broken. I’m not like Nate, who would keep prom-

ises to their graves, and I’m glad I’m not like him, because then I would be the

one being smashed to pieces as if I were a product of a mortar and pestle.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

I’m still out there you know. That’s why I’m writing this. To let you

know.

Beware. I might be the guy you meet tomorrow, or the next day. And don’t

you even try to oppose me, for there would be two possible outcomes: I’ll kill

you in my dreams, or I’ll kill you while you dream.

Desiderata Zarah Elizabeth Lauresta Arcega

There is a house on a street near a hill in the city. It looks like a

regular house, just like any other. The two-floored building with a red roof,

white walls, only one door and many windows sits comfortably in between two other

houses that look just like it, with two floors, a red roof, white walls, only one

door and many windows. This house looks perfectly ordinary. A once-ordinary fam-

ily once-lived there, and their neighbors would have told you that they were a

perfectly well-to-do-with family that warmly lived together. They would continue

to tell you about that pleasant couple that had four children, three charming

young girls and one handsome young boy. The family’s jolly old grandma would of-

ten drop by their as well. However, if you asked someone who lived in the

neighborhood about the house and its previous occupants now, you would have only

gotten shaking heads, a mumbled response, and the person would walk away from you

immediately.

The house is no longer occupied. If you walked out the door of your own

home and you walked and you walked and you walked and you walked and you walked

for a while —– it may take a day, or a year, or longer or shorter to get there --

you would find this house. You could stop in front of the door of the house and

look up at two of its windows, which are like eyes watching you intensely. If you

stopped for a while and kept silent, it would almost seem as if the house was

breathing. You would feel this disturbing tension in the air as you approached

this house, and if you aren't too scared you could take a peek inside. There are

curtains in the windows, but there is a gap in the curtains that enables you to

see through them and into the house. You would see an empty living room. If you

are brave enough, you can walk up to the door and twist the doorknob.

You will find the door unlocked. You are free to go in, but enter at your own

risk for there are things there that you will find.

Is the house haunted? Yes, it is haunted. Things more disturbing than

ghosts haunt it.

When you enter the house, the first thing you will see is the living room,

of course. The door will close behind you. You can choose to turn back around and

leave at once. Nothing will chase you. But you're here now, inside the house —

you've already entered. The house will be dark and dusty as no one has set foot

inside in a long time. You can try to flip on a light switch but no lights will

turn on. It is dark and it is dim. What little light you have is the light coming

from the outside piercing through the slits of the faded pink curtains that cover

the windows of the house. There are two windows on either side of the door. The

walls are light brown. A red carpet covers the floor. On one side of the living

room is a sofa, and on the other side is a TV.

Look down at the carpet. You won't notice this because the carpet is red, but in

the center of the carpet there is a bloodstain.

You find yourself moving towards the sofa, which is also red. It is so

dirty and beaten up that it barely looks like a sofa. There are holes punched

into the fabric. You can see the wall and the floor through the holes jabbed into

the sofa. You find yourself wondering if the family that once lived here really

used it, or if the sofa only looks like that because of old age.

Now you move towards the television set, which is old and dusty (as ex-

pected. It won't turn on. You feel as if someone is watching the television

though, and now that person is watching you, annoyed that you are blocking the

way. You can almost hear a voice whispering sinisterly in your ear and you can

almost feel a cold hand reach out and touch your shoulder, but you turn around

and no one is there. It’s just you and the dust and the house. The empty house.

Next to the sofa is a staircase, and next to the staircase is a door. You

climb the staircase before you enter the door and you find yourself on the second

floor.

You are standing at the end of the hallway. On one side of the hallway are

three doors; two doors lay on the other side. At the end of the hallway is a pic-

ture frame hanging on the wall.

You open the door nearest to you, the door on your right. Inside is a bed-

room. There is a closet on your right. On your left is a mirror. You look in the

faded and dusty mirror and you can swear that someone is looking at you but there

is no other reflection of a person in the mirror except your own. You turn around

and look at the empty bed. It is made. A window hangs above the bed. In one cor-

ner of the room there is a toy chest full of dusty toy cars and robots and legos.

Drawings of spaceships and cars and stick people cover the walls.

There are a few toys scattered on the floor, too. You look up and you find

a tiny Lego floating in the ceiling. It looks like it's floating, but upon a

closer look you notice that it's just wedged in between two corners of the ceil-

ing. You wonder how it got there in the first place.

This was the boy's room. He was the youngest. Imagine him sitting there,

in the middle of the floor, zooming his toy cars around. He would have pretended

he was a racecar driver or a superhero or a spaceman. He would have destroyed the

evil dwarves plotting to ruin the city with his supergun. You can almost hear

sounds of him saying "whoosh!" as he ran around the room playing. But there is

nothing but silence now. You close the door and move on to the next one.

The next room contains a king-sized bed. This was the room of the parents,

obviously. Aside from a closet, the room contains a bookshelf, another mirror,

and two small tables that stand on either side of the bed. A huge window covers

the entire side of one wall. You walk up to it and push the curtains aside. Dust

and light fill the room. You look out the window and see a view of the street and

the road below. No cars are currently passing by.

Your eyes stray to the bed where the parents stayed. Unlike the previous

room, the sheets are disheveled. There is a lamp on one table on one side of the

bed. Next to the lamp is a book with a dusty old black cover. It’s a Bible. On

the small table on the other side of the bed are various other things such as

papers with writing that you can no longer read and pens.

You make your way to the bookshelf and look at the book titles. They are

hard to read, but you find books on literature such as Edgar Allan Poe and

Stephen King. There are books about medicine as well. This makes you wonder if

the parents were doctors. You also find a few self-help books, dictionaries,

books about managing your children, and there's a book about exorcism and witch-

craft--

Wait, a book about exorcism and witchcraft?

You are tempted to pull out the book from its place in the shelf but you

get the feeling that your eyes will be too terrified to view the cover, let alone

all its contents. You don't know why; you've never really been afraid of things

like this. You hurriedly leave the room and move on to the next one.

The next two rooms are a bathroom and a bedroom. The bathroom contains a

bathtub, a toilet, and a sink. The bedroom is pink, and there is a double Decker

bed inside. The beds here are made as well. Coloring books and toy dolls are

strewn all over the room; this was the room that the two youngest girls stayed

in. They shared the room. Nothing appears out of the ordinary in these two rooms,

but you don't like the way the dolls on the floor stare at you. You enter neither

room and you move on to the last one.

The last room explains everything.

The first things you will notice are the walls. The walls are white.

Newspaper and magazine clippings, torn pages from books, drawings, illustrations,

pictures and notes cover all the walls that it’s almost impossible to see the

walls themselves.

The notes are written in messy, scrawled handwriting on torn pages of

notebooks or on pieces of paper. You don’t understand the writing that much, or

what’s being written, but they look like Latin. Sinister Latin. Drawings of runes

are also scattered all over the place. There are also drawings of people, and all

of these people are smiling at you, and it is an evil smile. Their eyes are

slanted, and there is a gleam in their eyes that is alive, that tells you of all

the things they plan to do, and they are not nice things. In your mind’s eye you

see earthquakes and wars and calamities and hurt and pain, and you do not know

where these thoughts come from. You notice that the people look like the drawings

on playing cards—there’s the king of spades and the queen of hearts and various

other characters. It’s a distraction from the wickedness that has played in your

mind, but you cannot get the sound of screams of torture out of your head. It is

as if someone is being beaten with a whip this very moment in this very room, and

you cannot see, you can only hear. It is a terrorizing sound.

Upon closer inspection, you see that there are also things about potions

and spells. All the torn newspaper and magazine clippings talk about people who

performed sorcery: One had been burned at the stake in a city for performing

magic (they still burned people at the stake these days?), another could bring

the dead back to life. There were clippings about famous people who had their own

magic shows in Las Vegas, clippings about gypsies who told your future in carni-

vals, clippings about poor people who made a living out of their magic, and clip-

pings about deadly cults.

You move to a nearby table and see more paper, books, and notebooks scat-

tered on the table. You open one book entitled Sorcery and Spells for Witches. A

paper falls out. You grab the paper and read it.

How to Know if You’re a Witch

1.

I woke up today and I was floating three feet above the bed. I cried and I

screamed out loud for HELP, but three seconds before my parents opened the door

to my room my body suddenly came crashing down on the bed with no sound at all.

When my parents found me they asked me what was wrong and I said, ‘Nothing, just

a bad dream’ ‘cause I know that they wouldn’t believe me.

2.

When I woke up today, this time I was on the floor and it was my bed that was

hanging in midair three feet above me. I rolled away from it at once then it came

crashing to the floor. Not a single sound was made.

3.

I was walking home and I felt thirsty. A bottle of water appeared out of nowhere

in my hand. It’s a good thing I chose to walk home alone today.

4.

Can’t sleep. Objects are flying all over the room. I can hear the low, deadly-

sounding hum of a choir but I’m the only person here. It is as if they are chant-

ing, doing some evil ritual.“Ohhhmmmm, ohmmmmmm.” Can no one here this??? I don’t

think so, someone would wake up and check it out if the sound could be heard.

What is wrong with me???? Is this a bad dream?

5.

I didn’t sleep at all last night. I’m still praying that this is a bad dream.

6.

Fell asleep in class. I think I dreamt about the future. I saw our house and it

was empty except for one person who is standing in this room in the dim light and

reading this right now. I don’t know who the person is.

7.

I’ve searched on the Internet, I’ve checked out books at the library, I’ve done

my research. I think I’m a witch. Is this good or bad? If I learned to control

it, would it be a good thing? Am I evil? Devil’s spawn? Am I going to be burned

at the stake like others? I don’t want.. I didn’t ask for this…

8.

I don’t think this is a dream anymore. I think it’s real.

9.

Have been practicing for a while and I think I can levitate objects in the air

just fine. Decided to try it. Went to Jack’s room while he was playing and I

played with him. I said, “Hey, Jack, do you want to see a magic trick?” Enthusi-

astically he replied, “YES!” I focused on one of his LEGO bricks and I managed to

make it float in the air, all the way up to the ceiling where it got stuck in

between two corners of the wall. It couldn’t come back down anymore (oops!) but

Jack just stared at it, then me, then said “WOOOOW!” The look on his face was

priceless. Not such a bad job, if I do say so myself.

10.

I was cutting onions for dinner when I accidentally cut my finger. The cut healed

at once. My parents saw and they stared at me in disbelief. I decided to tell

them the truth. I told them about what I was, or what I think I am — a witch. I

explained the floating and the bottle of water. They looked at me in disbelief.

“Does it run in the family?” I asked them, and it was a stupid question to ask

because they just looked at me. I really don’t like the look on their faces then.

They looked terrified and scared and angry all at once.

“Honey, are you okay?” asked my mom. She didn’t move toward me at all. I

felt terrible. Angry for some reason I couldn’t comprehend.

“Yes, mom, I’m fine,” I said angrily, while at the same time throwing my hand out and making the chair next to me hover in the air. Their faces looked

even more horrified. I don't know why but the look on their faces really hurt me.

Suddenly, my mom pointed at me. There was a look of disgust on her face.

