Javier Montejo

  September 7, 2035

  The Cost of Not Becoming a Bastard

  One Jog, Two Men, and a Rare Mandarin from a Country That Doesn't Care

  The city glistened like it had been polished overnight. Ayala Avenue shimmered with early light, its towers blinking to life like well-behaved gods clocking in. Joggers zipped past with purpose, their limbs sleek with hydration and ambition. Lycra glowed. Shoes whispered against pavement. Javier Montejo, in designer sweat-wicking apparel that made him feel like a fraud, jogged beside Marius Zhu.

  They had passed the same lamp post three times now. Or maybe all lamp posts here were twins. The kind of genetic repetition that cities bred into their infrastructure.

  Marius jogged with the ease of a man who believed in his future. Javier jogged like someone trying to outrun Wednesday.

  The memory snapped in. The kid's voice. The question like a blade with no hilt:

  "Where were the Montejos all this time?"

  It had found purchase in the silence that followed. Grown roots in Javier's thoughts.

  They stopped at a bench in Ayala Triangle Park. The grass was too green. Birds chirped like they were paid. Office workers in collared shirts and invisible shackles streamed toward glass towers, briefcases clutched like talismans.

  Javier wiped his brow. Marius uncapped a bottle of water and drank like someone tasting history.

  "You read the news?" Marius asked, still half out of breath, half in vision.

  Javier nodded. "It's in there. 'Tondo Eviction Consultation Ends in Chaos'. A few photos. My name under one of them. It isn't a headline. Not yet."

  Marius stretched his arms over his head, spine bending like a cathedral. "It will be. Eventually."

  Javier stared at him. "You say that like it's a good thing."

  Marius shrugged, the kind of shrug that came from someone who had already planned for the fallout. "Visibility is a side effect of relevance. You can't change the world from offstage."

  A silence lingered. Not comfortable, not hostile. Just crowded with implication.

  Javier sat back, eyes on the canopy of corporate leaves above them. "Do you think it's too late to back out?"

  The question wasn't loud. It didn't need to be. It arrived like a whisper through smoked glass. A thought shaped like guilt.

  Marius did not look at Javier when he spoke. His eyes were on the sky, which was pink now, bleeding into something too gentle for what needed to be said.

  "You were the one who said it," Marius murmured. "Our first meeting. You looked me dead in the eye, like a man standing at the edge of an elevator shaft, and said: 'If nothing changes, my family won't survive another two generations. Maybe not even one.'"

  He blinked. "Your words. Not mine."

  Javier leaned forward, elbows on knees. The city was waking up like a drunk in a silk robe. Traffic whispering into being. Distant footsteps like the ticking of a very rich clock.

  "Sure," Javier said, slowly. "But at what cost? We're talking Hundreds of families. People with names. Thirty years. That's older than me. You know they didn't even know it was Montejo land? We were ghosts to them. Now we show up like landlords from a gothic novel and start drawing up lines."

  He looked down at his hands. They were shaking. From the run, maybe. Or from the implications of inheritance.

  "Is that fair?" he asked.

  Marius didn't blink. Didn't flinch. His voice came out smooth, like it had been ironed.

  "No. But fairness is not the question. Slums are not housing. They are accidents that lasted too long. All it takes is a fire. A storm. A gentle earthquake with bad timing. Or a combination package. They die, Javier. Quietly. Invisibly. And then people like us send canned goods and hold masses in air-conditioned rooms."

  Javier shook his head. "So what. We bulldoze the place, move them like cattle, then sell the air above it to crypto startups?"

  "No," Marius said. "We move them to something safe and dignified, which the government is providing through the public housing projects."

  Javier turned to him, sharp. "Then why not let them stay on the land? On the TOD. We'll build. Fine. But they get first dibs. Discounted. Hell, even free. They lived there. Breathed it. Watched the place rot and fed it flowers anyway. That's history."

  Marius exhaled through his nose. The kind of exhale that smelled of spreadsheets and systemic limitations.

  "It doesn't work that way."

  Javier frowned. "Explain."

  Marius didn't answer right away. He watched a leaf spiral to the ground like it had somewhere important to be. When he spoke, it was with the even tone of someone laying bricks. Careful, weight-bearing.

  "Look, you're not wrong. Some people will genuinely be helped. A lot of them, actually. The kids won't have to switch schools. The man with the sari-sari store can keep his customers. The manicurist gets to keep her salon under the same tree. People stay near their jobs. Their churches. Their Friday night karaoke routines. That kind of continuity is rare. It's real. And it matters."

