magnumversumplus

[magnumversumplus]

Joran Takes Manhattan

Penned By Joseph M.

Joran’s plane touched down in Manhattan, arriving on time. He watched the wheels–they bumped, bumped and bumped, then came to a halt. The look on his face as he disembarked from the plane–while cheery and happy towards the other flight attendants—was secretly serious. He meant business in his navy blue attire and white shirt.

The world around him suddenly became muted and gray, all but the navy blues on the subway seats. He sat down, scrolling through his phone until the mob boss arrived, a shifty man sitting down on the seat next to his.

The mob boss looked at him. “Are you the man I think you are?”

“That depends on who you think I am.” Joran didn’t bother to make eye contact with the man.

“I’m a bit of a well-known man–a celebrity, if I may call myself that–in the crime world. You need to show me respect.” He nudged Joran, careful to not draw the attention of the others on the subway. “So, where you headed?”

“There’s a chess tournament happening in a week.” Joran kept scrolling and scrolling–for fifteen minutes at least, until he forgot the mob boss was there. “I arrived here an hour ago, and I intend to play in the tournament because it’s run by Ivan Bold and Wilson Ballander, and I think they might be the smoking gun I’m looking for.”

The mob boss scoffed. “I didn’t think you were the type to be into that typa–typa–” He pulled out a cigar and inhaled, then put the cigar away and huffed. “I didn’t–I didn’t–” He stood up from his seat and cried, “The ol’ Djorrhan Djorrhar!

“Secret agent and the next great mast’r o’ chess, ev’ryone!”

Joran pulled him down, forcing him to sit, pushing him into his seat as he screamed to the dismay of the other passengers. “Sorry everyone!” He quietly whispered, “Listen–thank you for getting me my plane ticket here. I was training my spec ops team in Shanghai when my red-bundled friend called me, saying you had connections and knew stuff. Spill the beans: what do you know?”

“The guys you’re playing against–Ivan Bold and Wilson Ballander–they’re cooperatin’ with Luciana Francesci and Alan Roy on sum’n… it’s a… it’s a release contract, written up some day.”

“That’s nothing new. Do we know the extent of Ivan Bold and Wilson Ballander’s involvement in Alan Roy’s schemes?”

The mob boss chuckled, rose from his seat and staggered onto another passenger’s lap, the mob boss’ arms grabbing him and not letting go, forcing Joran to rip him away yet again. “Nah–I’m sorry–no we don’t. All we know is the dudes you’re playing with have connections to some big conspiracy.”

“Thank you.” Joran rose from his seat, adjusting his suit–which had become all wrinkled and crinkly by that point–and stepped away from the automatic doors, allowing for the other agents waiting at the stop to rush in and arrest the mob boss. “Since you didn’t get me any useful intel, I’m afraid I’ll be on my way.”

[magnumversumplus]

La Vie De Fête: Opus No. 3

Penned by Joseph M.

Author’s Note

These chapters were supposed to be episodes of La Vie De Fête Season 3–some of them slightly edited–but ended up getting scrapped due to the world reboot. Now that I’ve brought the old world back, I can finally complete the story. I hope you enjoy this thrilling story!

[Trigger warning: Themes of transphobia, depression, self harm and suicide are present in this story.]

Canto I

The cheers of eager audience members erupted across the entire parking lot as surrounded by the blue and red lights of police cars, several men stepped out of a shiny white limousine, adjusted their suits, gave an obligatory gesture of recognition to the audience and shook hands with the men waiting for them at the chessboards. These cars were filled with police officers, security for these grandmasters and the two men they were all playing against.

The two opponents–wearing a shiny teal suit and a silver tie that glistened under the disco ball, the other wearing a scarlet suit that seemed taller than him, billowing out over the matching red carpet. Camera flashes and the eager cheers aimed towards the men in crimson and teal filled the air as the men began their game.

A few moves in, the game entered the Ruy Lopez: Morphy’s Defense; specifically, the Exchange Variation of this opening. One of white’s bishops–they move diagonally in any direction–had initially attacked black’s knight–a piece that can move two squares, then one perpendicular to that, jumping over any piece in the way–but was soon traded for the spruce stallion, amounting to an even trade, and Black’s queen being unleashed on most of the vertical that it controlled. The queen was the most powerful piece, moving in any direction, any amount of squares.

The checkered lands the pieces shared, a utopia where, between battles, they resided peacefully, suddenly became a black and white battleground, a landscape where valorous riders with spruce hearts led the charge, and even pawns–those standing in front of the king, queen, and other pieces–were pressured as they foraged deep into enemy territory, sometimes capturing the enemy pieces and weakened their formation, as they moved forward, but captured and defended adjacently.

Rasheb’s fingers curled around one of the grandmasters’ bishops, lifting it off the board and replacing it with a miniature resembling a mahogany fortress tower, debris from pollen and dust floating in the air settling on the rooftop. There was an air of silence, an unspoken tension between Rasheb and Joran and the grandmasters, as the pressure began to pile up on a central pawn. A valorous horse galloped towards the center, attacking the pawn. A queenside pawn of the same army as the pawn moved, unleashing the power of the miter-donning bishop, which defended it from afar. The grandmasters’ patriarch, dressed in regal black robes, wearing a black crown, ran to its castle. A rook, a piece that moved horizontally and vertically, attacked the pawns that shielded it.

From the audience, one could almost hear the horses gallop away from the checkered battlegrounds, leaving the fortress towers, the miters, and the monarchs in their regal attire.

On the king’s flank, hoards of the pawns–which raced down two squares, then just one upon entering the battle–flew towards the safe king, provoking a quick response by the grandmasters; they built an impenetrable wall with their own king pawns and blockaded the king’s flank–the remainder of the battle, as the grandmasters and the novices in glittery suits decided, would engage on the queenside and the center. Joran, adjusting his glittery teal suit, and Rasheb, commanded the pawn on the farthest flank to lead the charge. The battered fortress towers–the rooks, whose name was derived from the Persian word for chariot–slid across the horizontals, perusing the field for good, open lines to operate in, but soon the rooks too were traded off, hurtling into an endgame with White’s two bishops against Black’s queen.

The grandmasters were quickly losing momentum to these amateur players, as the bishops were taking active, defensive squares. Sweat dripped down their chins, rolling down their suits. They wiped small, nervous tears away from their eyes, as the queen’s bishop’s pawn was racing down the board, unopposed by pawns.