"You are not one of us," she said, and I hate the way she said it. She was DIS-

OWNING me. "DEVIL'S SPAWN. GET OUT." She had raised her voice and it was so loud

that Dessa and Demi had come down to the kitchen to check out what was going on.

They looked at me, and the same look of horror was on their faces as they saw the

floating chair. I wanted to cry, but all I did was drop the chair on the floor

and run up to my room. I had nowhere else to run.

I locked myself in and I cried. All I could think of was the look of pure

fear and disgust on my parents' and sisters' faces. Well, now it was obvious that

witchcraft didn't run in the family. Still, I couldn't understand how they could

do this to me. Wasn't I always a part of this family? What difference did being

magical make? Was I evil? I didn't even ask for this. My mother and the look of

disgust on her face, as if I'm a failure and my father's indifference and the

scared eyes of my sisters -- And I'm just too tired and sad to write the pen is

writing things down by itself while I just think the words and I never asked for

this never wanted to be like this. Hate hate the look of hate on my family's

faces I'm not one of them evil evil I'm devil's spawn the devil devil I'm the

devil Jack came in. I'm crying and crying while I'm hugging him and this pain is

still writing the words all by itself and he doesn't notice or he doesn't care.

At least he understands -- or, at least, he doesn't understand.

11.

I woke up, went down to the kitchen. My parents were sitting there at the dining

table with forced smiles on their faces. I cautiously sat down across from them.

I didn't immediately notice that there was another man with them.

"Honey," my mother said, her voice slow and full of caution, "We found a

way to fix you."

Fix me? I looked at the man I didn't know. His hair was grey. His eyes

were yellow. Yellow eyes...

"You know we only want what's best for you," my mother continued. "We want

you to be happy. We want you to live a happy and normal life."

"Yes," my father agreed. "After all, we can't let this... minor setback

ruin all the dreams and plans we have for you. We want you to go to medical

school. We want you to become a successful doctor who will go far in her endeav-

ours."

"This man is an exorcist," my mother explained gently. "He will drive out

the evil spirit that is making you like this."

I looked at the man once more, and his yellow eyes glared back. I turned

to my parents.

"We can't have you like this," my mother urged on gently. "We want you to

be normal and free."

I don't know why but their words were just bouncing about and echoing in

my mind, not really registering. Doctor... Want.. Want... Normal.. Normal..

Drive.. Drive.. Evil.. Spirit..

I turned to the man. "I'll do it, " I said grimly. I wanted whatever my

parents wanted. I wanted to satisfy them, make them happy. I wanted whatever they

wanted for me....

We went to the living room. The man instructed me to lie on the carpet. I

did. He took out some rope and tied each of my arms and legs to the sofa or to a

sturdy table or chair. He took out some kind of liquid and started spraying me

with it while chanting words I could not understand. It reminded me of the dis-

turbing ritual I could hear but could not see the first time I discovered I was a

witch. And suddenly it was all there all over again. It was dark, and the aura of

the room was evil. Was that aura coming from... me? I couldn't really see or hear

that much anymore. All I saw was red. Dark red, redder than the color of blood. I

was shaking. Violently. And I could hear the humming again, the chants of some

dark ritual I couldn't understand, spoken by a deadly cult of voices I could hear

but could not see. "Ohmmmmmm, ohmmmmm..."

And on top of that was the chanting of the priest himself, and so much

blood I mean dark red and shaking shaking screams and cries of pain

AAAAAAAAAAAAAH GET IT OUT MAKE IT STOP I THINK IM GONNA GO CRAZY

12.

I opened my eyes. I was still there, lying on the floor of our living room. I was

no lounger bound. I sat up and felt a sharp pain in my stomach. I looked down and

found that my shirt had turned red with blood. It looks like I stained the carpet

as well with my blood. I looked around. My parents stood there, and my mother was

sobbing frantically. My father could only comfort my mother as best as he could

and pat her on the back.

"What happened?" I asked tentatively. I felt tired. Exhausted. I wanted to

go to sleep.

Mom just kept on sobbing and sobbing uncontrollably. "It.. didn't..

work..." she managed to choke out through her tears.

I don't know why, but just then I felt horrified. Disappointed. What would

happen to me now?

"Mom, it's okay," I said. "It's okay... Look-- I can heal, when I become a

doctor I can use my abilities to heal others--"

"You cannot heal with the powers of the devil," said another voice. The

voice was old and full of age, and it said the words croakily. It came from be-

hind me.

I turned around. It was grandma. She was standing there, in front of our

door. I realized that she had probably taken my siblings out while my little ex-

orcism was being performed, and now they were back. Dessa, Demi and Jack were

probably playing out in the garden right now. I wondered what time it was. How

much time had passed?

I looked helplessly at my grandmother. Her old, frail hand was raised and

a finger was pointed accusingly at me. The same accusing look of revulsion was

reflected in her eyes. The wrinkles of her mouth and face were turned down in an

expression of disapproval. I felt like one of those people who was about to be

burned at the stake for a crime she did not commit.

"We'll try it again," mom mumbled over and over. She was still sobbing un-

controllably. "We'll try it again next time.."

When was next time? Tomorrow? I did not want to try it again. I did not

want to try anything again. I did not want to go through that pain and that suf-

fering again. Those screams, that chanting-- it was pure torture.

"No."

"What?" My parents looked at me.

I did not realize that I had spoken aloud. "No," I repeated. "I won't do

it again."

My parents stared at me again. "What do you mean, you won't do it again?"

My mother's voice was icy. Her stare was cold. It could have frozen the whole

world over.

I just shook my head.

"You know we only want what's best for you," Dad said, but I was sick and

tired of hearing that.

"No," I said again. It was all I could say. It was also all I could do to

run up to my room and lock myself in again. While doing so, I could still feel

the sharp, cold, accusing stare of my grandma, her finger still pointed at me

condemningly.

"Devil's spawn," her voice whispered ominously, over and over and over

again.

13.

I am running away. I do not belong here. I am only a disgrace to my family, and I

bring nothing good. I am not what they want. This is my punishment-- I can never

see my family again because of what I am, what I have become. And I can't change.

I'm leaving tonight, and the evil spirit that lives within me--if it is evil--

I'm taking it with me.

Nothing else is written on the paper.

You see, the girl, their eldest daughter? She was a witch.

There is something about one statement, the one in number six, that makes

the hair on your neck stand up. She knew you would be here -- she saw the future,

and she saw you standing here, reading this. You wonder what the witch thought of

you reading this. You look at the books on her bookshelf. Indeed, they are all

about magic and sorcery. You wonder how much time has passed and if she is still

alive. You wonder if she is still here, watching you read this.

You exit the room and move toward the picture frame hanging on the wall at the

end of the hallway. It is a family picture. Everyone looks happy in the picture.

You see the mother and the father. The mother has auburn hair and a warm smile,

but her eyes look demanding and expectant, as if she would throw you into the

trash in seconds if you did not meet up to her standards. The father looks

kinder. His hair is black and he is wearing glasses. The girl you assume to be

the eldest, the witch, is sitting at the very right. She looks just like her

mother, except her eyes are kinder and she looks more cheerful. She looks like

there is no where else in the world she would rather be. You wistfully wonder

what the girl's name is -- or was. Next to her are Demi, Dessa, and Jack. Demi

and Dessa look like they are nine years old. The two youngest girls. appear to be

twins. They have black hair and green eyes. Jack looks like he's five. He has

black hair and green eyes, too. The eldest girl is the only one with her mother's

face and hair.

All of them are staring at you, watching you, waiting to see what you will

do next.

You don't like their eyes on you. You turn around and you can still feel

their stares boring into you as you walk down the stairs and into the kitchen.

They are just people in a picture that doesn't move, but you can feel the life in

every single one of them, breathing, moving, with their own wants and needs.

You make your way into the kitchen. There is a counter, a stove, and a

fridge. There is also a table, and on the table there are more pieces of paper.

There is also a cellphone. If the cellphone had battery, you could have looked at

the call log and you would have seen the hundreds of calls made to the girl, the

witch, their eldest daughter.

You read what is written on the papers on the dining table.

You can barely make out the words, and the ink is smudged for some reason,

but you manage to make out some words.

Dear xxxxx (you cannot make out the name),

We can talk about this

We only want what's best for you

We want you to come back. We can fix things. Work things out. When you come to

your senses, we will be here, waiting.

Can you imagine?

Can you imagine the nonhuman screams that escaped the girl as she was tied

to the floor? Can you imagine how hard she struggled and tried to beat herself

free of her bonds as the priest stood over here with his hand raised? As he was

reciting words in a dead language the family could not understand, can you imag-

ine the witch breaking free of her bonds and floating to the ceiling? Can you

imagine the dastardly white that lit up her eyes and all that was inside her?

Can you imagine her thrusting out her hands at the sofa and flinging it at the

priest? Can you imagine her inhuman cries and the gibberish she spoke? She

sounded like a banshee, and she acted like one, too, throwing the sofa all over

the place and punching holes in everything with bright white beams of light that

came out of her hands until she finally stopped. Silenced, she fell to the floor

and her body flapped and jumped on the carpet like a fish out of water. There was

blood on her stomach. And when she woke up, clueless, the priest had already

left, and everything was back to normal, except the sofa, the bloodstain, and

her.

Can you imagine the shouts the mother and daughter threw at each other as

they argued? Can you hear how furious they both were, angry at the world and what

had become of them?

“How could you do this to us?”

“It’s not my fault—“

“My daughter, possessed by an evil spirit—“

“IT’S NOT MY FAULT!”

“We can fix you—we will fix you—“

“I can’t be fixed, Mom. We tried, and I can’t be fixed. I’m sorry.”

“How many times have we told you that we only want what’s best for you—and

our dreams of you going to Medical School—“

“I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t ask for this.”

“My child, my very own daughter, now no longer my own, but now belonging

to the devil and all that is evil and dishonorable, cults and sorcery and witch-

craft—“

“STOP IT, Mom! JUST STOP IT!”

And the mother wept for the daughter she no longer had and the future and

dreams that were now gone forever. Never was she going to have a proper daughter

she could proudly call a proper doctor. She was no longer going to have proper

grandchildren. She was forever going to be haunted by the fact that her daughter

was possessed, a freak, not normal but a demon—

And the daughter wept for the life she was never going to have again as

she packed her things. She wanted to show her mother that she was still the same,

just… different. And she couldn’t change who she was now. It was all she could do

to leave, float out the window, and fly away to a world full of dead spirits and

souls that would understand her.

Can you imagine the reaction of the family when they woke up and discov-

ered that she was gone? Can you imagine the cries of Dessa and Demi when they

realized that their big sister was nowhere to be found? Jack was too young to

understand, but he cried as well.

And can you imagine the look of steel on the mother’s face as she stiffly

sat down and stared at some point in the distance as she pulled out her phone?

“She will come back,” the mother said coldly as she dialed the number of the

witch. “And we will fix things.”

After trying to call her all day and failing, the father put a hand on his

wife’s shoulder and said, “I don’t think she’s coming back.”

“She WILL come back,” the mother repeated, her voice louder and more con-

fident. “And we WILL wait for her.”