  Then he paused. Not for effect, but because what came next always felt like betrayal.

  "But."

  The word settled in the air like a trapdoor creaking open.

  "You do that, you give away those units or sell them cheap, while the land value spikes overnight... The second we break ground, that land becomes molten gold. Stations. Malls. Schools. Wealth wrapped in architecture. And suddenly, every square meter of that old slum is worth more than history can hold. We're not dealing with a community anymore. We're dealing with premium real estate dressed in nostalgia. And the thing about nostalgia is, it doesn't pay property tax."

  He looked off, toward the towers across Ayala. "You'll have meant to preserve a community. But what you'll end up doing is planting a landmine under it. You think giving it away preserves the neighborhood. It doesn't. It fragments it. You give a man a unit he can sell for ten million pesos, and maybe he sells it. Maybe he rents it. Maybe he takes the cash and runs back to the province. Gone. And the people he shared ulam with are still in line for ayuda."

  Marius tilted his head. "You'll have protected the community in theory. But in practice, they'll scatter. Like ashes. Because sentiment always loses to greed when money walks in the room."

  He glanced at Javier, voice cool again.

  "And then the professional martyrs show up. The ones who know how to game a good deed. The ones who knows to cry on cue in front of a lens. They'll say, Well, if the Montejos are willing to go that far, maybe they'll go further. More demands. More manipulation. Whole new families moving in right before the cut-off date. It becomes performance art. Misery with a business plan."

  Marius leaned back. His eyes no longer soft.

  "And the worst part? The message it sends to everyone else. People who've been renting their whole lives in Caloocan or Valenzuela. People who worked, saved, followed every miserable rule. What do we tell them? It tells them that all you need to do is build on someone else's land, cry when the bulldozers come, and you win the jackpot. That sentimentality is now a path to real estate equity. That guilt is a currency you can cash out for a corner unit near a subway line."

  He let the silence breathe.

  "It's not fair. Not to them. Not to the people you're trying to help. And not to you."

  Javier's hands were still. Resting on his knees like artifacts. He didn't look at Marius. He looked past him, at nothing, or maybe at the shape of some future version of himself, dark and blinking in the glass towers beyond the park.

  "I keep thinking," he said, quietly, "that this isn't who I'm supposed to be."

  His voice had the tone of someone not quite asking for permission, but checking if the floor was still there.

  "I sit in these meetings now. People talk like it's already decided. Like the signatures are just a formality. Like we're playing Monopoly but the streets have real names. And I nod along. I speak their language. I say things like cost absorption and informal settler rationalization and I hear myself and I want to gag."

  He paused. The birds were chirping far too cheerfully for this kind of moment.

  "I always told myself I'd do it differently. Better. That if I ever had the chance, I'd use it to fix things. Not... optimize them. Not just clean up the family name with new logos and crystal elevators."

  He shook his head, once, like he could rattle the thought loose.

  "But every day it gets harder to tell whether I'm fixing anything. Or if I'm just putting on a nicer tie to say the same lies my grandfather said in a barong."

  His breath caught, just slightly.

  "I don't want to become another man pretending his desperation is duty."

  Marius sat with the stillness of someone who'd long ago accepted that most things worth doing came with a cost, usually paid in pieces of yourself. He turned to Javier, finally, his voice steady and soft.

  "You're not broken for feeling this. You're not weak. You're in the middle of a slow, necessary burn."

  He gestured loosely at the skyline. Towers like needles. Streets like wires. A city pretending to be a future.

  "The worst men I've met? They never hesitated. Never asked if they were becoming what they despised. They just got better at dressing it up. You? You're still asking. That means there's something in you worth saving."

  He opened his small, worn side bag and reached in without looking. Rummaged past keys, cables, phones, plural. His hand emerged holding something small and orange inside a ziplock bag.

  A mandarin. Bright, perfect, fragrant.

  "This is from Jiangxi," Marius said. "Picked by a man who refused to sell his orchard to a logistics company. The tree that bore this fruit is older than most of the buildings around us."

  He held it out on his open palm.

  "Rare. Possibly cursed. But sweet. Go on. You've earned something sweet today."

  Javier looked at it for a moment like it was a test, then took it. One piece at a time, he ate in silence.

  They stood.

  The sky was fully awake now. The towers gleamed like promises no one intended to keep. Joggers passed. A gardener swept fallen leaves into perfect little piles that would be scattered again tomorrow.

  Neither man said a word.