The battle ended with a series of decisive moves–White sacrificed two bishops and a queen–and a promoted queen and a king chasing the grandmasters’ lone king into the corner of the board. Only three pieces remained on the board, three crown shaped decorations on the empty, checkered landscape. The two suited amateurs’ king and queen versus the sole king by the team of grandmasters.

In chess, Joran explained, pieces each have their own movements and powers. Although they were different, he said to Rasheb Nevim, every piece had something to contribute. Each chess game, he said, was a story waiting to be told.

One of chivalrous knights galloping in on horseback. It was one of two bishops, each indirectly helping the other in ruling the board, The game of chess was the story of the queen, controlling the battlefield and running after the enemy king.

Chess was a story of quick, decisive battles; slow, strategic games with little maneuvering from both sides; a brave bishop attacking the king unguarded, of knights leaping over the others to attack two pieces at once, of the kings going against each other on the battlefield, and the opponents behind the sharp landscape of black and white squares going against each other over the checkered battlefield.

As Joran showed Rasheb how each of the pieces moved, swiftly picking them up and smoothly gliding them across the surface of the board, Rasheb was confused. He didn’t understand when he’d ever need to learn how to play chess.

Then, after learning a basic opening setup, Joran and Rasheb sat down for a game.

Rasheb took the White pieces, and played forth his queen’s pawn. Joran, playing Black, played his king’s knight forth, two squares away from the esteemed patriarch, approaching the center. Rasheb scratched his chin, and, remembering his setup, played the king’s bishop and soon, the patriarch bundled in flowing black robes retreated, so that it was safely behind a wall of pawns, and flanked by its own rook.

Joran played forth his queen’s pawn and queen’s bishop’s pawn, placed his knights safely behind the pawns, and a novel idea was born on the fourteenth move, as a bishop ran down the board, and the knight was glued to the king. Rasheb moving the knight would reveal Joran’s bishop’s attack on the king, and so it was not allowed.

Rasheb marched his pawns forward and forced the retreat of the bishop, before expanding on the queen’s flank. Joran had full control of the center, whilst Rasheb was controlling it from the king’s flank and expanding on the queen’s flank. At one particular moment, it seemed as if many pieces from both White and Black were to fall simultaneously, but Joran precisely declined every offer to trade, and Rasheb maintained his attack on the queenside.

He found strong places for his knights. The only way to attack them was with other pieces, which would force Rasheb to make dubious concessions. Whilst Rasheb focused on expanding his position on half of the board by playing his queen forward and aggressively attacking the weak queen’s knight’s pawn, Joran adjusted his tie, his eyes scanning over the board. He adjusted his shades, gave out a small cough, and suddenly aggressively struck against the king’s wall of pawns with his rook. The king aggressively left its shelter and grabbed the material when Joran sacrificed another rook and his queen in quick succession. Rasheb paused his attack, wiped away a water spill off his shoulder using a napkin, and, as Joran did earlier, gazed over the board.

Joran’s sudden sacrifices were powerful, but Rasheb’s aggressive maneuvering, even with an exposed king, gave him a winning position with an overwhelming material advantage. Joran sacrificed another piece, a bishop, which Rasheb snatched again. Alas, the aggressive game had a surprisingly quick ending; Rasheb was forced to accept the sacrifice–his own king was being attacked, and the only way to save it was to accept even more material—and a forced entrapment of Joran’s king who, though surrounded, was not under any direct attack. The game was a stalemate.

Canto II

Circa a day before, two men in sparkling suits arrived in a limousine to battle two fierce grandmasters in the game of kings, there was a thunderstorm. There was also a vast landscape of white and black squares–a realm of possibilities contained on a table–on which stories could unfold. A man wearing a scarlet tie, scarlet jacket, scarlet pants and scarlet shoes sat at one end of the table; and a man wearing glittery teal shoes, a teal suit and teal suit pants sat at the other end. Contrasting the glistening men’s surroundings was a small, dusty restaurant, and on the realm which lay in front of them, a magnificent battle unfolded.

The soldiers in the front were claiming space in the center–they advanced two squares once they’re called to war, and after that, only one humble square forward. These soldiers–called pawns–represented by smooth, elegant domes, attacked, defended, and captured diagonally. White advanced the king’s pawn twice, and Black did the same.

Then White’s king’s knight and Black’s queen’s knight–these knights were the valiant horsemen that galloped two spaces, then leapt one space perpendicular–developed in front of White’s king’s bishop’s pawn and Black’s queen’s bishop’s pawn respectively. Both Black and White elected classical developing moves, wherein opening play was defined by straightforward plans that focused on the four central squares.

There were several exchanges of pieces, White and Black occupying squares where each other’s pieces used to be. A bishop occupied a central post, and a knight attacked the bishop. Two rooks crawled out from behind the rest of the army, as the queens were snatched off the board in a flurry of hand movements.

Joran motioned his hand over the sole vacant vertical on the board, pointing out some things and saying, “My stacked rooks control the open file. My knights will jump down the board and my rooks will infiltrate on the seventh rank.” As Joran had promised, Rasheb soon found himself facing two rooks in his territory with a clear line between them.

Kicking the rooks from their squares proved to be an endeavor, as every move he made in an attempt to do so removed the defense of a pawn. Soon, the entire second vertical from Rasheb’s perspective was completely clear, and the remaining pawns on that rank were captured.

“My knight on f3 can move to e5, occupying an outpost as well,” pointed out Rasheb, playing with the White pieces, picking up the knight and setting it down on the central square, met with the roaring applause of the thunderstorm outside. “My bishop pair criss-crosses the king’s defenses, and knight e5 to g6 attacks the king and rook.”

“Yes,” Joran admitted. He buried his face into his hand, as if contained within the vessels in his palm were the best moves in the position. He quietly calculated out a line starting with a move that seemingly retreated a knight, but secretly set up a vicious attack against Rasheb’s king, who was still not castled in the middlegame. Whilst this move helped a knight reach its desired square, it could sooner or later serve as the perfect square for Rasheb’s queen.

Joran thought awhile, then played an aggressive knight sacrifice. Instead of moving his knight backwards, he moved it to the center of the board, where it could be captured several ways, including by a pawn, a light squared bishop, a knight, or a rook.