And this went on for weeks, months.

“I WANT her to come back.”

And it was as if in the pure wanting of the mother to have the daughter

come home, in the pure, fierce look of determination in the mother’s eyes, and in

the pure need for the mother’s want to be fulfilled, that the daughter would in-

deed come home. She would come running through the door and she would throw her-

self into her mother’s arms, sobbing. They would fix things and everything would

be okay in the end. They would forget everything and the eldest daughter would go

to Medical School and become a doctor. She would get married and have children

that the mother could proudly call proper grandchildren of hers.

The mother called and called and called everyday and she sent the letters

to who-knows-where, sure that her daughter would receive them and come home.

But she did not come home.

And it was all the family could do to sit and wait for the daughter, the

big sister, the witch to come home.

Eventually the mother forbade anyone from leaving the house. Everyone had

to stay inside and wait. No one argued.

And can you imagine them still staying there, sitting, waiting? They never

left. People are sure that no one has entered or exit the house ever since. No

one speaks of the occupants of that house any longer because they say a witch

once lived there, and those who speak of it will be cursed.

She has not come home yet.

Years have passed and still they are there, waiting. You wonder how long

they have been waiting. It is sure that no one has ever left this house ever

since, but you have been through the entire house and you the whole time you were

alone.

Or were you?

There were no skeletons, no cadavers, and no dead bodies to show as proof

that the family died waiting for their witch daughter. But they are still there,

and more than their presence lingers. The grandma is there, sitting on the holed

sofa, staring right through you as she watches a TV that plays nothing, while

waiting for her witch granddaughter.

And Jack the youngest brother is there, playing with his toy cars and

zooming around the room saying, “Whoosh! Whoosh!” while waiting for his big witch

sister.

And twins Demi and Dessa are there, staying in their room, holding their

lifeless dolls and staring at you with the same blank, petrifying stare as their

dolls as they wait for their big witch sister.

And the mother and father are there in the kitchen. The mother still sits

stiffly there in her chair, staring at the door, expecting her witch daughter to

come home so that they can fix things. And the father sits there as well, his

eyes also fixed on the door. They wait. They all wait for her to come home. It is what they want. And she will come home.

And they notice your presence even more than you notice theirs. They know

you are there, but they won’t harm you. They don't care about you. You are not

who they are waiting for.

They are waiting for her. And she will come home. They will wait for her

forever.

Black Room Katrice Dawn Balanay Bulanhagui

It was a starry, starry night. And that’s what I thought it was. A star.

Lying down on a soft cushion, I opened my eyes and saw nothing. Nothing. I

blinked and blinked and somehow my eyes adjusted to the darknesss. I caught sight

of a single bright orb in the middle of this pitch black place. This pitch black

place.

What in the world am I doing here? I have no idea where I am. What is this

place? The feeling it gives seems cold and intimidating. Being uncomfortable, I

looked around. The only thing that caught my attention besides the bright orb was

the clanking piece of metal I accidentally stepped on the floor. It was a circu-

lar object which fit exactly on one of my left fingers. I had no idea what this

was for but somehow I knew I had to keep it with me. And so I left it there on my

finger and then I started to feel giddy.

I sat down and saw from afar how bright the light I previously saw was. It

was beautiful in its own way, being vivid amidst all the darkness surrounding it.

Just like humans, people who have the courage to be different are usually the

ones who shine the most. That’s what Derek told me anyway.

Wait, Derek? Who is that? The name just slid my thought and my insides

seem to squirm whenever I hear or think of that name. I wonder who he is.

“Mother! Mother! Can I see him?” the little voice outside the room echoed

inside.

“Yes, my dear. You will have your turn. For the meantime, just look

through the window and observe.” A female voice, it sounded, replied.

Ridiculous as it may feel in this pitch black room, I had a slight inkling

that someone was watching over me. I went to the side of the window just where

I’d expect someone to be glancing. Instead of a child, I saw nothing, another

space of “nothing”.

Days pass by and I always saw that child coming to this room. I have not

yet seen him nor touched him but I always heard his voice—the voice that was al-

ways looking forward to come and “observe” in this room. At last one day I had

the chance to lay my eyes upon him. The bright orb of light disappeared for a

second, and was then replaced by a rectangular passageway. White light shone and

my eyes needed adjustment for the first few seconds. A figure with 4 limbs was

formed by the shadow’s outline. I was expecting a happy-go-lucky boy, instead of

the face I saw. An old bearded face which didn’t register in my memory.

He flashed a smile that seemed like he knew everything. I noticed that he

had the same rounded metal like me hanging on one of his fingers.

And there I somehow knew it. Derek. He slowly inched toward me and pulled

out a knife. Then the last thing I saw wasn’t black. It was red. All red.

October 12, 1998

Drip drop drip drop.

It is raining again. I know it is, for there is no sound more beautiful to

my ears than the sound of rain on my windowpane. Rain always makes me happy.

Though I cannot touch it, it washes away all my worries, even just for a moment.

They have kept me locked in here for three days now, if my counting is

still correct. Three days of complete solitude. Three days of not being able to

see what lies beyond the four corners of this room. Three days of nothing to oc-

cupy myself with but this pen and a stack of paper.

My name is Sophie and I am 11 years old. I do not know where I am, nor can

I remember how I got here. The last thing I remember is seeing my mother’s face

while she waits for me to fall asleep. After that, nothing. I woke up here next,

alone and scared, wearing this white dress. The dates that I use are just an es-

timation, considering I was not conscious when they brought me here.

The room where I am in now is quite small, compared to my real bedroom.

Everything is pale here – the bed, the sheets, the table, the stool, even the

pen.

There is a big bottle of water beside the table. Even if I do not trust

whoever put me here, I can’t last without drinking. They do not give me food, but

I don’t feel hungry at all. Maybe it’s because I am worrying too much about where

I am that I can’t feel hunger anymore? I do not know. I do not know anything any-

more.

I am scared, please help me.

October 13, 1998

It has been four days, and nothing has changed. No one has come to check

up on me or bring me food. I am starting to get hungry now.

Why hasn’t mother come looking for me? Is she too busy with her work that

she didn’t notice that I am gone?

October 15, 1998

They have started to give me food now, whoever they are. The food doesn’t

taste as good as mom’s cooking, but it will do.

I discovered that my room is just one of several here. Last night, I heard

someone open the door of the room beside mine. They brought a woman in, and she

was crying. Maybe she didn’t know why she was here as well?

They let me go out yesterday, but only to use the bathroom. They appar-

ently placed me in the wrong room. The lady said that I was only staying here

because mom had to go to work for a long time. No one would be able to take care

of me, so she brought me here.

Tomorrow, I would stay in a new room, with its own bathroom. I guess I was

worrying too much after all.

By the way, the nice lady’s name was Rose.

October 18, 1998

Yesterday was awful. Rose came in with other men to talk to me. She asked

Sophie Patricia Anne De Jesus Cabanit

me lots of questions. How do you feel? Are you hungry? Can you remember why you

are here? What have you been doing before you got here?

I couldn’t answer them all, but Rose said that it was okay. She said that

she just needed to give me medicine to help me feel better, then they’ll be on

their way.

Did I mention I am scared of needles? Apparently the medicine they were

supposed to give me would be injected into me. A sudden rush of fear crept into

me. I thrashed around and screamed for her to not to, but the men held me down. I

moved my arm just as the needle was inserted, and now I have a long scratch

across my arm. Not only that, the “medicine” gives me muscle pain. It hurt so

bad. When are you coming back, mom?

I guess Rose isn’t that nice after all.

October 23, 1998

My arms hurt very much. Rose has been injecting me with medication every

other day now. I’ve got scars all over to prove it.

She also says that the medication contains the food that I need which

means I won’t be getting my food on a plate anymore.

I am losing weight as well. The crying and thrashing around made me tired

the past days. The lack of food doesn’t help either. Is this some kind of punish-

ment for what I’ve done before, mother? If it is, I’m sorry…

I’m sorry; I promise I won’t do it again. I won’t hurt others anymore. I’m

sorry; I would even take care of Hanna if she wants me to.

I’m sorry…

October 28, 1998

They brought in another girl to stay with me here. She’s Emily and she’s

also 11 years old. We look the same, but unlike me, she looks happy when she was

brought here; she even laughed creepily.

She saw me get injected; she saw the pain I was suffering. It was embar-

rassing; she laughed at me for not fighting back. I wanted to scream at her, tell

her I was too weak to fight back anymore.

I’m starting to think mom left me here for good. How could you, mom? HOW

COULD YOU?!?

November 2, 1998

Make it end. I want the pain to end. I want to leave this place now.

Emily told me that my mother really left me here on purpose, because I was

a bad girl. How could she? I was willing to change… As if one accident defined

who I am. I didn’t push Hanna that hard on purpose, I swear. It was her own fault

she fell down the stairs.

I hate you mom. I hate you I hate you I hate you.

Emily says she can help me. But how could she?

November 3, 1998

Cold.

Pain.

Make it stop.

Make it stop, please…

I’m sorry…

November 5, 1998

I’ve lost hope. My good for nothing mom left me here to rot.

I hate you mom; I trusted you. If I could get out of here, I’ll make sure

you suffer the same thing that Hanna did. Better yet, I’ll push you so hard

you’ll break all your bones.

I hate you mom. Go to hell.

November 6, 1998

Drip drop drip drop.

It’s raining again. I hope it won’t stop.

Emily found a shard of broken glass by the bathroom mirror. She says this

would end all my suffering.

Drip drop drip drop.

Emily says we should get it over quickly, before Rose and the others get

here.

One stroke, she says. That’s all it needs for everything to end. One

stroke, and this would all be gone.

I’m scared, I tell her. She would be with me all the way through, she re-

plies.

One stroke. That’s all it takes.

One stroke through the neck, and it would end.

One

Single

Stroke

Drip drop drip drop.

Doctor’s Report

Patient number 23 Sophie Miller was admitted on October 9, 1998. Unfortu-

nately, she has been found dead on November 3 with a slit on her throat, made by

a sharp piece of glass. Cause of death is loss of blood.

Miller suffered from borderline personality disorder, which is very common

among young females. There is an intense fear of abandonment with this disorder

that interferes with many aspects of the individual's life. The fact that people

often do leave someone who exhibits this behavior only proves to support their

distorted belief that they are insignificant, worthless, and unloved. At this

point in the cycle, the individual may exhibit self-harming behaviors such as

suicide attempts, mock suicidal attempts (where the goal is to get rescued and

lure others back into the individual's life), cutting or other self-mutilating

behavior. There is often intense and sudden anger involved, directed both at self

and others, as well a difficulty controlling destructive behaviors.

The patient has also been found to be hallucinating; based on the record

she kept, another girl was staying with her, though the staff clarify that there

had been no two patients sharing the same ward.

I stared at her as she slept soundly beside me. I tucked her dark curls

behind her ear and tried to find something different on her face. She was fair.

She had a small nose with a splash of freckles across it. Her mouth was slightly

open and she was snoring softly. Long lashes framed her eyes though they were

closed right now. I knew that her eyes were huge and were startlingly brown, not

like Dad’s eyes which were so dark, they were almost black. Her eyes were beauti-

ful orbs of light brown, and when she stared, it was like she could see right

through your soul.