  They began walking back toward the condo, shoes clicking lightly against the manicured pavement. The mandarin's scent lingered, defiant and soft, as if insisting something gentle could still exist here.

  ? ? ?

  Apolinario "Pol" Guerrero

  September 7, 2035

  Escape is a Left Turn Past the Melting Virgin

  You don't need directions. You grew up here.

  The air in the slum community was... strange. Not the kind of strange you could put in a plastic bag and label. Not the good strange, like finding your neighbor's rooster quoting Karl Marx at 3AM. The other kind. The kind of strange that comes after a consultation that wasn't a consultation, on a Wednesday that felt like a verdict. Now it's Friday. The sky has grown suspicious of everyone's intentions.

  Banners have appeared, flapping on makeshift fences like ancient curses trying to remember the shape of protest. They scream: NO TO EVICTION. WE WILL NOT GO. GOD SEES YOU.

  Someone drew eyes on them. Big ones. Watching. The banners are watching.

  Some families left anyway. Packed their belongings into sacks that used to hold rice or dog food or promises. They vanished into Quezon City or the government housing units next door. Identical, sterilized cubes where grief echoes louder because the walls are uniform. Others stayed. Not out of hope. No one in their right mind stays for hope. They stayed because their sari-sari stores are here. Because their customers owe them 2 pesos for ice. Because leverage is real and new and intoxicating.

  Meanwhile, the demolition crew has started to chew on the edges. The perimeter peels like a rotten fruit. The houses of the gone are being taken down by men with hammers who joke too loudly. Rubble accumulates like unsent apologies. A child picks up a broken Barbie head from the ruins and asks her father if she can still keep it. He says yes. The Barbie stares up at the sky, her smile cracked into enlightenment.

  Pol has not moved. He sits in his mother's old plastic monobloc chair like it's a confession booth. He has not spoken since the consultation. He breathes, occasionally. The world has advanced three headlines since then, but he is still stuck in that moment: Wednesday, 4:47 PM, the minute after he asked that question. The question that poked a hole through the ceiling of the conversation and let all the air out. The question that didn't mean to start anything. It was just curiosity. Pol has never been good with silence, but now it's all he has.

  He is haunted by a new kind of ghost: the ghost of unintended consequence.

  He doesn't know what he wants anymore. He doesn't want to be a hero. Heroes are exhausting and always end up with statues pigeons can defecate on. He doesn't want to leave. He doesn't want to stay. He wants the week to go backwards. He wants to apologize to everyone and no one. He wants someone to come down from the clouds and say, "This is what you were meant to do, Pol." He wants a sign.

  A tricycle passes by blasting My Heart Will Go On on a speaker that crackles with the sound of cosmic ambiguity.

  The afternoon was thick with heat and old grudges. The kind of afternoon that makes shirts optional and thoughts sluggish. Pol had left Aling Rosa's shack without a word, just a nod, as if nodding could explain the quiet avalanche inside him.

  He found himself on the basketball court, the same one where words had been exchanged earlier that week like grenades with pins still half-in. Now it held a more familiar rhythm. The rubber thud of the ball. The uneven squeak of slippers on cement. The boys were already there, some from the neighborhood, others from the old crew. No one asked why he came. He just joined. That was the deal.

  Pol wasn't a star, never had been. His layups were polite. His defense overcommitted. But he moved with just enough grace not to be laughed at, and just enough silence to avoid being asked too many questions. For half an hour, everything else evaporated. It was just him, the ring, the sky, the dust.

  By the time they called last game, he was soaked in sweat, shirt discarded, chest heaving like a man trying to forget the world through breath alone. The court shimmered around him. For a moment, he let himself pretend he was free.

  But then they came.

  Two NBI agents in plainclothes, but everyone could tell from the way they stood: Backs too straight for the slums, eyes scanning like broken vending machines. The kind of presence that made even the basketball stop bouncing.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  Pol sighed, wiped his face with the bottom of his shirt.

  "Ano 'to, tungkol sa jump shot ko?"

  ("What, is it about my jump shot?")

  The taller one didn't laugh. "May development, Pol."

  ("There's been a development.")

  "Syempre meron," Pol muttered. "Sabi ng horoscope ko ngayong araw, hahabulin daw ako ng mga moral dilemma na hindi ko sinagot."

  ("Of course there has, my horoscope said I'd be hunted by unresolved moral dilemmas today.")

  "It's serious this time. We think may threat na sa buhay mo."

  ("It's serious. We think your life's in danger now.")

