The echoes in the room were too loud, like they were amplified by unseen speakers.
It felt like they were in a very large chamber. It was hard to tell because of the absence of sufficient illumination.
The walls were so tall and the pillars massive but that was all they could tell about the room they were in.
There were some glowing marks on the pillars but no one has been able to make it out.
They talked in whispers because even the slightest noise gets sent to every corner of the room and gets sent back several times.
Vince took out his lighter and was looking closer at the wall near him.
He rapped his knuckles into it and got rewarded with a plastic sounding echo.
"Don't do that, buddy."
John's voice came from the far end of the room. They can see him well even though everything else was dark.
They can't even make out the faces of the one beside them but John's looked as if he is glowing or something.
There was no obvious change but they can all tell that it was a slightly different person than the one who entered the gate.
For one, he exuded confidence and an aura of command. Vince immediately backed away from the wall.
"Well…?" asked the one in the black leather jacket.
"Plenty of time for stories later but for now, I learned of the importance of a name. I believe introductions are in order. Believe me, when you go through one of the doors, you are going to have your name firmly in mind."
"Why?" Vince asked.
"You might forget who you are."
The answer seemed like a joke but they dared not ask.
John glanced at Rai who entered with them.
"Okie...as I have said before, my name is Rai. The old guy here is John, the small one is Ice, the nice lady in black is Ora, the one trying to look cool over there is Ash.
"And I am Vince, by the way," volunteered the one holding a guitar case.
"Oh, I didn't see you there!" she giggled.
"Someday you are going to tell me why that is funny," Vince said irritably.
"As I have said before, your names are important. Fix them firmly in your mind. I will wait here for you." John squatted down near one of the pillars.
As soon as he said that, four identical doors made of scribbles of light appeared in the air.
On the upper portions of each door were markings that looked familiar.
"I am not going inside before anyone tells me what those meant. For all I know, that one is marked 'death' or 'another rejection' and I don't know if i could take either one."
Vince was obviously trying his best not to look nervous but he looked at each of them appealingly.
"No need to be afraid," said Rai.
"Nothing is going to happen without your say so but if you really wanna know, ask Ice. She can read it."
"Me?" asked the visibly surprised Ice.
"Not you, the other one" and Rai clicked her fingers in front of Ice.
The latter's eyes went unfocused for a second but when it cleared she looked up at each door and read the inscriptions out loud.
"The Bearer of the Kampilan, the Keeper of the Frozen Flame, The Shadow Warrior, the First and the Second."
"Are those what we would become? I choose Shadow Warrior." Vince raised his hand.
"That would never be you," Ash came forward. "Although the Shadow part is apt," she added and that made Rai giggle again.
"What is a Kampilan?" Vince muttered as he lined up in front of the door intended for him.
They did not walk through the doors. The lines forming the doors changed shape and suddenly grabbed them before they could react.
John and Rai exchanged glances but said nothing.
They appeared before them as fast as they vanished.
All of them were visibly shaken.
"I saw a giant with the largest weed ever!" Vince exclaimed.
"Weed? Like grass?" asked Rai, curious.
"Nope. I meant cigar. He had this fuckin' huge cigar," he said excitedly.
"Yep, that would excite you, all right," Ash interrupted.
"You saw the Kapre. Lucky you...I saw a more disgusting one," Ice told him.
"How do you know this, honey?" Ora stroked Ice's hair and that elicited a shy smile from the teen.
"I don't really know. I just do. Like the markings on the door, I just knew what they were."
Her expression told them she was struggling to explain.
"Let's move on. We can ask questions later," urged John and he stood up.
"I suppose you know where to go?" Rai asked him.
"I was told the path would appear before us," he answered.
"This is where we part ways, then. Bye, everyone!" she said cheerfully and vanished into thin air.
"Now what?" Vince looked at John.
"We walk that way," he pointed to the far end of the room.
"Righhtt...I see a wall…" he said dubiously but he immediately took his guitar when the others started walking.
They walked for almost ten minutes when Vince tapped John on the shoulder.
"Is it me or did the walls move? They appeared to be less than 100 meters away when we started."
"Just walk…" said John authoritatively and that silenced the young man but he still glanced at John distrustfully.
Without warning, they heard voices of several people talking all at once. The sound was not gradual but it was as if they dropped in the middle of a busy market.
Vince bumped someone and when he turned to apologize, he was stunned by the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen.
"Watch it, guy!" a thin boy shoved him away without much success. He stood there transfixed by the smiling beauty before him.
Before he decided to fall in love on the spot, Ash yanked him away and he quickly forgot what he saw.
The voices were replaced with the sound of a waterfall then with the growl of a big creature. That made them all jump closer to each other.