Joran, however, laid a trap with this sacrifice. If Rasheb captured with a pawn, it would open up the long diagonal, and Joran would win Rasheb’s rook with his bishop. If Rasheb captured the knight with the bishop, Joran’s queen’s flank pawns would march forward, shutting the bishop out of the game. If Rasheb captured it with the knight, that knight would leave its post, and Joran’s pawns and pieces would coordinate and storm the castle. Similarly, if Rasheb captured with the pawn, Joran’s remaining pieces would have so much control over the board, Rasheb would be in a losing position even in the worst variations he calculated.

Rasheb snatches the knight with the queen, accepting the sacrifice, saying, “I saw everything you were planning. The pawn, the bishop, the knight and the rook could all capture, but doing so would cramp my position. I’m activating my pieces by taking your queen, and your pieces are being tied down to the lonely pawn on that vertical.” Thunder blasted through the skies in the windows behind them, blistering bolts of lightning slashing through the clouds as Rasheb’s queen planted herself in the center of the board. “But knight takes queen, bishop takes knight, pawn takes knight, bishop takes pawn, your king is forced to accept the sacrifice. If you don’t, I checkmate you because the pinned knight isn’t defending. With this line I get my queen back, I’ve kept the knight, you’re down a knight and pawn, you’re losing material and you’re being drawn into an attack that inevitably leads to checkmate.”

“What if the knight doesn’t take back?” Joran wrapped his dry, wrinkly fingers around the knight and picked it up. A gentle breeze followed his hand as he moved the knight away from its attack on the queen. The stallion settled comfortably behind a strong pawn chain and prepared to leap to its original destination, a crucial outpost square where its power would be nigh unstoppable, on the next few moves. “Pawn takes pawn, knight takes pawn, pawn attacks rook, rook drops back and attacks undefended bishop, bishop attacks knight and rook pawn, knight checks your king, and now you’re the one being checkmated.”

After a long pause, Rasheb knocked over his king and extended his hand, saying, “I’ll never beat the grandmasters with my level of play. The match is in one day.”

The sparkling, glittering ballroom was overflowing with guests on the night after the chess tournament. They wore suits with checkered patterns running across the cuffs; all of the guests had decorated their rings with designs and ornaments, following the motif of the chessmen that occupied the black and white squares. Some stood by the glistening fountain, drinking glasses of water and chattering amongst themselves; and others were in the dining hall, enjoying bites of food in between conversation, discussing opening lines, endgame tablebases and tactics. This was the Bold-Ballander Elite Grandmaster Invitational, a party hosted after the annual Tournament Finals where all of the best grandmasters–playing in the international chess organization founded by Ivan Bold and Wilson Ballander–gathered to celebrate the accomplishments that year.

In the foyer, guests were seated at tables, moving pieces across the board and discussing why they played what they did. Joran, dressed in an fulgurating teal suit, moved across the foyer, adjusting his tie, resting his hands in his pockets. He calmly observed a chess game for a minute, swinging his arms back and forth until he felt a light tap on his shoulder, and a hand rest on his arm. It was one of the grandmasters he and Rasheb faced in the tournament finals, Millaster Sterne.

Sterne complimented, “You are both strong players. Why are you here though?”

Rasheb, who was silently lingering behind Joran, wrapped in a scintillating crimson suit, with fabrics that billowed out in the wind like the feathers on a peacock, quickly blurted out, “We’re here to register to play in Bold-Ballander hosted and rated competitions.”

“Why, you’re not supposed to do that here.”

“We’re not?”

Sterne firmly replied, “No, no you’re not. You have to register online. If you give me a pencil and perhaps even a napkin, I’ll jot down the appropriate website for you to use. Of course, you can still play in unrated competitions, like the one you played against my friends and myself.” Sterne gestured towards empty chairs around an spruce chess set, inviting them to converse over a game.

“No,” said Joran. “But, if you’d direct us to where we can find Ivan Bold and Wilson Ballander, we’ll be more than happy.” Sweat dripped down Joran’s brow, as Sterne led Joran and Rasheb down a series of halls, decorated with an overwhelming opus, a painting of knights in pristine black armor galloping on horseback down a hill, followed by men in bishop’s attire; in the background there were two watchtowers, crafted out of brick–a stormy gray hue–looking out over the entire battlefield. Leading the charge were the king and queen, dressed in thick, furry black robes and veiled in a glorious, luminous yellow glow. The painting spanned the entire hallway, which Sterne, Rasheb and Joran took five minutes to cross.

Canto III

Circa the week before the tournament, there was, again, a storm brewing. Rain hammered against the murals of infinitely checkered plains, as the patter of rain and the howling thunder screamed over the chaos that ensued in the other apartments. By the windowsill, out was laid a chess board, constantly illuminated by the needles of lightning that pierced the skies, ripping apart the clouds and, in doing so, casting the chessmens’ shadows upon the checkered table, especially the knights.

There was a candle by the windowsill, one that continued to glow as the storm raged on. Trees crashed against the apartment building, the warm autumn leaves crinkled as they brushed against the window. There was chaos, and then there was a man named Joran, sitting by the windowsill with the chess set, peacefully watching the storm roll past him. As if it were a butterfly on his shoulder, the storm flew towards him, then departed.

Joran smiled at the passing storm, then returned to his observation of the chessboard. He opened up the chess book, flipped to a random page, and read the words aloud:

“Each player starts the game with two bishops, which move diagonally. One bishop controls the dark squares, and one controls the light squares. If, let’s suppose, the light squared bishops of both players were to be exchanged, half of the board–the 32 light squares–would theoretically be weakened.

It is also worth noting that in an endgame with a king and two bishops versus the king, the two bishops control each other’s weaknesses and together, shield each other from the king’s attack, therefore showing the value of a bishop pair.”

He closed the chess book and picked up the four treen bishops included with the chess set, quietly lifting them up to the flickering candlelight, and smiled gently, his eyes softening and his hands softly releasing the bishops onto their checkered home once more.

He flipped to the next page and continued reading:

“Each chessman had its flaws, its weaknesses, squares it could not travel to. But also, each chessman has its own inherent value, its own strengths and triumphs. Hopefully, you will, as I, Grandmaster Sterne have, realize the pulchritudinous nature of chess, and the harmony of your chessmen. Despite how different each chess piece is, and despite the staggering differences in each of their movements, they are what makes chess truly wonderful.”