  Pol scoffed. "Oo na. Sinabi ko na sa boss niyo, hindi ako magtetestigo. Patay na si Toto, at wala akong sasabihin na makakabuhay sa kanya. Hayaan niyo na lang ang semento ang magtago ng sikreto."

  ("Right. I already told your boss, I'm not testifying. Toto's dead, and nothing I say's going to un-dead him. Let the concrete carry the secrets.")

  The agents didn't flinch. This time, they didn't budge.

  The shorter one looked at him carefully. "May isa pa kasing namatay, bro. Galing sa same site. Hindi na siya employed nung nangyari."

  ("Another worker from your site died. Not at work. After he quit.")

  Pol squinted. "Sino?"

  ("Who?")

  "Sinag Amihan."

  Something inside Pol stilled.

  Sinag.

  Skinny guy. Always wore long sleeves even in the heat. Smelled like vinegar and rust. Ate Skyflakes with liver spread during breaks, said it kept his brain sharp. He was there, top of the tower, same shift as Toto and Pol. No harness. Same hush money. Same look in the eyes when they handed the envelope, like he was swallowing barbed wire just to pay rent.

  Pol's throat dried.

  "Paano siya namatay?"

  ("How did he die?")

  The taller agent hesitated, looked sideways. "We can't give specifics yet. Pero... let's just say, medyo dramatic."

  The silence returned, thick and greasy. The court no longer shimmered. It pulsed.

  Pol didn't say anything. Not right away. He just stood there, sweat drying unevenly across his back, watching the court lose its shape under the weight of something unnamed.

  The NBI agents didn't push. Not this time. The taller one crossed his arms and spoke low.

  "Hindi ka na safe dito, Pol. Lalo na ngayon, gumugulo na 'yung situation with the anti-eviction crowd. Kapag sumiklab 'to, mahihirapan kaming bantayan ka."

  ("You're not safe here anymore, Pol. Especially now, the anti-eviction situation is getting worse. If things erupt, it'll be harder for us to protect you.")

  The shorter one added, "Baka madamay pa mga kaibigan mo, pare. Ayaw mo nun, 'di ba?"

  ("Your friends might get dragged into this too, man. You don't want that, right?")

  Pol glanced around.

  The boys were still laughing by the post, one of them tying a shoelace that had long since given up being a shoelace. A woman across the court was hanging laundry, unbothered, except for the way her eyes kept darting to them. Kids were drawing with chalk on the edge of the court, scribbling suns and snakes. His neighbors. His friends.

  Sinag's name still echoed in his head.

  Dramatic, they had said. As if death was a kind of performance. As if the wrong people always got the best seats.

  Pol didn't want any more drama.

  "Fine," he said, wiping the back of his neck. "Sige. Pero mag-iimpake muna ako."

  ("Fine. But I'll pack up first.")

  No protest, no monologue, no ceremony.

  He turned, shirt slung over his shoulder, and began walking toward Aling Rosa's shack. The agents followed, two shadows dragged behind a man trying very hard not to look back.

  Inside the shack, the light was dim and yellowed, filtering through a warped plastic tarp like it was passing through old lungs. The fan clicked rhythmically, too slow to fight the heat, too stubborn to give up.

  Pol moved with quiet hands, gathering his things: a change of clothes, a charger, a crumpled ID, a notebook with water damage on the corners. No hesitation, just muscle memory. The world outside was shifting, but in here, the floor still creaked the same way.

  Aling Rosa looked up from where she was peeling garlic on a stool far too small for her frame.

  "Aalis ka?"

  ("You leaving?")

  Pol nodded. "Sandali lang. Kailangan ko lang lumayo."

  ("Just for a while. I just need to get away.")

  He sat beside her for a moment, the silence between them soft and unsuspicious.

  "'Yung number mo, yon pa rin, 'no?"

  ("Your number, it's still the same, right?")

  "Oo. 'Wag kang mag-alala, pag may nangyari, tatawag ako."

  ("Yes. Don't worry, if anything happens, I'll call.")

  He gave a weak smile. She didn't ask questions.

  They said goodbye the way people here always did, with a touch on the shoulder, not words.

  Outside, the agents waited near the entrance, leaning against the tricycle they'd arrived in, their silhouettes long and bureaucratic in the afternoon sun.

  But Pol didn't go out the front.

  Instead, he ducked behind the stacked buckets and laundry lines, past the hanging tarp, and slipped into the alley behind the shack. The back path was narrow, barely enough space for a body to pass sideways, but Pol knew every corner, every dog to avoid, every gate that creaked too loud.

