"God is dead,"
Friedrich Nietzsche once declared, presumably while sipping his existential tea. But, Nietzsche wasn't exactly throwing a party about it. No God meant no moral compass for Western Europe.
But Amihan Dela Cruz? She wasn't shedding a single tear for the Almighty's metaphorical demise.
What she loathed wasn't the loss of divine guidance.
It was obedience.
The chains of it.
The sins that wore halos under its pretense.
Amihan despised it all. She wanted to cackle at heroes who wore righteousness like cheap cologne, politicians who drooled over power like toddlers near candy, lovers lost in their mushy delirium, and scholars tangled in the cobwebs of their own brains.
Now, however, wasn't exactly the time for philosophical musings.
The night was as dramatic as a telenovela, thunder growling, lightning striking as if it had something personal against the clouds, and rain drenching everything in its path. Inside her mansion, Amihan stood in her office. The lights above her flickered and zapped.
Her brow furrowed, her long brown hair tied back in a ponytail that had seen better days. Sweat trickled down her temple. Amihan was a senator, after all, and paperwork was her endless nemesis.
Though tonight's paperwork wasn't her concern, it was the man standing in front of her.
"Raise your hands!" he barked.
Oh, how rude. He didn't even introduce himself first.
Amihan rolled her tired eyes and reached for her cigarette. She lit it or tried to, anyway. The wind snuffed out her lighter's flame like an overbearing parent. Clicking her tongue in annoyance, she gave up and refocused her attention on the intruder.
He was draped, his figure cloaked, his voice as frosty as the air conditioning she forgot to turn off. Somewhere in the distance, gunshots had silenced her mansion's guards. Fabulous.
"If you move one more time, I will shoot you," the man said. His tone was so calm it could have pulled a baby to sleep, though the glint of the pistol in his hand suggested anything but bedtime. "Do you think you hold the power here, Senator Amihan?"
She tilted her head, her lip quivering in a sardonic smile. "Power? In politics? Oh, sweetheart, the only real power here is coffee and plausible deniability."
But she wasn't entirely unbothered. Her sharp eyes caught something, a sigil glinting in the moonlight. An eagle, etched onto a badge or emblem.
Police? A rogue vigilante? Or worse, a very, very persistent member of the homeowners' association?
But as she saw his face drawing nearer, Amihan couldn't help but sigh. Why was she not surprised? Of course, she knew. She recognized him instantly. The hurt she had expected to feel didn't come. She wasn't angry anymore, just... resigned.
This man? Her secretary. The very one who had worked beside her for months. The one she trusted. Even as his steps grew louder, her heart didn't race. She should've panicked. She should've felt betrayed. But she didn't.
Why?
She couldn't quite place it. Maybe she had believed in him too much - naively holding on to the idea that this was all just a misunderstanding. A mistake, right? Maybe he'd been coerced. Forced into this by enemies of their shared vision.
After all, she had kept her end of the bargain. She had fought tooth and nail to fix this fractured country. She had done everything. Worked tirelessly, sacrificed endlessly. But somehow, it always unraveled. Not from the chaos of war, but from the people within it.
And this? This was just another example of the same betrayal. She had faced this before, seen it in the eyes of others. No, this wasn't new.
"Leonardo, my dear friend, listen up," Amihan said, her hands swaying in the air like she was trying to conduct a symphony of reason. She was so done with this game. It felt so... childish. But honestly? The political world was all child's play. "I don't know who's got you caught up in this mess, but whatever you're dealing with, you can tell me. We've been through too much for this to end like a bad soap opera."
She could feel it. His hesitation. That tiny, almost imperceptible flinch in his posture. 'He's thinking,' she mused. Good. "But please, let's just talk this out. It's safe with me. I promise I won't hurt your family. I just need you to trust me."
Then, out of nowhere, "Shut the fuck up," Leonardo snapped, his hand gripping his firearm like it was the last lifeline. Amihan's eyes widened. She'd never heard him swear at her before. It was like someone had switched the lights off in her brain. A slight wobble in her faith, and yet, she wasn't giving up.
'What do I do now? He's serious,' she thought, the gun pointed at her chest making her second-guess everything she knew about him. She barely recognized this man.
"You can't be serious, Leonardo... Our promise..."
"What promise?"
"Our promise to fix this country together!" she almost pleaded, her voice carrying the weight of their shared dream.
"Amihan, my sweetheart," he cooed, but it wasn't sweet at all. It was ice-cold, making her freeze in place. The air around them thickened, and she held her breath as the world seemed to slip away. This wasn't the Leonardo she knew. This man was... dangerous. "I'm sorry... I had forgotten for a moment."
And suddenly, there it was, the Leonardo she thought she knew, a flicker of warmth. He closed the gap between them and stood right in front of her. "But don't you see? You're just like everyone else..." And then, to her shock, he hugged her.
"What do you mean 'everyone else'?" she asked, confused, trying to make sense of it all.
"Human," he said with a grin that didn't reach his eyes.
Bang!
The world went still. The last thing Amihan heard was his voice, but it wasn't comforting anymore. "That's the issue with you... You were always so lonely... so naive... but also so hypocritical..."
It was all so sudden.
It came the silence, the sting of betrayal, and the sudden flood of warmth...
...
'What happened to me?'
...
'Why can't I move?'
...
'Why can't I feel?'
...
Darkness. Pitch-black, all-encompassing. "Ah, I knew it..." she whispered to herself, the truth sinking in like a cold dagger. "God never existed in the first place..."
It was like she had been floating in space for ages. But somehow, she didn't even care anymore. She was dead. Her ambition, her dreams, her vision. They had all led her here. She'd traded happiness for success, chasing something she thought would make her whole.
But oh, how ironic this was. She had worked so hard to escape poverty, only to end up... here. To die like... nothing?
But strangely, it felt good.
It felt... good to be dead.
Suddenly, a deep voice echoed through the endless dark. It was manly, bold, and a little too confident for her liking. But before she could wrap her head around it, more voices joined in like a chorus of mystery. She was confused. It was as if she was standing in the center of it all, with time flowing around her like a lazy stream by the river.
A few seconds later, silence. No answers. Nothing. Just… awkward silence.
Until...
Two hands ripped through the void, and her eyes popped wide open in total shock.
It was like someone had pulled the curtain back on her own reality.
What?! She felt herself being tugged into the light, her vision blinking out like a faulty bulb.
A few moments later, everything felt… off. Weirdly different. And in front of her stood a giant crystal, glowing like it was about to explode. Behind it, a cathedral that could've been from a fairytale, its towering spires reaching into the sky like it had something to prove.
And then... wait. What the hell? She looked down. 'Why are my fingers so small?!'
Before she could process this ridiculous turn of events, a chorus of voices erupted in a frenzy of adoration.
"It's our saintess! Our dear saintess!"
She blinked. Was this some kind of joke?
She turned around, only to find a bunch of cloaked men bowing at her feet like she was some kind of divine being.
What. The. Heck.
It was like that scene from a movie she'd once watched... You know, the one with the lions. But this. This was a whole other level of weird.
What the hell is going on?!