In the ruined city of Manila, dark clouds loomed over the skyline, trapping the city in perpetual darkness as heavy rain constantly poured upon the shattered streets.
Not a single life could be spotted that hadn't been torn to shreds since the day of the apocalypse.
Morneas walked through the broken streets of the capital city of the Philippines. He had been only sixteen years old when those horrors first came through the gap in reality.
During those harsh times, he watched many people get themselves killed by creatures that refused to follow the laws of physics. Before he awakened as a Gestalt of Horror, he had just been a scared, desperate kid who survived where others didn't.
Now four years had passed since the day the horrors came, and he had become a man on a mission.
Dark short hair, dark brown eyes, a physical body that had seen combat, and a face that had seen far too much. Morneas headed toward the central area of the city, where his purpose for coming here was to hunt down a horror.
The clothes he wore were the standard issue uniform he had been given after things began to settle down and governments started using Gestalts of Horror to fight back against the Horrors.
Since the only way to effectively fight a horror was to use horror.
His uniform was a redesign of the Philippines' standard army PHILARPAT uniform. It comprised a dark unbuttoned jacket made from high-grade carbon weave, dark pants, and military boots made from the same material as his jacket.
Instead of the green standard color usually issued to soldiers, people like Morneas—the Gestalts—were given a darker coloration, at least in the Philippines.
As he approached the mission designation area, the surroundings became more and more eerie.
Thunder flashed across the sky, briefly illuminating the area. In that brief moment of light, dozens of ghost-like figures could be seen dressed in white clothing, watching the new arrival. Their faces were twisted in pained expressions, as if they were trapped in a single moment of pure agony—before the darkness returned and they were gone.
Morneas didn't react to the presence of the ghosts. He simply slicked back his wet hair as he moved closer. Then the radio earpiece on his left ear crackled to life, and a voice spoke through it.
"You are approaching the mission area, Gestalt. That area must be retaken at all costs. The Malacañan Palace must be reclaimed," said the operator on the other side of the earpiece before continuing.
"And if you deviate from the expected mission area or fail to retake Malacañan Palace, the implanted bomb in your chest will blow you to smithereens."
The disgusted sneer was evident in the operator's voice.
Morneas didn't react to the threat. He was used to it by now and couldn't exactly blame the normal people. After all, it was horrors that had nearly driven humanity to extinction, so using horrors to fight against horrors didn't exactly fill anyone with hope.
It only meant they were desperate enough to swallow human pride and use whatever means were necessary.
"Got it. What can I expect against this horror?" he said, not reacting to the threat.
There was the sound of papers being moved around through the earpiece before the operator spoke again with the information they currently had.
"The horror you are expected to face is a Class Five threat. Its abilities are generally unknown, but it is suspected to possess puppet-like abilities," said the operator.
Morneas pushed past the creaking gates of the palace, the metal squeaking under the strain after years of not being properly maintained.
He moved toward the entrance, glancing around until his eyes landed on the second floor, where he could see a head peeking out of a broken window.
The head appeared pale white, with no visible hairline, and its eyes were wide with only a red dot for an iris. The rest of its face was hidden by the window frame, so Morneas could only see half of it.
He wasn't sure if that was the horror he was supposed to neutralize because its presence didn't exactly match a Class Five threat—and he would know, since he had fought several Class Five threats before.
The head suddenly ducked down before Morneas could pull out his weapon.
His eyes narrowed slightly when the creature retreated into the palace. A lure meant for him.
Despite knowing that, Morneas moved toward the entrance lobby with his handgun ready just in case.
The front doors of Malacañan Palace groaned under years of neglect. Their hinges, rusted with age, ground loudly as the doors were pushed open.
What lay before Morneas was a dark maw of a lobby, with motes of dust drifting in the air. He took out a flashlight, yet despite the beam of light, it couldn't fully penetrate the darkness that seemed to permeate the interior.
Morneas put a hand to his earpiece and reported his status.
"Mission command, I've entered the front entrance of the palace and I'm currently in the lobby."
He moved deeper into the lobby, examining the state of the room.
Everything was in shambles. Furniture had been tossed around, and motes of dust drifted in the stale air. The chandelier now lay shattered on the marble floor, broken beyond repair.
"Acknowledge. Sweep and clear. Full elimination," said the operator on the other side, still had a hint of disgusted despite trying to hide it with professionalism.
Hearing the acknowledgement, Morneas was about to move through the lobby when he heard the distinct sound of a music box from the adjacent hallway to his right.
Pointing his gun in front of him, Morneas began to move through the hallway, following the sound of the music box.
He passed by several open rooms, each in no better condition than the rest of the building.
Turning into another hallway, Morneas, for a split second, spotted something pale scurrying at the end where the corridor split.
Morneas's breath remained steady, his heartbeat calm, but something about this situation didn't sit well with him. Still, hesitation was something intolerable for someone whose leash was pulled so tightly.
Moving toward where he had seen the pale figure scurry, he found that the direction also led toward the source of the music box, which grew louder with every step.
Morneas eventually found himself in a large hall. Like the rest of the building, the hall was in a deplorable state. A massive hole in the ceiling allowed rain to constantly pour into the interior.
At the center of the hall was a large hole in the marble floor.
Morneas stood at the edge of the pit, and as he leaned slightly forward, he could hear the music box playing from somewhere at the bottom. He shined his flashlight into it, yet the darkness resisted the beam, revealing no more than a few feet below.
Taking a step back, Morneas pulled out a climbing rope and tied it around a nearby column.
'Here goes nothing' he thought as he kicked off the edge and began descending into the abyss.
His figure disappearing, swallowed by the darkness itself.