  He emerged near the corner of the community, hailed an e-tricycle with a flick of his hand, and slid into the sidecar like a man chasing his own shadow.

  "Kuya," he said to the driver, "Lawton."

  The e-trike zipped past the edges of Tondo, its whine soft but persistent, like a mosquito that respected personal space. Pol leaned against the sidecar, head tilted just slightly, letting the wind stick his sweat-dried shirt to his back. This wasn't a route he usually took. If he had somewhere to go, he took the jeep, crowded, loud, familiar, but also cheaper. Today's path felt foreign. Like wearing someone else's slippers.

  Still, he'd lived in the city his whole life. And yet, despite all the changes, all the gleaming towers and hollow promises, it somehow hadn't changed at all. The ghosts still walked beside the living. The potholes still remembered your weight. The air still tasted faintly of tin and electricity.

  They veered into Binondo, past the dragon-headed lampposts that stood like tired sentinels over faded signs and fresh debt. The e-trike slid under red lanterns strung like old family secrets across the sky.

  Then Jones Bridge.

  Pol blinked at the sight of it. Ornate, almost garish, the kind of bridge you cross without fully believing it's allowed to be this beautiful. From there, the Pasig stretched out in a long, oily sigh. The Esplanade unfurled alongside it, dotted with bodies in motion. Joggers, lovers, vendors, ghosts of former mayors.

  He arrived at Lawton.

  The noise was immediate: buses belching warnings, vendors shouting logic-defying promos, someone rapping over a Bluetooth speaker that kept skipping.

  He was escaping. Because he didn't want any more drama.

  He thought, briefly, maybe he could hop on a bus. Head somewhere vague. North, maybe. Pampanga? Baguio? Someplace with fewer headlines. But the air today... it wasn't the worst.

  The sky held no threat. The wind didn't whisper omens. For once, Metro Manila wasn't actively trying to kill him.

  So he stayed.

  He wandered toward the Pasig River Esplanade, drawn not by reason but by the soft magnetic pull of imagined peace. The river was barely clean, just clean enough to pretend. Ferries hummed across its surface, scattering sunlight in oily shards.

  People walked along the path, oblivious to his spiraling. A couple shared taho. A man in office clothes picked at his late lunch with fingers stained from ballpen ink. A group of students giggled, one of them pretending to fall into the water.

  Pol watched them. And in his head, he made up their lives.

  The taho couple? They met on a dating app, but lied and told everyone it was at church. The office man? He's been writing the same resignation letter for five years. The giggling students? One of them has already decided to run for barangay captain someday.

  Pol sat on the warm concrete bench like it was a break time on a half-day shift. Bag between his legs, arms on his knees. He didn't slouch, he leaned forward, like someone always ready to get back up. He watched the crowd walk past along the Esplanade, ferry horns in the distance, the river glinting like it was faking cleanliness.

  He kept going. Filling in the blanks. Creating stories. It was easier than facing his own.

  A guy in a barong, sleeves rolled up, sweating through the fabric. Looked like he just came from a busted-up government office.

  Mga taga city hall siguro. May utang, may kabit, may pinapaaral na anak na ayaw niya aminin na mas matalino sa kanya.

  (Probably city hall staff. Has debts, a mistress, a child in college he won't admit is smarter than him.)

  Three kids passed on foldable bikes, not the mall kind, the Lazada kind. One was too small for his, and the handlebar wobbled.

  Walang yaya. Mga anak ng call center agent na wala sa bahay tuwing gabi. Pero matatalino 'yan. Marunong tumawid sa kalsada, marunong dumiskarte. 'Yung bunso, siya pa 'yung magiging mayaman.

  (No nanny. Kids of call center workers who aren't home at night. But they're sharp. Know how to cross streets. Know how to hustle. The youngest one's gonna be rich someday.)

  He noticed a young woman standing by the railing, phone in hand. Her shoes looked expensive but borrowed. Maroon dress na halatang pinlantsa lang para sa araw na 'to.

  Fresh grad. Siguro taga probinsya. Maayos mag-English pero hindi pa sanay makipagtalo sa HR. Malapit nang maubos ang ipon niya. Pero matibay. Hindi pa niya alam, pero tatagal siya dito.

  (Fresh grad. Probably from the province. Speaks good English but not used to arguing with HR yet. Her savings are almost gone. But she's tough. She doesn't know it yet, but she'll survive here.)