It was in that lavish celebration, with the incandescent chandelier hovering over the tables, arranged carefully over the centerpiece, a spring of water constantly spewing from the stone fountain, into the pond below. Checkered tablecloths were arranged over these tables, and plates of hors d’oeuvres, placed gently onto the tablecloths, emitted a brilliant shine. Somewhere, in a secret room, past a hallway that seemingly reached into the moonlit horizon, behind closed doors, four men conversed over a chessboard.

One of the men was dressed in a suit, one dazzling and in a cerulean blue, a mysterious smile under the cowl of the night that became scarcely apparent by the candlelight. Whenever he went to move one of the erable chessmen, he leaned in slightly, his hand swiped the chessman off the board–a motion so quick, the chessman seemingly disappeared into the night and reappeared out of thin air.

Another one of the men wore a cerise suit and a blank expression, a face that masked his confidence in the outcome of the game.

One of the other two men picked up one of the chessmen–a brave stallion sitting in the corner of the board, awaiting its chance to jump into battle, and held it up, illuminating it with the combined light of the quietly glowing moon and flickering candlelight. One could hear the sound of his aggressive scraping of the torn-up felt that protected the ligneous bases of the embattled soldiers against the walnut chessboard, and one could almost taste the dust swept up from the old chessboard, floating in the air and settling on everyone’s shoulders. Following this was a scratchy symphony of pencils being sanded against thin leaves of paper, as all four men jotted down the novel move, knight to king’s fifth. It was an aggressive maneuver, placing the knight in the center of the board, met by a bishop’s attack, a figurine treen leaving the back rows and racing into the attack, bishop to queen’s fourth. It was a battle for the central outpost.

The man that just played forth the bishop, Rasheb Nevim, eyed the man in the bluish green suit sitting next to him–Joran; then, he eyed the men sitting in front of them both, Ivan Bold and Wilson Ballander.

Ivan wore a mustache and reddened, exhausted eyes, and a gaze over the chessboard so tired that it sometimes seemed like he was about to fall asleep. He said to Rasheb and Joran, “What do amateurs like you two want from super grandmasters like us?” asked Ivan, in a tired voice. “Did you go all the way out here just to play a game of chess with us?”

“We were told you could help us,” Joran grumbled, picking up the pawn and sliding it forward, into the glistening full shine of a star-speckled midnight. “Do you know a man by the name of Alan-Roy?”

A tinge of blue light and a splinter of pink light burst through his shades, almost shattering the lenses with the intense clashes of turquoise and blushing pink, as Rasheb sipped from a ceramic mug, sitting in a treen chair, admiring the ocean view. The foamy edges of the waves lingered on the spruce sands, then quickly receded into the ocean. This vision of a perfect life was interrupted by flashes of blazes, heated monsters enveloping the land, eviscerating the checkered tablecloths. Rasheb found himself running away from a furiously screaming inferno, as what once was the site of parties in checkered suits and dresses crumbled to the ground, and firetrucks pulled into the scene of the crime.

These firefighters–with a small glint of light bouncing off their silver badges, and the blistening warm hues reflecting on their visors–stepped out of the firetrucks and seemingly ran into the flames without pause.

Canto IV

The blurry black and white photograph laid there in front of him; the deep red, strong yellow undertones and violent, spewing oranges of the titanic monsters that enveloped the building muted by the camera that froze this memory. Joran and Rasheb and their lawyer, Mr. Wilhelm, sat there, not saying a word to the detectives investigating the fire that happened last night at the Bold-Ballander Elite Grandmaster Invitational.

Joran pulled up his sleeve and checked his watch, eyeing the ticking second hand. A tear of sweat rolled down his brow and his suit, soon followed by another tear, trickling down his tie. He caught the second tear with his hand. His eyes darted around the entire room. They moved from the coffee maker and the coffee trickling into the white mug; his eyes stopped at the flyers and papers pinned to a map of the city, and the annotations written on it with a black Expo marker; his eyes flew across the room to the man next to him, Rasheb Nevim, noticing the dim red shine of the sunset on his face; his eyes finally settled on his pocket, and his hands rested gently in the wrinkled folds of his suit.

He flipped the desk he, the lawyer and Rasheb were sitting behind–a desk stacked to the tiled ceilings with paperwork, pencils, pens, and memorabilia from one of the detective’s trips to Hawaii, revealing a white king grasped firmly in his hand. He flicked the white king in his hand, a silver blade extending from its base. This chessman was a saber in disguise, a retractable gleaming sword concealed by the guise of a rosewood patriarch. Joran whipped around and leapt into the air, his chessman-turned-sword slashing through a flurry of rapid, whistling bullets with a series of rapid twitches. He landed on the timber remains of the desk with his sword pointed against the detectives’ gunfire. There were several loud pops in the stale air of the interrogation room, and several bursts of wind as the ammo bounced off Joran’s sword.

Rasheb leapt up from behind the desk, a pistol in his hand. He unloaded half of his ammunition on the detectives while he and Joran dragged their lawyer–who bore a speechless expression–out of the room. Sirens went off throughout the entire police station, the deafening flashes of neon police sirens almost discernable by ear alone. Police officers closed in at all angles, men wearing golden badges and masking their reddened, sleepless eyes behind soulless, expressionless shades.

Joran flourished his saber, then brought it close to him, holding it under the glaring red lights of the police cars outside. Rasheb pointed his pistol at the officers; more and more of them, wearing the same shades, golden badges, and bulletproof jackets, stampeded into the office. He was cast in a brilliant glare, a hue of blue that screamed at the eyes of everyone that beheld it.

There was a symphony of gunshots, bullets whistling as they whirred, the screechy sound of a saber carving through rotten metal. The neon glare of sirens filled the halls. Joran leapt off the ground like a bird spreading its wings, moving like a crackling, splintering, crimson lightning bolt through the skies, his blade–with a chessman for a handle–cutting apart the barrels of handguns as a pair of scissors slick through a sheet of paper. The point of his blade was as sharp as the splinters of light cast down by the Moon that night.

Rasheb darted quickly ahead of him, knocking through the officers that got in the way. The loud clinking noise of badges hitting the floor was drowned out by the groans of people knocked out in the rooms behind them, crawling like zombies, trying to grab Rasheb’s knees with their frail hands. He leapt at the officer at the end of the hallway, trading blows. As Rasheb’s metal fist rose into the air, ready to strike one final blow; and Joran leapt behind him, ready to strike down with his longsword; thunder bellowed in the background, streaks of lightning–bolts of red and blue entangled in the clouds–shattering the horizon. There was a thrilling shriek; and red, orange and yellow bursts of heat charged towards them, sending everyone in that hallway hurling backwards. Joran, Rasheb, and Mr. Wilhelm flew out an emergency exit door.

