The heat in Quezon City was heavy today.
It felt like a warm, thick blanket that wouldn't go away. The air shimmered above the concrete, and the sound of the city was everywhere—the constant honking of jeepneys, the loud shouting of vendors, and the dull roar of traffic that barely moved.
Deicya Deleor walked slowly toward his apartment. He was tired and soaked in sweat. His shirt stuck to his skin, and the plastic bag in his hand felt heavy.
Inside were ginger, chicken, and sayote—the ingredients for a simple tinola dinner. He just wanted to get home safe, take a cold shower, and finally rest.
As he walked down the road carelessly, he pulled his phone out to check his social media.
Suddenly, the bright afternoon sun hit his screen. It turned into a mirror, sending a sharp glare right into his eyes. Deicya winced and frowned.
"Damn it!" he muttered to himself. "Everything is annoying today."
He stepped into a patch of shade and squinted at his phone. He scrolled down his feed. Funny videos, selfies, advertisements—he didn't care about any of them. To him, it was all just noise. Cringe-worthy content. A waste of time. He kept scrolling, his face blank and bored.
Just as he was about to put his phone away, something caught his eye. It looked like a post about space, but before he could get a good look, his finger slipped. He hit the side of the screen where the Facebook logo sat.
Refresh.
"Tsk…"
The post disappeared, replaced by new, boring updates.
Deicya let out a long, tired sigh. He didn't bother trying to find it again. The effort was just too much. He shoved the phone back into his pocket and kept walking, his eyes fixed on the path ahead, just wanting the quiet of his room.
As he walked, his eyes caught a smooth, round stone on the dusty ground. He nudged it with the tip of his shoe.
Tap.
He gave it another small kick.
Tap.
He kept doing it—walking at a slow, steady pace, guiding the stone along the sidewalk all the way to his apartment building.
'Don't lose it,' he thought, focused only on the rhythm of his feet. 'Just keep it moving. If I can get this stone to the gate, maybe today won't be a total waste.'
When he finally reached his gate, he stopped.
This was the first time he had ever managed to kick a stone all the way home without losing it. He glanced back at the stone one last time—a small smile, a silly victory—before turning toward the entrance to climb the stairs to his second-floor unit.
As he reached for his door handle, his mind wandered to the dinner he was about to cook. He pictured the kitchen filled with life. The way things used to be.
He opened the door. For a split second, it felt real.
He saw his family—the happy, welcoming sight he always craved. His younger brother, Junior, and his youngest, Jobert, rushed toward him, their arms wrapping around him in a tight, familiar hug.
'I'm home,' he thought, a sense of relief washing over him. 'Finally, I'm home.'
Then, the air shifted.
In the blink of an eye, the vision shattered.
Deicya stood frozen. The warmth was gone. He was standing in a plain, quiet, empty apartment. There was no family. There was only his single bed, a small table, a gas stove just big enough for one, a rice cooker, and a lone electric fan whirring in the corner.
'What… what just happened?'
His mind raced, but the answer was cold and immediate.
'R-Right. It's just me. It's always been just me.'
His heart hammered against his ribs—a heavy, painful thudding. The silence of the room was deafening. The memory of being kicked out at twenty-two returned, sharp and bitter.
'Why do I keep doing this to myself?' he whispered internally, his jaw tightening to hold back the sting in his eyes. 'They don't want me there. Stop acting like a child.'
He felt a tight, aching knot in his chest—a loneliness so heavy it felt like he might actually break down right there in the doorway. He stood still, staring at the rice cooker, waiting for his breath to steady.
'It's fine,' he told himself, though his voice felt hollow. 'Just prepare and eat. Go to sleep. Tomorrow is another day.'
He forced his feet to move, walking toward the small kitchen area. He began to wash the rice, his movements quiet and practiced, focusing only on the water and the grain, trying his best to bury the ache deep down where it wouldn't hurt so much.
He didn't want to think about the emptiness of the apartment, so he focused entirely on the familiar, grounding routine.