  There was a guy with a ponytail sketching people. Looked hungry, but not starving. Just the type who forgets to eat when he's busy.

  Dating arkitekto o gusto lang magmukhang matalino. Baka nawalan ng trabaho noong recession. 'Yung tipong hindi masyado marunong mag-kamay, pero magaling magkunwaring may plano. Baka may tinatakasan.

  (Used to be an architect or just wants to look smart. Maybe lost his job during the recession. The type who's not great with his hands, but good at pretending he has a plan. Maybe running from something.)

  Two old ladies walked together, same floral blouses, same step. One had a cane, the other held her arm like muscle memory.

  Matagal nang magkaibigan. Baka nagka-inlaban dati pero di lang umamin. O baka matagal nang biyuda 'yung isa. Panata nila 'tong paglalakad tuwing Biyernes. Wala silang sinasabi, pero buo 'yung samahan.

  (Friends for a long time. Maybe once in love but never said it. Or maybe one's been a widow for years. Their Friday walks are a ritual. They don't talk much, but their bond is solid.)

  Then a young family. Nanay, tatay, dalawang anak. Tatay on his phone, nanay hawak 'yung kutsarang tinatanggihan ng batang makulit.

  Hindi na sila nag-uusap. Pagod lang. Hindi sila nag-aaway, pero hindi na rin sila nagkukwentuhan. Mahal pa rin nila isa't isa, pero sa ngayon, mas mahalaga makabayad ng kuryente.

  (They don't talk anymore. Just tired. Not fighting, but not telling stories either. They still love each other, but for now, paying the electric bill matters more.)

  Pol looked at all of them. Quiet. Watching.

  No script. No punchlines. Just people. Working. Waiting. Wanting.

  He imagined their stories the way you do when you don't read books, when all you've got is other people's faces, and the way they stand, and what their hands are doing when they think no one notices.

  He wasn't pretending to be better than them.

  He was just... trying to understand.

  Because sometimes, it's easier to guess someone else's life than to look too long at your own.

  He stayed until the sun began its slow descent into the Manila Bay haze, turning the sky into something holy, orange bleeding into pink, streaked with threads of gold like a flag for a country that didn't exist. The kind of sunset that made buildings glow, that made rivers shimmer with a beauty they didn't earn.

  Pol didn't move. Didn't blink much either.

  His phone was cheap, barely held a charge, but the camera worked. He lifted it, framed the sky over the Pasig, caught the streak of a ferry carving light into the water. Click. Another one. Click.

  He had seen better, up on the skeleton of Binondo Heights, when he was still part of the crew pouring concrete above the clouds. From up there, the whole city bowed to you. But this... this was different. Ground level. No illusion of safety. No distance. Just the real thing, up close.

  Then the phone buzzed.

  Aling Rosa.

  He answered immediately.

  Her voice was tight. Tense like a rope about to snap.

  "Pol. Anak. May dumating kanina. Hinahanap ka."

  ("Pol. Someone came earlier. Looking for you.")

  His heart stopped walking.

  "Hindi sila yung taga-NBI. Hindi maayos yung kilos. Hindi marunong rumespeto. Tinanong nila kung nasaan ka. Tumakbo-takbo sila sa looban. Nakakatakot."

  ("They weren't the NBI. They didn't move right. No manners. They asked where you were. Ran around the neighborhood. It was scary.")

  Pol didn't respond right away. The wind suddenly felt cold.

  The NBI guys... they would have chased after him. Left the shack. Left Aling Rosa.

  Putang ina.

  He stood up fast, almost knocking over his bag. He hadn't meant for this. He didn't plan anything. He wasn't trying to hide something. He just didn't want to be in it anymore.

  But now she was involved.

  He ran. Flagged down the nearest tricycle.

  "Pabalik," he said, breath catching. "Tondo. Bilisan mo."

  ("Back. Tondo. Hurry.")

  The driver didn't ask questions. They never did.

  The tricycle jolted over potholes and cracked asphalt, the noise of the city blurring into one long, hot hum. Pol gripped the metal bar of the sidecar, knuckles white, mind racing like a runaway truck with no brakes. In the distance, the wail of sirens echo.

  Anong kayang nagawa nila?

  ("What could they have done?")

  He imagined them forcing their way into the shack. Aling Rosa yelling, maybe fighting back. A slap. Worse.

  No. He stopped the thought mid-sentence. Hindi. Hindi mangyayari 'yun. Hindi dapat.

  He fumbled through his bag, fingers digging past clothes and the notebook until they found the card.