Rasheb could feel the pavement against his drooping tongue, and his leg writhed, scraping against the concrete. He got to his knees, calling for Joran, for his lawyer, anybody. He whirled around and drew a swiss army knife from his pocket, twirling it around in his hand. He crept away from Joran and the lawyer, into a back alley. He listened to the sirens ring, the tumbling roar of the approaching fire trucks and the raindrops pattering against his jacket.

There was also someone else approaching, a figure shrouded in a blinding, crimson red light, one carrying a scythe and wearing a top hat. “You were never a great chess man, and you weren’t smart thinking you could infiltrate my chess invitational, sabotage the plans of sowing corruption into everything she loves. I turned Ivan Bold against her, I turned Winston Ballander against her, I turned Mr. Landarris against her, I turned you and Joran against her, and soon everyone and everything my wife loves will loathe her.

“There will be hell, Rasheb Nevim.”

“The only hell wrought here”–Rasheb whipped out a second saber, a dagger with serrated edges and oxidation present on the base of the blade, and pointed it to Alan-Roy’s neck–”will be wrought upon you.” Rasheb pounced; his image from a distance was a swarm of crimson needles harassing a frail, thin, fleshy man.

Rasheb’s swords locked against Alan-Roy’s scythe, then he slashed at the scythe, at Alan-Roy’s arms, and at his general direction with intense frustration, sweat dripping from his arms, down his face. Alan-Roy blocked a decisive strike with the bend of his scythe, then pinned Rasheb to the floor. He raised his scythe; then, with a vicious growl, he carved into Rasheb, digging out his metal innards, vocal assistance, translators, and the meaty, bloody remains of his skull and brains.

There were gaping holes in the fleshy sockets where Rasheb’s eyes once nestled, a beetle crawling into the crevice that was once Rasheb’s expanding and shrinking throat, and a spider descending from some rooftop and attaching itself to the struck out skin on Rasheb’s nose. Alan-Roy, realizing what he had done, dropped his scythe, lowered his hat and cried.

Joran arrived.

Canto V

There was a small tear rolling down Joran’s face, one drop of water slowly crawling down his face, splitting into several, smaller droplets, then absorbing into his moist, fragile cheek. He held Rasheb’s lifeless, mangled corpse in his arms, the blood from a tear on his head soaking his sleeve. He tried to get off his feet; he tried to seek help, but every time he got up, he crumpled back to his knees.

With each fall, he felt himself drowning in the blood of the friend he failed to save. His shoes became like anchors, keeping him to the ground, his pain only dragging him backwards with every step forward. He allowed the blood of the friend he let down to reach his neck, tasting the coppery sea of gushing crimson fluid as it swallowed him whole. His guilt swallowed him whole.

But then, the sea of blood dried away, and Joran was left with the body of the friend he held so near in his arms, and standing behind him was the man responsible, Alan-Roy, smeared in the same blood Joran was. Joran softly rolled Rasheb’s body onto the floor, then, with a trembling hand, a hand grasping a blood-soaked dagger–Rasheb’s dagger–got to his feet and shakily pointed it at Alan-Roy.

The memories flooded back. The two men tore at each others’ stomachs with knives, viscous, thick red blood splattering onto each other’s chests.

Knight takes on Queen’s Knight’s Fourth by Rasheb, taking a bishop, circa a week ago. Without the dark squared bishop, White’s army was severely weakened. The queens and rooks had been traded off, and the bishops were the only long range pieces. The bishops complemented each other, guarding important light and dark squares. Joran, playing as White, recaptured the knight and attempted to consolidate by covering the light squares with pawns; however, it wasn’t enough. With queens and rooks traded off, who could best control the light squares but the light squared bishop?

Joran leaned backwards, observing the position from afar. He had a passed pawn on the queenside, but Black’s light squared bishop blockaded the passed pawn, and both of Black’s bishops were controlling important squares, making it difficult to make a breakthrough in the blockade. White’s guardian of the light squares was gone, and now Joran’s position was being overrun by enemy pawns. He knocked over the king and extended his hand, resigning the game to Rasheb Nevim.

“You’ve got me, finally,” conceded Joran, with a sarcastic smirk. “In all seriousness, you put up a good fight.” Rasheb chuckled at him; then, with gentle motions, he moved the pieces back to their starting squares. Each chessman was softly placed onto its home, facing their corresponding piece of the other army all the way across the checkered battlefield, except for White’s king’s bishop, which for some reason had mysteriously disappeared during the game.

“Maybe I knocked it over while we were playing,” Joran muttered. He checked under the table, in the pockets of his suit, his own seat and the seats around him at the cafe, but White’s king’s bishop had mysteriously vanished into thin air. “An army is its soldiers, and now this army is incomplete.” He sighed and returned to his seat, burying his head into the palm of his hand.

Present day. There was a faint trail of bloody footsteps leading into the back alleyway. Behind a dumpster, freshly doused in sweat and tears, Alan-Roy blocked and parried each punch with a sluggish counterattack, striking Joran’s chest with a quick series of blows. He had a devilish grin on his face, signaling that this man, Alan Roy, had no sign of remorse, nor moral code to hold him back.

Unluckily for him, neither did Joran. Joran threw every punch without concern for where it landed, but threw them with quick succession and fueled himself using his resentment. He picked Alan-Roy up off the ground and launched him into the air, sending him hurtling into a swampy green dumpster bin. The shattering of bones into tiny pebbles was mortifying. Furthermore, the unfunny nature of the situation was not softened by a dumpster truck emptying out the contents of the dumpster bin–Alan-Roy included–into the back of the truck.

The truck–whose muddy olive hue matched that of the dumpster bin–shuttled away, the driver whistling as he backed out of the alleyway and continued his journey, collecting the disposables tossed out by him and other citizens throughout that month.