He took out the small plastic bag from the market. The ginger root was firm and earthy under his fingers, and the sayote felt cool. He began to prep the ingredients, the sound of his small knife tapping against the wooden board the only noise in the room.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
A steady, rhythmic sound. It drowned out the ringing silence.
He reached for the rice cooker, measured the water with his finger just like his mother had taught him years ago, and pressed the switch. A small orange light glowed, signaling that the process had started. He stared at that light for a moment, letting the mundane task anchor him to the present.
"Just a normal day," he whispered to the empty room. "Just a normal, quiet night."
He walked over to the small, square window in his kitchen area. Outside, the sky above Quezon City was turning a deep, bruised purple as the sun finally dipped below the horizon. The heat of the day was beginning to break, replaced by humid, heavy night air.
He leaned his forehead against the cool glass, watching the city below. The traffic was still a mess, but from up here, the chaos looked small—like a distant, buzzing hive.
Suddenly, his phone buzzed on the small table near the stove. A sharp, vibrating sound that cut through the quiet, making him jump. He hadn't expected any messages.
He walked over, his heart doing a quick, nervous stutter. He picked it up. It wasn't a text or a call. It was a notification from Facebook.
[Breaking News: Atmospheric energy anomalies detected worldwide. Authorities urge residents to remain indoors.]
Deicya stared at the screen. Beneath the headline was a blurry photo—the same kind of strange, shimmering anomaly he had accidentally refreshed away earlier that afternoon.
His thumb hovered over the screen. The air in his small, plain apartment suddenly felt thinner, colder. He looked at the closed door, then back at the phone.
Deicya's heart hammered against his ribs. He didn't want to rely on rumors. He needed facts. His fingers trembled as he navigated to the official NASA website, scanning for anything that matched the shimmering blur.
His thumb hovered over the screen, trembling as he tapped the link.
Error 504.
He refreshed.
Error 504.
Server timeout. Millions of people were slamming the site at the exact same second. On his third attempt, the text finally broke through—stark, unformatted, and clinical:
[GLOBAL INCIDENT BULLETIN]
[PRIMARY IMPACT ZONES: 12 GLOBAL CAPITAL REGIONS]
[LOCALIZED ANOMALY: METRO MANILA ATMOSPHERIC READINGS]
[ESTIMATED IMPACT TIME: 7:00 PM.]
Deicya stared at the screen, his face washed out by the cold, blue glow of his phone.
He glanced up at the digital clock on top of his drawer.
6:15 PM.
His heart slammed against his ribs.
He zoomed in on the grainy photo provided by the space telescope feed. It didn't look like a jagged rock or a burning ball of fire. It was too perfect—a smooth, blood-red sphere, almost matte in color.
And there, etched clearly onto its surface, were twelve distinct lines. Not natural fractures.
Glowing, divine geometry around the orb.
The room felt instantly claustrophobic. He looked at his front door, then back at the phone. The report stated the global impact vectors were locked. Even if the physical cores were striking overseas, the atmospheric energy bleeding into the sky above Metro Manila felt oppressive.
A cold sweat broke out across his neck, despite the heavy, humid heat trapped inside the room. He stood up, his movements stiff and mechanical.
As he turned, his hip brushed the kitchen counter. The smell of ginger and simmering chicken broth wafted up—his tinola was waiting, the pot halfway through its simmer. Beside it, the rice cooker let out a soft, rhythmic hiss, a plume of white steam curling into the air.
He walked to the window.
The city below was still moving. Jeepneys honked. Pedestrians walked the sidewalks. Completely unaware that their time was being measured in minutes.
The bruised purple of the horizon had deepened into a dark, ominous navy. The sky, usually so familiar, felt like a closing lid.
Deicya reached out and gripped the edge of his table.
Leave? Run down the stairs and into the streets?
'To where?'
The shockwave alone from global impacts of that magnitude would reshape the world.
"Seven o'clock," he whispered to the empty room.
A strange, detached calm washed over him. The kind of absolute stillness that only comes when there is nowhere left to run.
He looked back at the kitchen. The orange light of the rice cooker glowed steadily. The tinola broth continued to bubble. Just moments ago, he had been crushed by the loneliness of his apartment—and now, the entire world was narrowing down to a single point of no return.