I reached out to trace the silver scar on her right cheek, a mark that she

got when a boy had pushed her once in school a few years ago because she spilled

juice on his uniform. It was light, almost imperceptible but I knew exactly where

it was. The scar never left her face. The truth was she was quite proud of it. It

was a memory of courage, she used to say.

She stirred and soon, two brown eyes were staring at me with surprise.

“What is it?” she asked as she removed my hand from her face and intertwined it

with her own. “Why are you still up, Ellen? We have school tomorrow. You should-

n’t still be up.” She whispered even though there was only the two of us in the

room.

“Nothing,” I told her calmly despite the wild thumping of my heart in my

chest. “You should go back to sleep.”

She stared at me for a few more minutes before nodding and closing her

eyes. In a few minutes, she was snoring again.

My throat hurt and tears pricked the back of my eyes. I told myself every-

thing was fine. There was no need for this gut-wrenching fear. I was doing noth-

ing wrong. I was simply looking at my sister who had the same dark curls, the

same brown eyes, the same number of freckles, and the same fair skin as I did. I

was simply looking at the mirror of my own self. There was no sin in that.

I closed my eyes and told myself that tomorrow would be better. And before

giving myself up to sleep, I prayed—as I have done every night since that time—

that tomorrow, I would wake up and my twin would be dead.

**

Nelle was older than I by two minutes, but that two minutes may have well

been two years. Nelle was mature and sophisticated. She carried herself with

wicked confidence. She was a varsity volleyball player and she was the best

dancer in our school. Teachers trusted her, while students looked up to her. She

was perfect. In fact, except for our identical faces and body, we were alike in

no other way. I was clumsy and awkward and I did not exactly like sports although

I do play volleyball from time to time with my sister because she always insisted

that I do. I liked books and classical music but my sister liked rock and noise

and banging on the drums to produce an amazing beat. I was part of the top per-

centile of our batch. She was barely passing her subjects and most days, I would

be the one doing her homework and her projects while she partied from night to

dawn.

But everyone loved Nelle and if they didn’t, it was because they were

jealous of her. Her every step on the ground was a dance on its own, and boys

worshipped where she walked. Guys would line up to meet her, and she would flirt

Mitosis Tracey Dela Cruz

with them, entertain them, keep them hanging on. But she would never give herself

away. She never loved a boy—all her boyfriends were just toys. She was too good

for anyone, we both knew that.

Nelle was my twin. We were from the same zygote and developed in the same

uterus at the same time; we grew up in the same house; we always wore identical

clothes until we reached high school; we styled our hair in the same way: curls

that reached the small of our backs; we had the same features; but we were very

different. I may have her face, the same breathtaking beauty she possessed, but

no guy had ever courted me. No girl was jealous of me. I did not have Nelle’s

confidence or her talents. I was plain, really. But everyone knew my name because

of my sister. I was just Nelle’s identical twin. Without her, I was nobody.

**

It was Monday and I was sitting on one of the benches in the quadrangle,

watching my sister play volleyball with her friends as I waited for our mom.

Nelle laughed every time she missed hitting a ball. I was kind of envious. I wish

I could also shrug off my mistakes just like that. I wish it was also that easy

for me.

Nelle waved for me to come over. “Hey, Ellen! Come play with us!”

I shook my head.

“Come on! Pleaaaaase.” She put on her puppy eyes that everyone thought was

adorable. It was adorable. “I taught you how to play, didn’t I? C’mon! Play with

us! Don’t be such a buzz kill.”

I hesitated. As I stared at Nelle and her expectant face, I couldn’t help

but remember that night, the night that changed everything. My hand shook and

butterflies were all over my stomach. I opened my mouth to protest but I could

see the hardness in Nelle’s eyes and I knew she won’t be pleased if I said no. I

stood up and joined them, feeling small and intimidated. And afraid. Yes. Always

afraid of those brown orbs that could see right through me.

“Yey! Alright, you guys! My sister’s joining. Be nice but not too nice.

She’s good!” Nelle announced.

I stuttered a denial but the ball had already been served and it was head-

ing straight towards me. I hit it back and sent it over the net. The rally con-

tinued and we scored the first point. I was feeling quite good that I was able to

keep up with them. Nelle smiled approvingly. Some guys were milling about, watch-

ing us play—or rather, watching my sister play. Of course, who wouldn’t stare at

those long legs always revealed because Nelle loved to wear shorts? Who wouldn’t

want to stare at those breasts that bounced with her every jump and run? Who

wouldn’t want to stare at that smile that was brighter than the sun?

It was only when we were done playing and I was heading back to the bench

to get my things that I realized they were not staring at just my sister. They

were also looking at me.

My heart raced. I never had guys stare at me in such way. The only reason

anyone would want to look at me was because I looked exactly like Nelle. I felt

elated, somehow, ounces of confidence adding to my low self-esteem. Dare I say I

was feeling quite… proud?

Was this how it felt to be like Nelle? Was this how it felt to not be just

her sister?

Our car was already pulling up in the parking lot. Nelle and I walked to-

wards it, eager to go home to the promise of Dad’s good food. Nelle was so happy,

telling me how proud of me she was and saying that I should try out for varsity.

I was smiling, too. I was happy. The thoughts of that night were out of my mind

for a while. Maybe… Maybe I would be worth something for once...

It was only that night, as we lay beside each other in bed and I stared at

her that dread came creeping up inside me. All those boys, they were not seeing

me. It wasn’t me that they saw with dark curls and fair skin playing volleyball

in the quad. It wasn’t me that they watched with hungry eyes and flirty smiles.

It wasn’t me. They weren’t seeing Ellen. They were seeing Nelle. Nelle in me.

I was still nobody.

**

When we were six, Mom and Dad took us to a beach. I remember the sky was

overcast that day and because of the weather, there was hardly anyone around.

Nelle and I were so excited. All day, we played in the sand and took a dip in the

gray ocean. We built castles and gathered shells. We looked for spooky caves and

secret places. We laughed and ate with Mom and Dad, because back then, the two of

them were still happy together. Before going home, Nelle and I went to watch the

sunset on our own.

“I love you,” Nelle told me.

“I love you, too,” I replied.

“I won’t ever leave you, Ellen. Ever. I never will. We will be together

forever and ever! I swear it. I will stay with you always.”

I smiled at her. “I won’t ever leave you either.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I trust you. So please trust me, too.”

**

It was lunch time. I was still sad about what happened yesterday so I was hiding

out in the library. I thought I would be safe in my favorite place in school,

sitting on the floor between two shelves, but I knew I was wrong the moment I saw

him approaching me.

His hair was shorter but styled in the same way as before. I hated how my

breath came in short gasps because of him who was walking towards me. I hated

this freak of nature. He was too perfect, as if God had decided to take all the

best features of a human and mash them together to form this beautiful creature—

beautiful and dangerous.

“Hi,” Mark greeted with a smile, blinding me with his perfect white teeth.

“Hi,” I replied.

He sat beside me and an unpleasant silence hung between us.

“Uhh… You were great yesterday. I never knew you played volleyball so

well. You should join the team,” he said. Was he forcing a conversation? I hated

the small talk. I knew a friendly conversation wasn’t what he came for.

“Did you need anything?” I asked. I wanted to sound tough but my voice

just sounded hopeless.

“About… y’know… that night…” It was the first time I’ve seen him fidget.

“Do you want to do it again?” His voice was just a whisper but it was deafening.

Mark had the most amazing eyes. They were hypnotizing and deep—so deep I

could lose myself by just staring into them. They gave him a sort of depth, a

shroud of mystery, and I think that was what attracted me to him the most. He was

a pretty boy. From hours of staring from afar, I had found out that he had dim-

ples and seven moles on his face. I memorized their locations. I memorized how

each strand of his hair falls whenever he ran or played or moved. I liked how

deep and husky his voice sounded when he talked, and how carefree his laughter

was. I knew all his favorite songs and favorite things and favorite people. I

knew a lot about him even though we were never close.

But I guess the most important piece of information was that he liked my

sister.

He adored her, like she was a goddess trotting the earth. He always tailed

her, always tried to pry information about her from various people. He was nice

to me, too, because most guys thought that the way to Nelle was through me.

They were dead wrong.

Nelle loved me—only me. She loved me more than she loved our parents, more

than her friends, more than any guy that looked her way. I occupied the largest

space in her heart—or maybe even her whole heart. I, Ellen, filled every hole and

crevice and nook of that muscle in her chest. It was thoughts of me that traveled

through the nerves and synapses of her brain; it was love for me that flowed

through every vein and artery in her body. Nelle loved only me. No boy would ever

understand it.

I felt Mark’s fingers brush my collarbone, sending waves of thrill through

me. I felt my face flush even more. My heart was accelerating to a hundred and

fifty miles an hour. It made me wonder how come it had not yet jumped out of my

chest yet in one ripping sound.

“Well?” he prodded, continuing to stroke my skin with his warm fingertips.

I didn’t answer. I did not trust myself to speak, lest I said something I

would truly regret to the utmost later on. I tried to say no, but the reply was

lodged at my throat, making the back of my eyes prick with tears.

Mark moved in to trail pecks of kisses down my neck.

And just like that my resolve evaporated. I was weak. I turned my head to

face him then he was kissing me tenderly, almost lovingly—though I knew he felt

no love for me.

He loved only my sister.

“Tonight?” he asked when he had pulled away.

I nodded. “My house,” I told him, breathless.

He rewarded me with one of his dimpled smiles and left. I counted his

steps away from me: eight. He had not looked back.

**

I lost my virginity to Mark.

As usual, my parents weren’t home so Nelle had taken the opportunity and

had thrown a party. Everyone she knew in school was invited. Nelle convinced me

to join the crowd. We wore identical dresses, styled our hair in the same manner,

even, but it was easy to tell us apart. Nelle moved with confidence and grace

while I was just awkward and clumsy.

But when my twin made me drink alcohol for the first time, that changed.

I mustered liquid confidence that night. I laughed with everyone else,

danced with them, sang with them, did crazy things with them that I would never

have done had I been sober. Nelle liked me that time, I think. I was finally out

of my shell and having fun instead of sulking and hiding.

Then I remember Mark staggering towards me when everyone else had already

left or passed out on the floor. His words were slurred when he talked to me then

but I didn’t mind. All I thought about at that time was his lips and how full

they were and how much I had wanted to kiss him or, better yet, for him to kiss

me.

Then all at once he was. He was all over me. His breath had smelled like

alcohol and his mouth tasted that way, too. But I don’t think I had cared. I just

wanted him so much, unbearably so much, that it was like heaven when he laid his

lips on me. And all went by too fast, I can’t remember much. We somehow stumbled

on to the couch and got ourselves undressed—or at least undressed enough to do

the deed.

When it was over and Mark had fallen asleep, I ran to the bathroom and

wretched my guts out, regretting drinking so much that night. I stared at my re-

flection, watched my disheveled appearance, the make-up smeared on my face, and

my swollen lips. For the first time, I didn’t know who was looking back at me.