The dumpster truck, driven by a man named Darrel Badstrom, pulled into the landfill. The litter that spilled out of the wrinkly, torn plastic trash bags flew through the wind, turning the landfill into a polluted dystopia. The dumpster truck purged its innards onto the biggest mound of trash there, a monster of garbage that slowly crawled towards the clouds. There were action figures in pristine condition, without a single scratch or eroding plastic joint; paper, which didn’t belong in the recycling; candy wrappers with scents of saccharine strawberry flavors, strong minty aromas and tangy sour lemon; amongst the common napkin, moldy pizza slice and ditched report card, there was Alan-Roy, laying in the trash, his arms embracing a shred-up dog toy.

Darrel, holding a cigarette in one hand, threw Alan-Roy over his shoulder and got into his truck. He opened up the GPS system on his phone and plugged in the address of the nearest hospital, a muted bell noise ringing from the speakers when the route was mapped out.

Darrel had left Alan-Roy with his feet and legs in the passenger seat and the rest of his body slouched over into the aisle between Alan-Roy’s seat and his, not bothering to strap in the dumped over man’s seat belt as he swerved and steered down the road, plummeting past stunned drivers. Just as he was about to enter the driveway of the hospital, Darrel sharply steered away, a gasp sputtering from the engine as he instead entered an abandoned cargo crate. Darrel stepped out of the truck, slipping into a secret entrance and running down a set of ominous stairs, all while he lugged his boss on his shoulders.

Canto VI

Joran’s new sports car–a Voltage Model II with a glossy black finish and silver flames painted onto the fender–darted down the highway. The silver grills at the front of the car vomited smoke into the air as the car burst down the road, swerving out of the way of howling trucks and veering off collisions with roaring jeepneys. The sounds of gunfire came from all angles as Joran opened the sunroof of his car, unbuckled his seatbelt, pressed a hidden lever on the dashboard in his car and climbed onto the roof.

There were approximately five shooters wearing thick black jackets, glossy black shades and slicked back hair, leaning out of the windows of several saddened gray vans, Joran counted. They wore hockey masks and had bullets strapped to the bandoliers on their chests, and each shooter carried an assault rifle and a handgun.

Joran was outnumbered, but he didn’t pay attention to the statistics right now. He whipped out a pistol, fired several bullets and ducked back into the car, which was jolting right and left during the entire encounter. He reloaded his pistol while the shooters swarmed his car like ants swarming their prey.

Just ahead there was a construction site–a pit that ran several hundred feet into the ground, marked off by traffic cones. This was something the autopilot on the VMII couldn’t detect, and if Joran didn’t act fast, he knew he’d end up in a ditch with no way out. Joran ducked from the cries of bullets zipping through the skies and grabbed the steering wheel. The VMII momentarily jolted to the right, then steered back to the left, then leapt over the ravine.

Joran sighed a sense of relief as the cars chasing him halted by the edge of the pit, then sped down the last stretch of road and into the rundown parking lot of Samson-Elmers Medical Center, checked into the hospital and walked into one of the emergency rooms. Laying in the hospital bed, hooked to an IV bag, a heart monitor, and seemingly breathing through the plastic mask attached to his face was Rasheb Nevim. Apart from his mouth, nose and hands, he was completely and sloppily layered in bandages, as if the doctors had given up on him and felt there was no chance of his survival, only smothering him in bandages to give passerbys the illusion that they were helping this broken man

Joran walked into the room and felt Rasheb’s hand, which felt as smooth and delicate as they were when he first met him.

The doctor entered the room and explained how the artificial skin regeneration surgery at the hospital functioned. “We sent samples of his skin cells to a nearby lab, and they were able to send us back those same cells with the property to regenerate and grow. Your friend should be out with a fresh set of skin in no time, Mr. Joran.”

Joran reached out and held his friend’s hand. He listened to the heart monitor and its constant carol of beeps: a sign of hope. He listened to the sound of nurses and doctors rushing patients around and a code red being called in one of the rooms.

Joran said to the doctor, “One of the other doctors told me that they can’t replace his eyes. Hasn’t anyone donated their eyes to this hospital?”

“There weren’t any donors in this hospital or the others nearby, Mr. Joran–”

Joran suddenly interrupted him, “Then let me donate both of mine.”

“We can’t do that, Mr. Joran. There’s lots of paperwork and besides, Rasheb doesn’t have that much time.”

Joran shot up from his seat, clenching his fist. He felt a sense of rage, but he didn’t know who to direct it against. He felt this sudden wave of anger wash over him as he burst from his chair and marched over to the doctor, who was hurryingly backing away. Joran stopped before he had the doctor cornered against the wall, then apologized and walked to his seat. “What do you mean he doesn’t have that much time?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Joran,” replied the doctor, walking over to Joran and placing his hand on Joran’s arm. “Rasheb has stage 4 heart cancer. We did a scan testing for the disease a while back and the results came back positive. I hate to be the bearer of bad news–”

Joran slammed the doctor against the wall and punched him in the face. He punched the doctor in the face again, and again, and again until his nose was bloody and he was panting. “I… I’m so sorry, doc,” he muttered, dropping to his knees. “I don’t know what got into me.”

The doctor coughed up blood, called out security, and cried out, “He has a week to live at most. I suggest you make the most out of the time you have with him.”

Joran sat under the bright glimmer of the Sun, feeling the radiant yellow beams of light glowing onto his face as he sat on the checkered picnic blanket, a roll-up chessboard with plastic pieces sitting between him and Rasheb. Rasheb had embarked on a grueling battle–one spanning three long, tormenting months against the vicious disease he feared of contracting for so long.

He was far from being victorious in his battle against cancer, but he had struggled through the weeks of contorting, squirming in a hospital bed while doctors and nurses had to hold him down. He suffered, but he also fought.

At that moment, Rasheb met Joran with a soft smile across lips, then aggressively played his knight on the King’s Knight’s First square to the King’s Bishop’s Third, a plastic stallion galloping from its starting square into the fight for Black’s pinned queen’s bishop.

It was the night of Joran’s visit at the hospital, and it was very peculiarly stormy that one night. The clouds thundered in the skies. Lightning slashed apart the road, unsettling resting pebbles and moles from the ground. The background behind Joran was the deep blue midnight sky, and Joran felt strangely hopeful as he reflected whilst waiting for the bus at the bus stop.

Something about the calm allowed him to clear his mind and see things more clearly, at least for that moment under the bus stop.

