The rain hadn't begun yet, but the air was already heavy—thick enough to taste.
Not the kind of heaviness before a storm, but the kind that comes when something else is holding its breath.
From my window, I watched Sta. Calista sink into a stillness that didn't belong to it. Narrow alleyways lay silent, crooked power lines stretching like black veins across a bruised sky. A lone streetlight flickered, trembling shadows spilling across the cracked pavement.
No crickets.
No laughter from the neighbors.
No tricycle engines passing by.
Only the thump of my heart. Too loud. Too deliberate. Almost like it didn't want me to notice the silence pressing in from everywhere else.
And beneath that silence… something moved.
Not outside.
Inside.
A familiar chill crawled up the nape of my neck, sliding down my spine in a slow, deliberate path. My skin prickled, hairs rising in warning. On the back of my neck, the tattoo—the one I never showed, the one I never spoke about—began to warm. Not fever-warm, not fire-warm, but like a pulse. A beat, echoing mine.
As if it recognized someone.
Or something.
I swallowed hard. "Don't start messing with me again," I muttered under my breath, hoping my own sarcasm could ground me. Sometimes, jokes were my only shield against fear.
But I didn't finish the breath before I felt it—
Not on my skin, but in my ear.
A voice.
Soft. Almost tender. Almost human.
"Senyorita…"
I froze. Breath caught in my throat. Every instinct screamed for me to move, but my body refused. The whisper was too close, too intimate. Not the call of a stranger, but the claim of something that already knew me.
"You can't run anymore."
The shadows in my room leaned closer. Corners stretched as though alive, listening. My chest tightened. The air pressed heavier, metallic, tasting faintly of rust.
And then—it shifted.
The room wavered. The line of reality blurred. One blink, and Sta. Calista was gone.
I stood in a place I didn't know.
Fog curled in ribbons across a ground that wasn't ground at all, but something in between—like liquid floor, rippling with every step. Shadows bent unnaturally, swaying like figures just out of reach.
The Veil.
I had never been here before, yet my bones knew it. Recognition like déjà vu, too sharp, too real. The whispers thickened, layering over each other—dozens, hundreds of voices. Men. Women. Children. A rustling chorus like silk in the dark.
Fragments surfaced:
"...Key of Light..."
"...debt unpaid..."
"...hers, hers, hers..."
I clutched the tattoo blazing at my nape, its pulse spilling gold through my fingertips.
"Stop it," I hissed. "Ghost, hallucination, whatever—just stop—"
But laughter rippled back. Not loud. Not cruel. Just… patient.
A shape emerged from the fog. At first, I thought it human. But as it drew near, its edges blurred, features shifting—half-shadow, half-light. Too tall. Too thin. Its movements wrong, as if it had too many joints. Its face was smooth, empty, yet its presence pressed down like a weight.
It stopped inches away. Leaned close. And though it had no mouth, I felt its breath at my ear:
"You've already heard us, little key."
The ground shuddered. Dozens more stirred in the fog, bending low, whispering one word again and again:
"Key. Key. Key. Key…"
I staggered back, but the air clung to me like wet fabric. My pulse raced, syncing with the mark's rhythm. A warning. Or a lock breaking.
"Stop calling me that!" I shouted. My voice fractured, echoing in tones that weren't mine. "I'm not—"
The figure raised a hand. Everything stilled.
The whispers cut off, leaving silence so sharp it rang in my ears.
And in that silence—I felt it.
Something vast. Watching.
Older than the fog.
Colder than the dark.
Patient.
Then, like a thread snapping, I was back in my room.
The window rattled as rain finally broke. The storm had come.
But the whisper lingered, coiled in my ear like a secret I was never meant to know:
"Tonight, the door opens. And you… will answer."
My knees buckled. I clutched the window ledge, gasping. Outside, Sta. Calista looked normal again—cracked pavement, flickering streetlight, silence drowned by rainfall.
But I knew.
Normal was gone.
Because for the first time, the whisper hadn't vanished with the night.
It stayed.
And it was waiting.