“Was he good?” Nelle asked, appearing by the doorframe.

I stared at her, unable to answer because I had no idea. All I know was

every part of my body ached. I didn’t feel like talking but the question had to

be asked.

“I don’t understand… Why did he…? I thought he liked you,” I told her.

Nelle didn’t reply but I could see from the steely look in her eyes and

the tight line of her lips the truth. A long stretch of silence hung between us.

Finally I murmured the most dreaded words, voicing out the truth. “He

thought I was you, didn’t he?”

Nelle sighed. “He was stupid and drunk. He couldn’t even tell the differ-

ence between his own hand and foot--”

“You knew!” I screamed at her. This shut her up. I had never screamed at

Nelle before, never got mad at her, or lost my temper. This was certainly a

first. “You knew I liked him. And you knew he liked you. You knew that he thought

I was you but you didn’t even stop him! You knew. You could’ve stopped it but you

didn’t!”

“I thought… you would want… that,” she replied quietly, still in shock of

my outburst.

“Oh, shut up! What makes you think I would want to sleep with anyone who

thinks I’m you? Get your head out of your ass, Nelle!” I stormed out with my hair

still in a mess and streaks of mascara on my cheeks.

The betrayal I felt burned inside me like acid. It was a thousand volts of

hate and anguish every second, I was surprised I reached my friend’s house in one

piece.

I didn’t return home until the next evening. By that time, I had calmed

down and the pain in my chest had dulled into an aching emptiness. I had apolo-

gized to Nelle for screaming at her. She forgave me and hugged me so tight while

murmuring apologies and promising never to let anyone hurt me again. She said

again and again, “I won’t let anyone hurt you, Ellen.”

But she didn’t know that one who was constantly the source of my pain was

she.

**

Mom and Dad weren’t home that night. Nelle, as usual, was out with her

friends. Mark came to our house at around 10:30 pm, wearing a fitted shirt and

khaki pants. I was waiting by the door when his car pulled over.

“Hey,” he greeted, smiling. His breath smelled like mint and I caught the

scent of aftershave. He had obviously prepared. This beat the last time he was

here.

“Hey,” I greeted back. The smile I gave him was genuine. I was excited

though I knew this meant nothing to him. I was still blissful with anticipation.

I led him to my parents’ room. I didn’t want to sleep with him on the bed

I shared with Nelle. The bed my sister and I shared was much too sacred for that.

Our parents’ bed, however, was a different story. There was nothing sacred about

it. I and my sister had been witnesses to an act of adultery once when Dad had

screwed another woman while Mom was away on one of her business trips. I knew

that Mom knew even though she and Dad pretended that they were a happy couple.

They had no idea how much Nelle and I could see through their lies and their pa-

thetic façade.

Mark kissed me, suddenly, as he closed the door behind him, banishing

those ugly thoughts. He stroked my face, my hair, my arms lovingly, gently, like

a true lover, as I guided him to the bed. And there we made love—if love was what

anyone could call a carnal act of answering that primitive desire in animals to

mate, to feel flesh against flesh, to burn with need and lust and passion. It

felt good to be lost, to be pressed against him, to feel every inch of him radi-

ating heat. Every second of pleasure and sweet pain blurred together until the

world crashed around me and disappeared into nothing. I was drowning, intoxicated

with ecstasy that I felt infinite, as if I were being ripped apart and broken

down into a mess of sensations and emotions.

Then there was nothing but a single name echoing, floating through the

haze of rapture I was in.

Nelle.

It was Mark’s voice that shattered the perfect dream I was in; Mark’s

voice that whispered her name and ruined everything.

The moment her name escaped his lips, he realized his mistake. His eyes

widened in disbelief and guilt. He opened his lips to apologize but I silenced

him with a kiss.

“Forget it,” I told him. “Forget it.” Then I kissed him again and again as

he caressed me in a way I had always yearned to be touched. We made love again.

It was gentle and slow and sweet, as if his tenderness could somehow smoothen out

the wrinkles and rough edges and cast that illusion of perfection again.

But it couldn’t.

I was a glass left in shards; a room left in shambles; a string tied in

knots; a fabric ripped and torn apart.

I could never be whole again.

Mark left the house an hour before Nelle came home. I had already taken a

shower and cleaned the mess in our parents’ room by that time.

I was sitting on the bed, staring blankly at the pattern on the mattress

when my sister stepped in our room. She took one look at me, at my eyes that were

just like her eyes, and she instantly knew. Nothing had to be spoken. The silence

spoke volumes and the eyes told more than a conversation would have.

Some things were simply too horrible for words.

**

While we were lying on bed the night that I came home after losing my pu-

rity, Nelle whispered to me, “I gave my heart to you. My heart is yours com-

pletely, Ellen.”

“Why?” I asked her, because, truly, I had no idea why.

“Because boys are careless and men are cruel. Boys will lose your heart or

leave it around to rust or to be taken away by others. Men break hearts for the

fun of it. They’re ruthless. But you… you never left my side, Ellen. From the

moment we were conceived, you have always been beside me. I gave my heart to you

because I knew you’d care of it and you’re worthy of all my trust.” Nelle paused.

“You should have entrusted me with your heart, too. I wouldn’t have broken it.”

I closed my eyes and let sleep enfold me. I did not want to hear Nelle’s

words. I was too confused and exhausted, wrung out and beaten up. At least, with

my mind dozed off, I did not have to think about how substandard I was or how

undeserving of someone—anyone’s love I was.

**

Nelle must have slipped out some time before dawn because I could not feel

the pressure of her hand on mine. It might have been just a dream when I saw her

creep outside of our room so I just continued to sleep.

When I woke up, Nelle was beside me, staring at me with her two large

eyes. No emotions betrayed her face. “Check your phone,” she ordered.

I followed her and I found at least fifty unread messages there. All of

them read the same.

Mark had died some time in the morning. His chest was stabbed eight times.

I looked at Nelle. She smiled at me sweetly. I knew full well that honey

smile that hid the poison so cleverly you would never have found out you were

tricked until you find yourself curling up into a ball and clutching your insides

in pain.

She did not need to tell me that she was the one who did it. I could see

it, every detail in my mind as if I were watching the scene unfold from Nelle’s

eyes; Mark sleeping soundly in his bed, awakened by a knock on his window; he

opened it to find Nelle, wearing nothing but her sleeping gown, shivering in the

cold night, offering him one of her alluring smiles; he let her in and she re-

warded him with a kiss which he received gratefully; they went further and Mark

would not have given a thought about me because Nelle, his dream, was there, giv-

ing herself to him—or so he thought; Nelle smiled playfully as she let him handle

her and once he was weak and vulnerable, lost in pleasures of her touch, she

plunged the knife into his chest. Again and again. Eight times. Until he died

underneath her. I saw it in my mind; Nelle’s bloody face, the corners of her lips

turning up to show a saccharine grin filled with satisfaction.

Nelle had said nothing though. She did not need to. As I have said, some

things were simply too horrible for words.

The logical person would have run away from Nelle, or turned her in, or

cringed away in disgust. But I was not a logical person, or perhaps being Nelle’s

twin made me illogical. Instead of running away I asked, “Are you sure you didn’t

leave behind any evidence?”

My sister chuckled. “I’m nothing if not thorough.” She smiled kindly, a

special smile I hardly ever saw on her face. “Thank you for caring, Ellen. I was

afraid you’d hate me once you knew.”

I just shrugged.

“I know you liked him, but I did what I had to do. I would never forgive

anyone who hurts you.”

In reply, I hugged her really tight, wanting to dissolve into her because

I felt so hollow, empty. There was nothing inside me, as if everything had been

scooped out and casted with the wind. I was hoping I could meld myself with Nelle

because maybe then, I could feel whole again.

**

Our family visited Mark’s wake once because everyone else at school had

come to pay their respects. Nelle and I acted the way everyone else acted: somber

and reminiscent. Whenever students talked about Mark with tears in their eyes, I

would peek at Nelle. Her face mirrored everyone else’s sadness but then her jaw

would twitch; she was fighting a smile.

**

I did not want to go to Mark’s funeral. It had been a week since he died.

“But everyone’s going!” Mom told me as she shoved a lacy black dress in

front of me.

Nelle watched us from the corner of the room, lacing up her dress that was

identical to my own.

“I don’t want to go, Mom. Don’t make me,” I warned her, crossing my arms

defiantly over my chest.

“Ellen!” she screamed furiously. “Why can’t you just be like your sister?

Be a good girl and go to your friend’s funeral. Think about what other people

would say!”

“He deserved to die!”

The silence that followed my outburst was deafening. “I… I didn’t mean to-

-” But Mom cut me off with a slap across my cheek. My face burned and my eyes

stung with tears. I looked into her almond eyes but there was nothing but disgust

and disappointment there. No regret. No disbelief. No shame for what she did to

her own daughter.

Something snapped inside me. I ran outside, splashing through the puddles

of mud and rain water without much of a heading. The drops of rain punctured my

skin with cool relief. At least the water disguised my tears.

I ran aimlessly, amid the stares and the contemptuous looks. I just wanted

to get away. Away from my mother and her judging eyes. Why does she always ask me

to be more like Nelle? I did not want to be like Nelle. I did not want to be like

her. We already had the same face. Couldn’t we have different tastes and desires?

Must we be the same in everything? Why must I be like her when all I wanted was

to be different?

I did not want to vanish… vanish and become just a blurry carbon copy of

the perfect girl beloved by all. I wanted to be seen! Be seen not just as her

twin, but be seen as me! As Ellen! I wanted to be different! I didn’t want to be

like Nelle!

I wanted to play volleyball and not have people mistaken me for Nelle. I

wanted to get good grades and not be told by others that I was just as good as

Nelle. I wanted to dance and not have others tell me I wasn’t as graceful as my

sister. I wanted to make mistakes, make a fool out of myself; I wanted to learn

and to try things and not walk on eggshells all the time in fear of being judged

and compared to Nelle who was perfect, who was amazing, who I could never measure

up to. I wanted to be kissed and be touched with tenderness because I was loved

as Ellen, not because I looked and felt like Nelle.

I wanted to be me. I wanted to be seen and be loved for me.

And not just because of Nelle.

I wanted to make a mark for myself.

But I couldn’t.

So I kept running away. Away from that house of emptiness and lies. Away

from Nelle. Away from everything. I ran and ran until my legs ached. Perhaps if I

ran fast and far enough, I could escape this painful reality where I was not good

enough—would never be good enough—and I would be able to jump into a different

story, one wherein there was no Nelle, and Ellen was a hero and not just a side

character to make the protagonist shine more. I wanted to be the lead actress on

the stage. I wanted to be seen, be heard, because I was my own, and not because I

was someone’s twin.

I wanted to look into a mirror and not hate what I saw.

The rain had simmered down to just a drizzle when I collapsed on the

ground, exhausted. I was not sure where I was, not even sure if I cared enough to

know. I just lied on the muddy ground and breathed.

Some time passed until I heard the grass rustling, caused by two feet

shuffling towards me. I knew it was Nelle. She alone was the one able to find me

at all times.