'I don't want to die alone.'
The thought surfaced, sharp and toxic, piercing through the shock.
For a second, the vision returned—the warmth, the chaos, the family he used to have. If this was the end, he didn't want it to happen in this silence.
He pulled his phone back up, his thumbs hovering over the messaging app. He wanted to reach out, but his hands shook too violently to type.
The screen flickered. A new notification popped up, but he couldn't bring himself to read it.
He forced himself to turn away from the window. Walking back to the stove, he adjusted the flame out of pure habit.
Keep the tinola from burning.
Don't let the rice dry out.
Deicya stared at the rice cooker. The steam rose in steady white curls, carrying the scent of ginger and chicken.
6:22 PM.
His body moved on complete autopilot. He didn't sit. He didn't set a table. Standing over the counter, he forced a few scalding bites of food into his mouth, barely chewing, barely tasting—a mechanical attempt to anchor himself to reality while his world unraveled.
He dropped the spoon into the sink with a loud clatter.
6:27 PM.
He was back at the window.
6:32 PM.
The sky had turned a deep, bruised violet. And there, piercing the darkness, was a flicker of red—a distant fire hovering in the upper atmosphere, burning brighter as it cut through the clouds.
6:43 PM.
Seventeen minutes left.
As the red glow expanded across the upper atmosphere, a wave of memories crashed over him.
He thought of his childhood—the laughter of his younger brothers, Junior and Jobert. The feeling of a family dinner that felt complete.
Then, the memories turned bitter.
He remembered the screaming match six years ago. The shattering glass on the kitchen floor. The way his mother's face distorted in pure, unbridled rage right before she threw his bag onto the pavement outside:
"You worthless child!" she screamed, her voice cracking as her finger stabbed into his chest. "You won't even get a job to help us! You always put yourself first! You never lift a finger to help your father and me raise your brothers!"
"Ma, I'm trying—"
"Get out!" she spat, tearing his hand away from the doorframe. "Get out of this house so you can taste what it's like to survive completely alone! Get out!"
Then came the heavy thud of the door locking him out at twenty-two.
He remembered standing in the rain with fifty pesos in his pocket, begging her to open the door through the thin wooden panel—only for his father's voice to bark from the other side: "Go away, Deicya. Don't make this harder than it already is."
The sting of being thrown away like garbage. The cold, suffocating years of scraping by on odd jobs and cheap instant noodles just to pay rent. And finally, the deep, hollow ache of his breakup with the only person who had ever held his hand through the dark—until she, too, grew tired of his baggage and walked away.
The weight of it all—the past, the regret, the impending end—threatened to crush him. He felt small. Abandoned. Terrified.
The walls of the apartment seemed to lean inward, suffocating him. He was no longer a man living a life. Just a speck of dust in the path of something that didn't care if he existed.
'Why me?' his heart clenched. 'Why does it have to end like this?'
A single tear fell down Deicya's cheek.
Wshhh—
The silence of the room shattered.
Not from a sound on the street, but from a voice echoing directly inside his mind. It was calm, ancient, and impossible to place.
—Deicya.
The voice whispered. It did not sound human.
—Do not be afraid. Fight the fear within you.
Deicya spun around, gasping. "Who's there?!" he shouted at the empty room. "Who said that?!"
—I am Kazura, the voice replied, steady as an anchor in a storm. —You are crying out in your grief, Deicya. You are reaching for help in the face of this ending. I am here.
Deicya clutched his head, his breath hitching. Panic surged, but as the voice continued to speak, a strange, cooling sensation washed over his racing heart.
His chest slowed. His breathing stabilized.
He was no longer dying of fear. He was listening.
The air in front of him shimmered.
Bzzzt.
Light bent in the center of his sight. A translucent, glowing blue screen materialized out of thin air, floating motionless above the floorboards.
System text scrolled across the surface in sharp, neon characters:
Ding!
[ God of Absorption, Kazura, has invited you to meet him. ]
[ ACCEPT ] [ DECLINE ]