  Lino Ilagan

  NBI – Head Agent

  The ink was smudged on the corners. The weight of it felt heavier now.

  He dialed.

  It rang once. Twice.

  "Hello?" came the voice on the other end, sharp, clipped, familiar. Not kind, but not cruel either.

  "Sir... si Pol to. Ako yung... ako yung nagtrabaho sa Binondo Heights dati. Yung... yung kay Toto. Sorry po. Hindi ako agad nakapagsalita noon. Pero ngayon.. may nangyayari. May mga lalaki. Hindi sila taga-inyo. Nasa looban sila ngayon. Nagwawala sila, hinahanap ako..."

  ("Sir... this is Pol. I'm the one... I used to work at Binondo Heights before. The one... the one with Toto. I'm sorry. I couldn't speak up before. But now... something's happening. There are men. They're not from your team. They're inside the community right now. Causing chaos. They're looking for me...")

  Lino cut him off. "Nasaan ka ngayon?"

  ("Where are you right now?")

  "Papauwi ako. Pabalik ng Tondo." His voice cracked despite himself.

  ("I'm on my way back to Tondo.")

  A pause. Then:

  "Okay. I'll send people. Agad. But listen, be careful. Alam kong 'di kita mapipigilan. Alam kong babalik ka pa rin."

  ("I know I can't convince you, I know you'll still go back there.")

  That was it. No lecture. No judgment. Just facts.

  The line cut. The tricycle kept moving. The sun was almost gone now, replaced by streetlights that flickered like they were just waking up.

  The approached Tondo.

  Pol's heart did something unnatural. Like it tried to dive out of his chest, then changed its mind halfway.

  There were flames. Small for now. The size of angry children. But they were growing. Fast.

  He didn't think. His legs took over. The tricycle had barely stopped before he bolted, sprinting into the chaos like a man looking for the thing he feared most.

  The community had turned inside out. People were leaking from every hole and window, carrying plastic tubs full of damp underwear, photo albums, rice cookers, Santo Ni?o statues, dogs. One man ran with a microwave over his head like it was a crown. Someone was crying, someone was laughing, someone was shouting "Walang tubig! Walang tubig!" even though there was a full drum in front of them.

  ("No water! No water!")

  Pol was running the wrong way. Against the current. Against common sense. Past the panic, deeper into the smoke. His lungs were starting to taste like old tin roofing.

  He found the shack.

  Aling Rosa was still there. She had a basin on the floor and was stuffing it with sachets of shampoo, dried fish, a rosary, two forks, and three half-used bars of soap. There was a method to the madness. Somewhere.

  "Aling Rosa!" he gasped. "Tama na yan! Umalis na tayo!"

  ("Aling Rosa! That's enough! We need to go!")

  "Sandali lang! Yung mga importanteng gamit!" she snapped, not even looking at him.

  ("Wait! I need the important things!")

  Pol looked around. The roof above them groaned. A bird flew past outside, already on fire.

  "Wala nang importante kung masusunog ka na!" he shouted, stepping forward.

  ("Nothing is important if you're about to burn!")

  She waved him off with a slipper. "May birth certificate pa ako dito!"

  ("I still have my birth certificate here!")

  He nearly screamed. Instead, he grabbed her arm. Gently, then not-so-gently. She resisted with surprising strength, like an old tree root refusing to be pulled from the soil. But her eyes, her eyes saw the orange glow now pushing through the gaps in the bamboo wall.

  She stopped.

  "Bitawan mo ko, kaya kong maglakad!" she snapped, but she let him lead her.

  ("Let go of me, I can walk!")

  They ran.

  The flames were not dignified.

  They did not rise with holy wrath or cinematic timing. They sprawled. Clumsy, eager, hungry in the way that infants are. Indiscriminate, loud, and without the capacity for guilt.

  At first they flickered along the outer perimeter, licking the plywood and tarpaulin like curious fingers testing the temperature of a new room. Then they found the laundry lines. Then the gas canisters. Then the paint-thinner soaked floorboards of someone's illegal karinderya.

  Then everything happened at once.

  Pol saw the first roof collapse two alleys away. It folded like wet cardboard. A slow-motion death rattle of galvanized iron and rotting timber. The fire didn't care. It leapt. It swung. It cartwheeled from house to house, not running, but dancing, joyous, careless, feral.

  He saw a refrigerator melt at the edges, leaking Freon like the soul of an exhausted machine.

  He saw a pair of yellow slippers abandoned in front of a doorway, the left one already on fire.