“Funeral’s over. Come home,” she said. “You’re gonna get sick lying there

like that.”

“Please leave, Nelle. I don’t want to talk to you,” I replied. My voice

must have sounded as hollow as I felt.

The silence that followed, broken by nothing but my heavy breathing and

the continuous sound of rainfall, seemed to stretch forever. I was surprised when

Nelle lied down beside me. She turned my head so I could see her face. I wasn’t

prepared for the sadness and pain I saw there. Truth was, I wasn’t sure what I

was expecting. But it certainly wasn’t this.

With Nelle, you never could know.

“Please don’t hate me,” she whispered. Her voice sounded small. “I won’t

be able to survive it if you hated me. Please, Ellen. You don’t know how hard it

is to have your sister hate you or be sad because of you.” She stroked the back

of my hand as she spoke softly and tenderly. “I love you more than anything in

this world, you know? And it’s not the kind of love our parents give us—God, not

even close. It’s… It’s… It’s different. It’s so massive, it crushes my chest and

breaks my ribs. I can’t breathe. I am smothered every day, every second, by this

love. It consumes me. My heart is brimming with it. All I want is to make you

happy, Ellen. I thought… I thought maybe you’d be happy if people knew you more,

or if you had more friends. I thought, you’d be happy if… if you get Mark. But

that went horribly wrong. I thought you’d be happy if he disappeared so I made

him disappear. I’m sorry, Ellen. I just thought… thought I was doing the right

thing.

“And mom. Well, she’s a world-class bitch. She always compares us and I

know you hate it. And it’s my fault because I reveled too much in the attention

and didn’t notice you much and help you get over your shyness. I... I am so

sorry, Ellen.” Nelle’s voice squeaked. It was nothing like Nelle at all. It was

so unlike her, it scared me. I had never seen Nelle vulnerable, or afraid. I had

never seen her weak. She had always been the strongest person I knew.

“Please don’t hate me,” Nelle begged as two teardrops rolled from her

eyes. The first time I ever saw them on her face.

I knew I should have been sorry. I should have felt guilt or contempt or

love. But all I was… was empty. I couldn’t feel anything. Her face—Our face,

seemed foreign to me. It was like I was looking at a stranger, seeing her for the

first time.

“Okay,” I tell her even though everything was anything but.

“I love you,” she whispered. “So much.”

The lie came out easier than I expected. “I love you too.”

**

I stared at Nelle as she slept soundly beside me. I watched her face, my

face, the face we shared, and felt nothing but a strange sense of emptiness in my

chest, as if my ribcage were protecting no heart, just lungs.

I recalled the day we started learning ballet. Nelle was gifted while I

just stumbled on my feet. I quit when my mom told me I was a pathetic dancer. I

remembered our first day in school. Nelle drew people towards her like a magnet.

I was too timid to get to know anyone in class. I always ended up feeling alone

even when Nelle invited me to spend time with her and her friends. I recalled the

day we got our medals. It was only in school that I was better than her. I knew

she didn’t mind. She loved me so much. And I loved her, too. More than words

could say. More than anything.

But I wanted her to disappear.

I continued to gaze at our identical face until two brown orbs stared back

at me.

She must have known. I could see it in her eyes. She knew what I wanted to

do, but she made no effort to stop me.

“I love you,” she whispered.

I drew the knife from underneath my pillow and held it over her neck.

“I’ll never leave you,” Nelle continued. “I promised that. We’ll be to-

gether… always.”

She squeezed my hand as I pierced her neck with the knife. I did it

slowly, making sure she could feel every bit of pain. I imagined her stabbing

Mark, imagined what she must have felt when the blade had sunk into his flesh.

Had she felt happiness or just mere satisfaction? Had she enjoyed carving him or

did she make stabbing him quick and easy? Or had Nelle felt the same way I was

feeling right now?

Hollow. Empty. Cold.

It was strange, killing my sister, watching her die. It was like seeing my

own self die, as if I were merely looking into a mirror. I shivered at the

thought. I did not want to dwell much on it.

When Nelle’s body had grown cold, I washed away all the evidence on my

body. Mother and Father weren’t home so the story was already complete in my

head. I wrote a note of goodbye and sadness. Nelle and I had nearly identical

handwriting. I forged her signature and added a few drops of her blood on the

paper, just for a dramatic flourish. I placed the knife in Nelle’s hand, posi-

tioned in a way that suggested she had stabbed herself. I handled her tenderly,

as if she were glass that would shatter between my fingertips.

When I was done tampering with the scene, I called the police. I was a

better liar and actress than I thought. All I had to do was act scared and

pained. It was not at all hard. My story was simple: I went out to take a stroll

around the neighborhood and when I arrived I found Nelle, lifeless, with the

knife in her hand.

An investigation ensued. Some people assumed there was a serial killer on

loose, targeting teenagers, killing them in their sleep. I couldn’t look into a

mirror for days. I wasn’t ready yet. Mom and Dad took care of the arrangements

for the funeral. I could tell they were devastated, not just because their daugh-

ter died but also because the one who died was Nelle instead of me. I knew every-

one was thinking the same thing… I wish it had been Ellen instead.

Too bad for them.

Nelle died. Ellen lived. But they didn’t know that my life was just begin-

ning now.

Still, the emptiness ate me up inside. I didn’t know what could fill that

gaping hole or if it could ever be filled again.

**

I stayed behind while everyone left on the day that they buried Nelle. I

stared at her grave, stood there for hours, reminiscing everything about her,

then wondering what life would be like now that she’s gone. No more sister to

sleep beside me. No more sister to hold my hand through the pain. No more sister

who knew me like the back of her hand. No more sister to take care of me. No more

sister to make me do her homework. No more sister to be compared to.

No more sister to make me suffer.

I felt a smile break across my face.

I was free.

I felt a smile break across my face.

I was free.

I headed home. I moved slowly and with deliberate care. My parents were in

their room. I ate dinner alone then studied in my room afterwards with classical

music playing on the stereo. My head was strangely empty and there was a warm

bubbly feeling growing in chest, like it was slowly patching up the hole that had

been ever growing inside me since we were kids.

I headed to the bathroom to take a shower but something caught my eye. I

stared at my reflection in the mirror on the hallway. I remembered my sister,

remembered staring at her face every night, wishing it would change, wishing we

didn’t have the same face, because it somehow highlighted our differences.

I observed my black hair and brown eyes, my mouth, my nose, the splash of

freckles. Everything was the same, nothing was added or changed. I was the same

girl on the outside, yet never will be on the inside. Then just as I was about to

break my gaze from my own reflection, I noticed something different on my face.

There on my reflection’s right cheek was something that shouldn’t have

been there: a thin silver scar, almost imperceptible to the eye, yet I saw it

because I have stared at it for many times in the past on her face—the face of my

sister whom I had killed.

My body went dead cold.

Why was it there? I rubbed my cheek but the scar, the one blemish that had

been on her face, did not disappear. Were my eyes playing tricks on me? Was I

emotionally stressed that’s why I was seeing things? Or—God forbid—was this body

not my own but my sister’s?

Questions clouded my head. My heart was pounding in fear for this thing

that I could not explain. Why was this happening? How could it be happening?

I stopped myself. I needed to calm down.

I closed my eyes and counted one to ten before opening them.

I still felt fear, still felt the clutches of dread around my heart and

confusion wringing my brain. But my reflection didn’t show the turbulent of emo-

tions inside of me. The face that stared back at me was my own, save for that

silver scar on its cheek, but it wasn’t me. Its eyes winked with mischief instead

of confusion, and its cheeks glowed with joy instead of trembling with fear. The

corners of its lips were turned up to flash that incredible, sweet smile.

But I wasn’t smiling.

She blew on the glass and wrote a message on the moist that formed: I

promised I would never leave you.

And she hadn’t. She wasn’t going to.

Nelle was staying.

Everything was dark, though not quite yet. As I kept on running, I felt

the shimmering spark of hope dimming, warning total darkness. Everything felt

muddy and squishy, although I couldn’t be sure if there was a huge puddle of mud

on the ground. It went dimmer, and dimmer, until at such point I could really

feel it dissipating to thin smoke. It was as if, I myself WAS dissipating…

consumed…by an almost eternal…damnation…

Then, like the beginning of time, there was light. It came from an open

door. I followed the light, but I stopped as it was covered by a figure, very

feminine in stature. Putting the hesitation aside, I continued my way to the

blocked light. The figure didn’t back away; it made a move to meet me instead, or

so it looked. But I didn’t care. I ran towards it. And it did the same.

With the squishing of the invisible mud ringing in my ears, I satisfied my

urge to run faster. The figure did the same, and as we continued doing so, the

distance between us shortened. I felt excitement rush through my veins, so I ran

faster still. Then suddenly…SPLURK! I tripped, and realized my essence was being

sucked into the puddle, soon to become a part of the mud itself, invisible, murky

and dirty.

Despite all of this, I found myself laughing…what was the point to all of

this? The darkness, the mud, the figure…everything?

(*)

Gregor Void was just six years old when his parents divorced. Bewildered,

he was now faced with a decision that might change his life forever. Was he to go

with his mother, who gave him life and love and care while having her own matters

to attend to, or was he to go with his father, who taught him values and simple

practical things in life while implicitly showing his fatherly love? There were a

lot of things that ran through his young mind which were supposed to be thought

of when the time was right. But the circumstances were unfavorable, and forced

maturity is a must. One thought after the other, one thought after the other. If

another one came, he would surely loose his nuts.

But he must make a decision, and he must do it quickly. His mother would

be boarding the train any time now. He would be left with his father forever. And

all he wanted was for them to stay together for all time. What should I do? He

thought to himself. What should I do…

…

Years passed. The morning came in dull and dragging, but for the first

time in his life Gregor felt rejuvenated in a way he could not explain. It was as

if someone was beckoning him to go enjoy the day. That today would be the best

day ever. However, the opposite was true with his father. As a matter of fact, it

was the opposite for most of the people in his village.

For Gregor Void was a pretty unusual lad indeed, the most unusual in Vague

Valley. As a boy, no one really dared play with him nor talk to him, since he was

just too unusual. But no one could pinpoint what they didn’t like about him. Even

his own father couldn’t pinpoint what it was that made him cringe whenever he was

with him, although he always assured himself that he loved him. Still, whatever

the reason was, Gregor was an outcast in his own community, and he didn’t even

know that he was.

Gregor Void Joelean Zephanie Ecleo Escote

But they liked the way he saw things differently. Not him, never him. Only

the way he saw things, which was the holding string enough for people to remember

he even existed. All except for Holly, his young little sister, the only person

who genuinely cared for him.

“Hey brother, will you be going out? Can you please fetch my doll at my

friend’s house after your agenda?” she asked innocently.

Ah, Holly, his one true friend in the world. His heart was always over-

whelmed just at sight of her. “Why shall I not?” he replied. He could never re-

fuse someone with a heart so pure and true.

Then he said his farewell to his sister and his father, and off he went

his way. But whatever he would be doing no one really knew… and no one really

cared.

…

“Hey brother, will you be going out? Can you please fetch my doll at my

friend’s house after your agenda?” she asked innocently.