Chapter VII

Later after Joran’s hospital visit, Rasheb Nevim writhed in his hospital bed, a needle of pain running up his legs, into his spine. He attempted to flip onto his side as his doctor advised him, but attempting to do so only made the pain worse. There was a streak of red light running across his eyes, blinding him. He felt Joran’s hand run across his arm, but he couldn’t speak nor move. He heard his own heart monitor let out a series of computer-like bleeps. After the nurses rushed into the room and began to inject all sorts of medicines and extract blood from his feet and hands, he felt his body settle and return into a state of comatose.

Rasheb Nevim stepped off his red motorcycle and shuffled into a dark alleyway. He slowly crept over a sidewalk of tin soda cans and pushed open a small door obscured by rat infested cardboard boxes and discarded scrap metal–the entire scene around the door was vandalized with sharp graffiti letters and symbols. Behind the wooden door, Rasheb could hear the clashes of cymbals, the loud reverberation of a metal guitar and a thrilling shriek of exhilaration.

When he entered, his senses were completely overwhelmed. Neon red strobe lights flashed on and off in his face, and a glowing blue searchlight illuminated the concert. In the basement-sized underground rock-out, hundreds of people flooded in and out, and Rasheb found himself engulfed, almost tempted to party along. A shrill, vibrant screech from the guitar sent the audience cheering. But Rasheb wasn’t here for the music, as much as he found it exhilarating,

He snuck past the band members, running into the backstage area. Compared to the front stage and the space below, this area had less strobe lights, illuminated only by the natural glow of the Moon. He dug through the band’s spare sound equipment–faulty speakers, spare microphones, clunky headphones with big ear muffs–until he found what he had came here for: a shiny black briefcase that glistened under the moonlight with the band’s name–Silver Riot–etched onto the front of the briefcase using real silver.

He snuck back into the crowd, just in time to catch the explosive clash of cymbals, bass drums, hi-hats, guitars and the loud shriek from the lead singer that ended out the show. The thunderous roar from the entire audience’s applause almost outmatched the deafening, impressive drumming from the band.

And while Rasheb had infiltrated the Silver Riot concert, Joran crept through the aisles of slot machines at the casinos, through the tables full of card dealers and past all sorts of casino games. The entire building was cast in an unnatural neon blue light, shrouding Joran whilst he crept into the office of the fast asleep casino manager and started digging through his things.

Joran grabbed what he needed, glanced over the papers, darted out of the casino and met Rasheb in the kitchen of the new apartment, who was setting up the chess board in anticipation of Joran’s return.

“So what do we know?” asked Rasheb. “How deep does Alan-Roy’s control run, and what are his plans to begin with?” He moved a White pawn to the King’s fourth.

“From what I saw in the files that Alan-Roy sent to his distributors, he’s stealing valuable elephant trinkets from wealthy businesspeople.” Joran exercised a quiet-seeming move–Pawn to Queen’s Bishops Third–to which Rasheb responded with his queen pawn marching into the center; Joran would attack the center if Rasheb tried to control it fully with two pawns. “The question is, he’s not selling these trinkets to anybody; what is he doing with them?”

“He’s investing, saving them up, obviously.” Rasheb advanced his White pawn to the Queen’s Fourth, and Joran did the same, attacking the king pawn. The game continued with Rasheb slamming his queen knight onto the Queen’s Bishop’s Third square, and a trade of pawns ensuing, and eventually, a trade of the Black’s queen bishop for the White’s king bishop. “What do you think he’s doing?”

The winds howled outside, rain pattering against the road, lightning slashing apart the thick clouds. A sleek, black race car drifted down the road, nimbly darting between the gray Hyundai Santa Fes and gray Toyota Highlanders. It had a noisy engine sound, a brilliant roar that competed with the shrieks of the wind and the bellowing thunder.

The black race car was trailing a sloppier limousine, the chauffeur steering it left and right, swerving out of the way of incoming oil trucks and deer crossing the road. The race car chased the limousine in and out of highways, the fiery sounds of engines soon outscreaming the shrieks of thunder.

Joran leapt out of the race car–his figure like a shadow moving through the night sky–and he landed on the roof of the limousine. A bolt of lightning illuminated his figure as he punched in the skylight. A brawl ensued in the limousine, men in white uniforms being thrown against the windows, the glass windows splintering upon impact with their thick skulls.

The limousine crashed into the side of the road, and Luciana Francesci–wearing a white dress with swirls of red and blue–climbed out of the limousine with Joran thrown around her shoulder. She wiped a drop of blood off her chin, the viscous red fluid smearing across her lips, then absorbing.

Luciana Francesci got to her feet and walked calmly towards the crashed limousine. She reached into her pocket and held out metal lighter, one the size of her thumb. She ignited it and threw it into the engine of the limousine, then walked away. She smiled to herself as the limousine erupted into glorious displays of red, orange and yellow hues, warm lights fighting each other to grasp at the cold, dark blue skies.

She could hear the deafening sirens of police cars and fire trucks speeding towards her, but she didn’t care. She stood by the blistering, gory remains of the limousine as they arrived, and watched as the firefighters brushed by her to try and save the burning bodies inside. She felt joy watching the limousine burn, and watching the firefighters struggle to pull the charred, wrinkled flesh and crumbling bones out of the fire gave her immense happiness. As the police officers stepped out to arrest her, though, she disappeared into the darkness of the night.

Chapter VIII

The crimson night sky was something seldom seen, but tonight the horizon was bleeding, and dark red thunder clouds rolled over the skies, preparing to unleash a fury of hail and storm onto the city. That night, Rasheb Nevim donned a black motorcycle helmet, motorcycle jacket and black gloves. He took to the streets, his motorcycle zipping loudly down a quiet highway. The flickering street lights above him bounced off his visor, onto the destination in front of him.

His crimson bike, glistening brilliantly even in the dark night, sped down a trail of dust and parked in a shack. He got down from the motorcycle and wiped off the tears of rain that trickled down his helmet, rolling down his jacket. He gave a soft sigh, checked the address on his phone and walked towards the big, gloomy manor that had been abandoned long ago, and knocked on the door.

Luciana Francesci responded, and Rasheb pushed by her. He stormed into the manor, pulling a flashlight out of his jacket pocket and turning it on. The beam from the light illuminated the figure of a man tied to a chair. This man wore a suit, had rough hair and duct tape wrapped around his mouth.

It was Joran, who Luciana only promised to release if Rasheb had come to this exact address. Luciana stipulated that if Rasheb came with authorities, she would do unspeakable crimes that night, and Rasheb didn’t want that, so he came alone.