  He saw a man try to save a karaoke machine by dragging it with an extension cord like it was a stubborn goat. He tripped, the mic flew into the air and cracked open like a coconut. The fire claimed them both.

  Pol kept pulling Aling Rosa.

  They passed by the tiny alley where he first kissed a girl he couldn't remember the name of. Gone.

  Past the sari-sari store where he used to buy yosi on credit. Gone.

  Past the junk shop that gave him his first job. Already ash.

  There were children screaming. Not in fear, necessarily. Some were excited. They thought it was a game. Or a festival. Or a punishment someone else deserved.

  The smoke thickened into meat. It had body now. It clung to the throat, scraped down the lungs like rough cloth. Pol squinted through it and saw the color change.

  Not just orange anymore. Blue. Green. Electric white.

  Paint. Chemicals. Someone's stash of fireworks. Someone's dreams.

  He saw a statue of the Virgin Mary melt, and for a second, her face looked like she was smiling.

  Above it all, the sky had turned a brutal shade of bronze. A dead sun behind the veil. He couldn't tell where the fire ended and the sunset began.

  The air whistled. Somewhere behind them, a second gas tank went off, loud and sharp, like a fist slamming into a confession.

  They ran.

  His legs were jelly now. Not the sweet kind. The burnt, leftover kind. But still, they moved. The body knew what to do when the world caught fire.

  And Pol, twenty-one years old, no diploma, no title, no permanent address, was dragging a woman who refused to leave her forks behind, through a burning place that had once been home.

  He didn't stop.

  Because stopping meant looking.

  And looking meant seeing.

  And seeing meant breaking.

  And he couldn't afford that. Not yet.

  Suddenly there were voices. Sharp, masculine, the kind that didn't belong here. Didn't speak the dialect right. Didn't know how to walk on broken concrete without flinching.

  Pol heard them before he saw them. And when he did, it confirmed everything his lungs already suspected: they were not neighbors. They were not firefighters. They were not rescuers.

  Too clean.

  Collared shirts. Tactical boots. Sunglasses at sunset.

  Guns drawn like extensions of their boredom.

  "Hoy!" one shouted, pointing straight at him. "'Yan yung gago!"

  ("Hey! That's the bastard!")

  Time hiccuped.

  Pol shoved Aling Rosa behind a nearby tricycle, already scorched at the roof.

  "Tumakbo ka na, Aling Rosa," he said, breathing like he'd swallowed fire. "'Wag mo na ko balikan. Diretso lang. Sa may simbahan."

  ("Run now, Aling Rosa. Don't come back for me. Just go. Toward the church.")

  "Hindi kita iiwan..."

  ("I'm not leaving you...")

  The first shot cracked through the air. Not at them. A warning. Or a misfire. Or a decision waiting for justification.

  That was enough.

  Aling Rosa ran. Arms tight to her chest. No goodbye. Just instinct.

  Pol sprinted in the opposite direction, ducking past a burning clothesline and leaping over a basin that had caught fire from the inside somehow.

  The air was war.

  The ground a maze.

  The fire and the thugs both hunting him, from different angles, but with the same kind of hunger.

  He turned a corner, narrow, bent, led past the old mahjong den. Flames licked the walls like tongues with no manners. The thugs followed, clumsy in their speed, their bodies too big for these alleys.

  Pol ducked into a drainage path, ran behind a sari-sari store that had exploded two minutes ago. He moved like water, through holes, over debris, under metal sheets. His hands were bleeding. His knees screamed.

  He heard one of them shout, "Tarantado, nasaan na 'yung gagong 'yon?!"

  ("Where the hell did that bastard go?!")

  He didn't look back.

  A bullet hit the wall near his head. Chipped cement sprayed his cheek. His feet slipped, caught, pushed on.

  He reached the corner.

  The smoke parted just enough to reveal a black SUV idling like a giant beetle waiting to bite. Its door opened fast. The windows were tinted but the interior lights were on.

  Inside: Sarah.

  She looked calm in the way only the dangerous ever do.

  Pol didn't think.

  He just ran straight for it and leapt in. The door slammed shut behind him.

  Tires screamed. The SUV peeled off into the burning night, fire behind them, bullets in the air, and silence inside.

  Author's Note

  The city is burning. The past is late for its shift. Somewhere between the melting karaoke machine and the gunshot that missed, a story is trying to survive.

  rating or a comment. The algorithm gods are hungry, and they don't accept rosaries.

  you have saved from the fire?