Ah, Holly, his one true friend in the world. His heart was always over-

whelmed just at sight of her. “Why shall I not?” he replied. He could never re-

fuse someone with a heart so pure and true.

Then he said his farewell to his sister and his father, and off he went

his way. But whatever he would be doing no one really knew… and no one really

cared.

…

“You know no one is allowed to pass The Crossroad,” his father scolded him

for the nth time. “But why, dad…why? It’s just a harmless road intersection, and

the shack ahead its way is quite peaceful to look at--.”

“Rules ARE rules, Gregor,” his father snapped. “No one really knows what

is in there, true. But just as what the leader had said, ‘Whatever lies inside

the dreaded shack is best left alone.’”

“Or maybe there’s something in there they aren’t telling us…” he ranted,

annoyed by his father’s petty arrogance.

“You are not to disobey me nor use that kind of voice to me, young man.

Not while you’re still under my roof!”

“Oh, okay,” he sarcastically said and went outside to get some fresh air.

To hell with you father…to hell with you! Ever since his mother left them,

he had always been curious as to what lay ahead the insidious Crossroad they had

banned to pass. He remembered it well, his mother walking through that intersec-

tion, making her way to the shack instead of boarding her train. He waited for

her to come out, but she never did. Since that day, he made sure that he would be

passing the forsaken road, just to check whether his mother came back, no matter

how hopeless it seemed, for him, his sister, and his father. How could he not

care, how could he?

“If only I were allowed to go inside that house…” he said aloud to him-

self.

And then he heard someone calling him. The voice was very feminine. “Where

are you going brother?” the voice asked. “Oh, hi Holly. Nowhere really. Just…

taking in fresh air.”

“I suppose you had a quarrel with papa again. Mr. Gibbs asked me, begged

me, to come right here as fast as I can.” She paused. “Wait, you did it again,

didn’t yo--”

“PLEASE, Holly, not you too… ” Gregor cut her off. “You know why I had to

do it.”

“But you’re endangering your own life in the process. You don’t know the

sacrifices papa face just to keep your secret. If they find out, they will take

you away from us. What’s more, no one really knows if ma’s coming back. Plus no-

body in the village wants her back since she had passed,” she changed her voice

to whispers, “The Crossroad.”

“Holly,” he sighed. “You don’t understand. The only reason the chief

banned us from crossing the intersection is because unspeakable knowledge beholds

in there, and that unspeakable knowledge is evil, or so he says. No one really

knows what’s in there because no one’s ever been there. And if there really is

unspeakable knowledge, it will be by taking the risk and spending it wisely the

knowledge or any power can be put to good use.”

“But nothing good comes out of evil,” Holly answered. “Yes, true, but like

I said, no one knows whether the knowledge is evil or not. Okay, look. This will

be the last time I will be going to that wretched place. After this, I promise

never to go there nor speak of it as long as I shall live,” he said with a prom-

ising tone.

“But--” she paused again. “Well, if it is going to be the last time…”

“Thanks, Holly,” he said as he hugged his sister and hurriedly went off.

“Brother, wait!”

“Yes?”

Gregor knew she wanted to say something. But for some reason, she was

hesitant to say it. Still, he respected her decision when she instead replied

nothing, just take care. If there was a reason why she stopped herself, it could

be for a good cause, he assured himself.

…

Gregor knew she wanted to say something. But for some reason, she was hesitant to

say it. Still, he respected her decision when she instead replied nothing, just

take care. If there was a reason why she stopped herself, it could be for a good

cause, he assured himself.

…

Holly was missing. Their father didn’t notice that she went out. But in-

stead of starting another discussion, they looked for her throughout the village.

They asked everybody in the village if they saw her come their way, but no one

said yes. As a matter of fact, no one helped them look for their missing family

member. “She must’ve gone into the house, just like her mother did,” was all they

said.

The father was just too ready to give up. But for Gregor, it was other-

wise. He would not be put to rest until his sister was found. And then he remem-

bered. Whenever she was going out, she would always head down the road that leads

to Mr. Gibbs’ house.

Mr. Gibbs. The man had been already close to his and was very nice in a

peculiar way. But just thinking about him with his sister gave him the chills.

Then something struck him, and he was enlightened. “I’ll be right back, dad.” And

he scurried off.

He heard his father say something, but he was too far to hear what he had

said and too worried to even go back and ask what it was. I have to hurry, I have

to. If I don’t, Holly… she might—

And then he saw it. The house was peaceful and quiet, yet he felt dread as

he gradually neared it. He knocked on the door, banged even, but no one re-

sponded. He banged harder, trying to get the door open, until he almost tripped

when the door flung open.

“What are you doing in the middle of this night man!” the man screamed,

seriously annoyed. But he didn’t care about the man. He only cared about Holly.

“Where’s Holly?”

“I-I… I don’t know what you’re talking about—”

“Where is she?!” He grabbed his collar and shouted the words on his face.

The man was sweating, and his eyes were bloodshot. And… what was this?

There were bloodstains on his sleeves.

“Oh my God…what did you do to her?” He was horrified. But Mr. Gibbs only

smiled, grimly. “Hahahaha…you don’t know how pleasurable your sis--”

But he didn’t get to finish what he was going to say. For Gregor Void al-

ready knew what he had already to say, and just thinking of it boiled his blood

limitlessly. His vision went dark, and his fists were like hounds of hell. YOU

PIECE OF HORSE DUNG! I’M GOING TO WRANG YOU SO HARD YOU’LL END UP GROUND MEET!

And he pounded away, unaware of his surroundings, mindful only of his thirst of

anger and vengeance.

Then suddenly, out of nowhere a force put him back to his senses.

“What did you do to him?” his father inquired, baffled at what he saw.

“WHY did you do that to him?”

“Dad, it’s not what it looks like--”

“I am not blind, Gregor. I know what I see, and what I see now is a work

of a murderer.”

“No dad please let me explain--”

“GREGOR! All of my life I’ve done everything, EVERYTHING, just to be a

good father to you and Holly. But what is this I see? This is not what I’ve

taught you.” He tried not to cry. “I’ve always loved you son, but this is the

last time I will ever acknowledge you. From this day on… I don’t have a son!”

…

Everything was dark, though not quite yet. As I kept on running, I felt

the shimmering spark of hope dimming, warning total darkness. Everything felt

muddy and squishy, although I couldn’t be sure if there was a huge puddle of mud

on the ground. It went dimmer, and dimmer, until at such point I could really

feel it dissipating to thin smoke. It was as if, I myself WAS dissipating…

consumed…by an almost eternal…damnation…

Then, like the beginning of time, there was light. It came from an open

door. I followed the light, but I stopped as it was covered by a figure, very

feminine in stature. Putting the hesitation aside, I continued my way to the

blocked light. The figure didn’t back away; it made a move to meet me instead, or

so it looked. But I didn’t care. I ran towards it. And it did the same.

With the squishing of the invisible mud ringing in my ears, I satisfied my

urge to run faster. The figure did the same, and as we continued doing so, the

distance between us shortened. I felt excitement rush through my veins, so I ran

faster still. Then suddenly…SPLURK! I tripped, and realized my essence was being

sucked into the puddle, soon to become a part of the mud itself, invisible, murky

and dirty.

Despite all of this, I found myself laughing…what was the point to all of

this? The darkness, the mud, the figure…everything?

… But it was all an illusion. There was really no figure. There was no

mud. There was no darkness. There was only The Crossroad, and the shabby little

house he wanted to enter so badly.

It was unfair, he thought. He wasn’t event given a chance to explain him-

self, and now he was running like a fool, unsure of where he would go.

But he had no more worries. Not anymore. This time, nothing would stop

him. His father had disowned him, his sister had been abused and killed, and his

mother never came back.

This time, no one could stop him.

And so he stood up, heavy his body might seem, and made his way to the

little house.

At last! He would be entering the house. All his questions would be an-

swered! But that was only his thought, for as he had set his foot on its door-

step, he was dismayed to find it empty. All empty! Only dread filled the corners,

like the dread was the shabby house itself.

No wait. There was something.

There was a door, and beside it was a mirror. They were designed so oddly,

as if they were patterned to complement each other. He went to the door first and

tried to open it, but in won’t budge.

And then he saw it, on the mirror, at the top of its pane, wrote Look to

see what you’re fortune would be.

My fortune, he thought. Hahahahahahaha! It doesn’t matter now what my for-

tune lies ahead. I have lost everything: my mother, my father, my beloved sister,

my dignity. No, it doesn’t matter. No matter what I see, I’ll accept it as it is.

And he looked into the mirror.

What he saw was not what he had expected though. Instead of a weary young

man inside a shabby old shack, he saw a brightly faced lad walking down the road

to the train station, where the miseries in his life all started.

And then the door opened. Bright light exploded all over the room. Sud-

denly, he forgot where he was and what he was doing, and everything that had ever

happened in his life. And, although he had just lived the first eighteen years of

his life, he felt peace and serenity, on the arms of something which he had never

known before. It felt so…divine. he didn’t know if he would cry or shout or

smile, or just return the sweet embrace, if it were only possible. He never

wanted it to end…

And he was forever swallowed into eternal light…

(*)

“Good job everyone,” the main doctor said. It was a successful delivery.

He thought that the child might not come out alive, since the mother passed out

for a long time when the operation began. But the child came out fine, and it

came out as a healthy baby boy.

Then, with the baby crying in her arms, the nurse showed the child to the

woman who was already up and was just too happy it was over. “What are you going

to name him, Mrs. Evans?”

The woman, exhausted, caught her breath first, and thought for a moment.

Then, without hesitation, replied “Gregor. His name will be Gregor Void.”

Then six years passed…

Skye Toni Dominique Ponce Garcia

She never did discover the color of the sky -- which is sad, for as we all

know the sky is a beautiful thing, its splendor evident with its ever changing

colors from dawn to dusk. It contains the heavens, the sun and the clouds and the

stars, all declaring the glory and majesty of our great Creator--that is, if you

believe in a Creator. And it becomes an unappreciated thing, as people go to

their day-to-day lives with the sky looming gloomily over their heads. They put

up 100 story high buildings and the stars disappear and the sunrise disappears

and you lose sight of the moon on the night of a full moon, but every so often a

person notices the beauty of the sunset, or the breathtaking view of the sunrise,

and a snapshot is taken, a photo is captured. For a while, the glamour of such a

rare, beautiful thing is preserved in the picture, and when people are old they

can show their grandchildren these pictures and tell them about phenomena as mag-

nificent as the aurora borealis, beautiful dancing colors in the sky, but you can

no longer see them in real life because the sky is nothing more than a dull,

lifeless grey now. There is only one sky on earth, and somehow humans have even

managed to destroy something so brilliant, so vibrant, so lovely.

But for her, none of that matters, because she never got to see any of it.

Her whole life she lived in a room. It had no windows, only walls and a

door. A ceiling loomed above her. It was a small space to live in, and a single

bed filled a corner of that space. There were no decorations; no paintings hung

on the walls. There was no TV or radio, no closet or bookshelf. There was nothing

more than the dull, lifeless grey of the walls. And the dull, lifeless grey of

the ceiling. And the dull, lifeless grey of her bed.