Amidst the darkness, they felt the temperature drop and simultaneously heard their footsteps being muffled.
"Snow…" Ash whispered in awe.
"I wish there was light to see it," Vince fumbled for his lighter and proceeded to click it.
Sparks issued from the lighter's tip but it didn't catch.
"Light damn it! LIGHT!" he said frantically and a great ball of light exploded from it.
He threw the lighter in surprise but the ball of flame remained suspended in the air.
They all looked at it as if hypnotized and before anyone could say anything, it moved.
They all followed.
"Uh...guys, I don't think we should follow it," Ash tried to warn them but it was too late.
The flame danced in the air as if laughing. They followed its movement even when it shot up to the sky and everybody found themselves staring at a bright blue sky.
The attack came at John's blind side but it so happened that Ora was looking in that direction.
She pushed John out of the way and Ash blocked the next attack.
Vince screamed in surprise as he suddenly got tangled in the middle of a melee.
Two gigantic people were attacking each other with equally massive axes and Vince could feel each swing generate enough wind power to knock him off his feet.
Before he could recover from his shock, the ground beneath him heaved and he barely got out of the way when it erupted into a blast of magma.
The screams of rage and agony filled the air as the group suddenly discovered themselves in the middle of a medieval warzone. Explosions erupted right and left and the ring of metal against metal was even louder.
Ora and Ash were shoulder to shoulder each holding a blade while John was behind them. No one seemed to notice them yet as the warriors around them were locked in a fierce battle.
Vince, his ears still ringing, was sprawled face down on the ground.
As he looked up with unfocused eyes, he heard Ash shouting his name.
"Get up you fool!" she said even as she threw a dagger in his direction. He closed his eyes as the dagger flung end to end to his head.
"I'm dead," he thought as he heard a solid thunk that indicated the dagger was true to its mark.
"Viince, run, you stupid asshole!" Ash was shouting again and he turned in time to see another man running towards him, the first one was lying face up with a dagger buried in his forehead.
He did not wait for the second man to get close.
He scrambled away towards the people he knew.
As he got past Ora, the woman in black launched from her stance and promptly decapitated the one chasing Vince.
The head rolled in Vince's feet and that caused him to faint.
Everything went black and he barely had time to say 'thank you' before his head hit the ground.
When he regained consciousness, the stars were in the sky but the sounds of carnage were still in the air.
The putrid smell in the air was heavy and it took him a while to realize it was the smell of blood. John was cradling his head and was surprised to see the older man crying.
His screams were filled with so much anguish that filled Vince with horror. His eyes were glowing red and that made his tears blood-like.
Vince shuddered and struggled to get up.
What he saw was worse than any nightmare he ever had.
Heaps and heaps of dead or dying people lay around them.
The wind is howling like crazy and riding it as it ravaged all around them is Death swinging his scythe smoothly left and right.
Ora was kneeling not far away cradling her sword and Ash was near her but also obviously on her last ounce of strength.
On the horizon is a shadow shaped like a man and it was looking at them. His voice was like honey-dipped venom and it made every fiber on Vince's being curl inside out.
"Witness the last defiant strand hold your world before it plunged into the abyss. Taste futility and despair…" it rumbled into the very earth as it gestured towards them. Its eyes were hell represented.
Vince screamed as a massive fireball issued from the end of its fingers and hurtled towards them.
John calmly got up and put himself between them and the incoming catastrophe.
The air got heavy and the sound dropped even as the fireball slowed almost to a stop.
"Get under the Salakot…" a gentle voice said.
A hand was offered and a small man dressed in a farmer's garb appeared in Vince's vision.
A conical shaped hat was floating above the five of them and the light emanating from it formed a tent that seemed to exclude them from what is happening around.
It tilted and swung in front of John just in time to collide with the fireball.
When everything was moving normally, the hat was back in the hand of what can only be called a dwarf person.
Somebody was helping Ora up and a tall, muscular man was holding John's arm.
The man was holding a large sword.
"Lam-Ang, cover us," said the dwarf and the large man hefted his sword to meet the next fireball.
"Makiling, heal them. It will be easier to move."
The one helping Ora lifted her head in a song and Vince felt his body getting lighter. He got up and so did his companions.
"Let's go...Bernardo Carpio can only hold the gate for so long," said the man who put on the hat as he nimbly stepped around the battleground.
They all went past a guy in loincloth holding a gate in the middle of the blood soaked field.
As they went through it, Vince and the others laid on their back on the white-covered ground.
There was no longer that awful sound.
As they gazed towards heaven, white flakes floated down slowly.
"Snow…" was the last thought in Vince's head before darkness once again took him.