The only thing in the room that was not grey was her dress - it was a com-

forting light blue, and the only pleasant thing to look at. Sometimes she thought

it shimmered against her pale skin. Every once in a while a few strands of her

long, blonde hair would get entangled in the fabric of her light blue dress, and

she would remove the strands so that absolutely no color would be mixed in with

the calming light blue of her dress, which had long sleeves and reached down to

about her knees.

This tiny room was her home. She did not know any other world.

She was not allowed to leave the room. She did not need to go to the bath-

room, but her body was not dirty. She did not need food or water, and she never

got hungry or thirsty. Still, she grew like a regular, seven-year-old girl. But

sometimes the people would come in and bring her food and something to drink.

Occasionally, there would be a change of clothes as well. She would eat, drink,

change, and answer their questions as they prodded and poked her with their odd

instruments.

"Why am I not allowed to leave this room?" she tried asking once. She

could speak, and she could walk. She could read and write. These people had

taught her how to.

"You're special," was all the person had told her as she wrote down some-

thing on a clipboard. She was wearing a long, white lab coat and a surgical mask

covered her mouth. Her eyes were distracted, busy, calculating.

"But if I'm so special, doesn't that mean that I should get whatever I

want? I want to go outside," the girl tried again.

The woman looked up from her clipboard and eyed her sympathetically. "I'm

sorry," she said, and this time her eyes were apologetic. "It just doesn't always

work that way." She turned and walked out of the room.

The girl knew there was an outside. That was where all the people in white

came from. Whenever she would walk over to the door and try opening it, it would

always be locked.

A few days later two people in their white lab coats and surgical masks

came walking in. One knelt down and patted her on the head.

"You are our hope," he told her. "You will save us all."

Although his words were warm, his eyes were cold.

The girl did not understand the man's words. She was not sure that she

wanted to understand what he said.

Ever since that day, the people would perform "tests" on her. The whole

time she did not leave the room.

The first test was a continuing series of explosions. The girl was sitting

on her bed when a great fire erupted in the room. The explosion filled the whole

room with a loud, scary, booming sound. Any normal person would die immediately.

But she was not normal. She was special.

She did not die.

The room did not die as well - it stayed the same dull grey it was. The

bed was unharmed, and the ceiling did not fall. The room was disaster-proof.

Apparently, so was the girl.

Most of the time, the explosions would occur two or three times a day.

They were as strong as the force of an atomic bomb and sometimes they came in

different colors. Sometimes the fire the girl saw erupting from the explosion was

violet or green. She did not feel absolutely any force or pain when the eruptions

occurred. She did not even feel the violent shaking of the room. She could hear

the loud, thundering boom, though, and she learned to keep her mouth shut because

once she had made the mistake of opening it and a tiny piece of flying debris had

flown into her mouth. It did not taste good.

She felt nothing, and nothing happened to her. After each shock the people

in white would come rushing in and they would check on her. She was untouched.

Not a single strand of her hair was out of place. Her skin was as pale as ever.

Even her dress was still the same in length, size, and blue color.

Nothing had happened to her.

The second test was a heavy, black cloud of smoke that filled the room.

There was so much smoke that just standing in the room would suffocate you. The

fumes would choke you to death. The dark, billowy cloud that filled the room was

so thick that the people in white could barely see anything in the room. The girl

and her bed were invisible. All that could be seen for a while was shades of

black.

When the cloud of smoke finally disappeared, the room became visible. It

went back to the same dull grey that it was. And there was the girl, sitting on

the edge of her bed. She was slowly swaying her feet, which hung inches from the

ground.

She was sitting on her bed when the smoke filled the room. She could not

see anything, but aside from that she was fine. Breathing in the smoke had not

stung in any way, and when the deep, piercing eyes and the prodding, poking hands

of the people in white examined her they saw that none of her body systems were

damaged. Her lungs were perfectly clean.

Nothing had happened to her.

At least, nothing that the girl could see. She did not have a mirror.

The third test hurt the most.

She was lying in bed, staring blankly at the ceiling when a bright, blind-

ing flash lit the room. It was almost as if the room was filled with lightning,

as if someone was taking her picture with a gigantic camera. The flash was so

bright that it hurt her eyes. She closed her eyes in pain but the brightness of

the white light was still there, stinging her pupils.

More flashes followed, in different colors. Each flash that occurred was

even brighter than the previous one. It was like lightning was striking her eyes.

The girl couldn't take it anymore as big dots of yellow and pink and red danced

before her eyes, irritating and hurting them so much that she rolled around in

bed and shrieked and sobbed in pain.

She was like that the entire night. The flashes went on continuously and

they stopped the next morning. She had no idea, though. Time seemed nonexistent

in her little room with no windows. It felt like the pain would last forever. The

door opened and those white lab coats came flooding in, with more peculiar in-

struments in their hands to study her and observe her and make something of her.

She was curled up in a ball on her bed. Her blankets and pillows were a

mess caused by her tossing and turning last night. Her eyes were squeezed shut.

One person approached her. She was crying, her breaths coming in muffled

sobs. The person in the surgical mask shook her gently until she finally stopped

her weeping. She uncurled herself from her position and she opened her eyes.

There was a collective gasp from the people surrounding her.

Nothing had happened to her.

At least, nothing the girl could see. If she had a reflective surface,

like a mirror, she would have been able to see her face. But the room had no mir-

ror. The girl had never seen her face; she did not know what she looked like. If

she had known, she would be able to see that her face was perfectly normal: a

pair of eyes above a nose positioned in the middle of her face and below that, a

mouth set in a thin, straight line.

She would have seen that her eyes were blue. The kind of pure, empyrean

blue that you could fall into.

But not anymore.

The moment the girl opened her eyes the people saw that her eyes had lost

their color. In fact, they had been beginning to lose their color ever since the

second test. Upon closer inspection, however, they observed that her eyes had not

become colorless after all--they had just changed their hue. The edges of the

girl's irises had turned gray. There was still a tiny blue dot in the center of

her eyes, though.

The people in their white lab gowns and surgical masks did not know what

to make of the situation.

They fed her and changed her and gave her something to drink and put her

to sleep.

That night, the girl lay there in bed in horror. She was terrified that

the events of the previous night would repeat themselves. She was afraid that

something even more painful and horrifying would happen.

Then something even more painful and horrifying did happen.

A voice spoke to her.

But she was the only person there.

No one else was in the room with her, but she heard the words as clearly

as if someone was whispering them in her ear.

In fact, only one word was spoken, and it rang in her ears as clearly and

as urgently as a whisper.

For a moment, all the girl could do was lay there in bed frozen in fear.

She stared at the wall in front of her in fear, afraid to move. Was she going

insane? Had all the time alone in this room finally driven her crazy? Was she

just imagining the voice? But she had never heard this voice before. She shiv-

ered. If the voice was real, where was it coming from? Who was it? Why was it

telling her this, this one word that gave her a sense of foreboding, of danger,

of peril?

And yet, at the same time—this one message, this single word happened to

be the only thing she needed to hear to take action. This word opened her eyes,

quickened her breathing, and made her heart beat faster.

It was a warning, a command, a chance at salvation.

The word was RUN.

And so the girl ran. She jumped out of bed and she ran to the door, and

how she knew for certain that the door was unlocked and that no one was outside

and that she could get out will never be known. She just turned the doorknob and

the door swung open as easily as if it had been waiting for her to open it her

entire life.

And the girl ran. The hallway before her branched into two directions:

left and right. She turned left and continued running. How she knew the way out,

how she was going to trace the source of the voice, how she was going to live

when she escaped, no one would ever know. The girl made another left and two more

rights. She had never been out of the room her entire life and yet at the next

turn she saw a bright yellow door and she knew that this was the exit.

She continued running. No people were in the hallway. The place was empty.

Where were all the people in white? The girl wondered. Was she alone?

It didn't matter. She was so close. The bright yellow door lay before her,

so close and inviting. She reached out her hand and held the doorknob. She pulled

open the door--

For a fleeting moment the girl wondered what the outside world was like--

was it more beautiful than the room she lived in? Certainly it had to be. Any-

thing was more beautiful and more interesting than the dull, lifeless grey of

that room.

But suddenly--screams, voices, a shot, a bang, something hard piercing her

back, pain--nothing but endless, endless pain, a million times worse than last

night. Pain filled her entire body and mind and soul.

Then black.

------

SUBJECT NO. 1911255

Report:

Subject Number 1911255, who recently resided in Room Number 46 of

Building No. 2, is now deceased. Her time of death was 4:03 A.M. A doctor had

found her out of her room and about to exit the building so the former hurriedly

grabbed the nearest weapon, which was a pistol, and she hurriedly shot the sub-

ject in the back. It is not known why the door was unlocked when it was evi-

dently locked the last time a person had entered the subject’s room. It also

still remains unknown how the two guards who were supposed to be guarding her

door at all times were not there at the time of escape. Further investigation is

required.

Although the death of the subject is considered a monumental loss, the

board has reached a unanimous decision that nothing more can be done to change

this event. We must work with the information we have. Subject Number 1911255

was a most interesting subject. She was found 200 miles from the site of the

institute by one of our lab workers on vacation. The said lab worker was taking

a hike in the woods when she reported that she saw something that “seemed to fall

from the sky” followed by “an audible thud of something hitting the ground”. She

ran immediately to the site of the crash and found the girl. It is possible that

she may have fallen from a tree, yet the smallest tree in that forest is 100 feet

tall so such a thing is quite a feat. The girl was found unconscious lying on

the ground in a clump with none of her bones broken. She was wearing a light

blue dress and she looked no more than four years old at the time. When she

awoke she could not speak or walk. Ever since then she has been taken to the

institute and cared for there. Our most expert scientists and doctors cannot

discern why she does not need the basic human desiderata such as food and water.

She seemed almost indestructible, even making the ordinary room she was staying

in foolproof, and yet bright lights hurt her and a bullet in the back killed her.

Certain employees thought she could act as an effective weapon that could be used

in the ensuing global war.

Perhaps what is more mysterious than her origin and nature is how the

color of her eyes changed from sky blue to dull grey. This was observed approxi-

mately 12 hours before the girl’s attempted escape from the institute.

But perhaps the most mysterious occurrence of all surrounding the subject

is the incident of her death. After she was shot in the back, the door she had

just pulled on fully swung open to reveal the outside world. When sunlight had hit her body the girl’s corpse disintegrated into light blue dust and the wind blew it away before any

remains could be scavenged.

Also, it should be noted Subject #1911255, who previously resided in Room

Number 46 of Building No. 2, time of death 4:03 A.M., was given the nickname

“Skye”.

ENDNOTE: Light pollution, also known as photopollution or luminous pollu-

tion, is excessive or obtrusive artificial light. It is the alteration of light

levels in the outdoor environment (from those present naturally) due to man-made

sources of light. Indoor light pollution is such alteration of light levels in

the indoor environment due to sources of light, which compromises human health.

Light pollution obscures the stars in the night sky for city dwellers, interferes

with astronomical observatories, and, like any other form of pollution, disrupts

ecosystems and has adverse health effects. (Wikipedia, 2011)