Rasheb said, “I’m here. What do you want?”

“It’s about what you want,” said Luciana, speaking in an insistent tone. “I’m here to grant your wish, to tell you everything you want to know.” She pulled out a dagger from her pocket. “Knowledge, of course, comes with a price.” She sliced the duct tape on Joran’s mouth into pieces, the silver strands of adhesive material still sticking to her blade.

She quickly scraped the remaining duct tape off her blade. “I need one hundred thousand dollars.”

Rasheb silently glanced around the room they were in, a dining hall illuminated only by candlelight. There was an unromantic aura being emanated by the candlelight, something unusual. Rasheb muttered, “What for?”

“Witness protection. I was a witness to my husband’s crimes.” Rasheb scratched his chin, and when Luciana noticed this, she gave a cocky cackle. “You don’t understand, do you? Kidnapping Joran was the only way I could get you to come here.

“My husband’s a pissy man, and nobody would listen to me. He killed dozens of people to hide his shady dealings, and blamed me for it when he was finally exposed. If I didn’t do this, how would I get you to listen?”

“I’m listening now,” Rasheb said, softly gesturing towards Joran. “Now let my friend go. I’ll pay you a hundred grand, and you can tell me what you know.”

Luciana gazed at Rasheb Nevim, whose curious emotion–masked by his visor–was only conveyed by how he tilted his head ever so slightly whilst awaiting a response. Then, she gazed at her own reflection, one cast subtly in a puddle of blood at her feet. Relenting, she cut Joran free from the corroding fold-up chair he was bound to, his body falling into her arms.

Circa the week after. Joran walked into the dimly lit room and sat down on a small wooden armchair by the dusty glass window. He brushed some cobwebs off his black suit and rifled through his suit pocket until he found a small swiss army knife. He whipped the handle around in his hands until the blade appeared.

Then, with tears running down his face and a faint noise of hesitation–trembling in his breath–he traced the sharp edge of the blade down the veins of his hands and ran the blade up his arms, the sharp, metallic scent of blood filling his nostrils. Thick, viscous red blood ran down his arms.

He laid down on the bed in his apartment, and pulled out a folded-up sheet of paper and a pencil. Drowning in his own tears, he unfolded the paper and began scribbling down words. It was his suicide note, one he kept in his briefcase behind all of his equipment. Drops of blood spilled onto the paper, red blots smearing over the black ink.

Joran scribbled down the last few words he had on his mind: “I never wanted to be remembered. I just wanted to be understood.” He folded the piece of paper back up and slipped it into an envelope, and reached for the blade again.

His own blood trickled onto the carpet like raindrops on rooftops as he held the swiss army knife to his throat. He was ready to end it all with a swift, deadly slice to his lungs, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He tried to ignore the goodness in life, but his mind was flooded with beautiful and lasting memories of genuine friendships, happy thoughts of those he cared for deeply, and the worry he had for what would happen to those he left behind.

When he remembered this, he set down the swiss army knife and called his friend, Rasheb Nevim, who arrived in an hour, also letting out a whimpering, ugly cry. He was drenched in the blue moonlight, and drowning in the blue sadness that consumed them both. There was a moment of sadness as they sat next to each other, floating in their own minds, but afterwards, a strange sense of peace.

Rasheb–whose face was washed over with a flood of tears–said, “I don’t know if I’ve expressed this enough.” He straightened himself, attempting to stay composed, but maintaining his decorum was difficult; he was washed in tears. “Maybe I haven’t expressed this enough, considering the situation, but… I deeply care about you… more than you could ever know.”

Rain water pummeled the roof slates, splattering onto the thick, weaving grass and the pebble-swatched driveway below; the blue night skies were shrouded in the eeriness of gray storm clouds. Luciana sat by the window, drinking a cup of black coffee and typing onto the computer, files spread across the table. She heard a sudden thump on the rooftops, and went outside to see what was going on.

Canto IX

There was a rain shower pouring outside of this tiny house’s window, raindrops pattering onto the roof tiles. Splinters of the dark blue sky parted the clouds, giving way for the Moon’s gleaming light to shine through. The glistening moon’s blue light shone onto her face as she crept about the property. She was Dorothy Hoffs, and she had come to stop whatever plans Luciana had.

She reached into her jacket and whipped out two blades, small sabers with serrated edges. She ran across the property with these silver daggers, quietly cutting through greenery and brush to see what Luciana was doing. A saber of lightning cut through the clouds, drawing Luciana’s attention away from the computer, and giving Dorothy enough time to look at her computer through the watery, teary window.

Dorothy climbed up to the windowsill on the second story and peered into the office in the house, and on the small, blurry computer screen she saw all of the answers she needed.

She whipped around, however, when she heard a sound behind her. It was Joran; he was dressed in a black suit, black jeans and black shoes, and he donned a frowning white theater mask and a pistol.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” said Dorothy Hoffs. “Joran, step away from the window.”

Joran turned around and said something in an eerie voice, a monotonous, gloomy grumble, “It’s too late.” Joran lunged at Dorothy, his suit shimmering in the moonlight. Dorothy grabbed Joran by the tie and flipped him over her, sending him crashing into bushes, entangled in thorns and sticks and vines and autumn brown leaves.

Joran wriggled back out, clenched his fist and attempted to throw a hard punch to her nose with his clenched fist, but Dorothy simply tilted her head and the punch flew past her. She picked Joran up, lifted him into the air, and threw him onto the ground. His mask fell off and he looked at her with bloodshot eyes and a menacing smile. It was a wide, wicked smile that showed his crooked, rotting teeth. Foliage grew in the gutters of his mouth, and his lips had grown a thick, brown crust.

This was not the Joran everyone knew: a handsome, charming spy. This was a man that had gone corrupt, one that lost all humanity because of the torture he was subjected to. He had scars running down his arms, cuts that were made to resemble letters, and letters that formed the words: “I’M NOT WHO I ONCE WAS; PROPERTY OF LUCIANA FRANCESCI.”

“Oh no,” muttered Dorothy, shaking her head. “Joran, what have they done?”

On that computer screen Dorothy read earlier were the words: “CORRUPTION CONTINGENCY COMPLETE” She understood everything now—Joran’s mind was being corrupted, his thoughts slowly being overrun by something mechanical, an external factor intruding on his thoughts, robotic mind meshing with brain as he seetthed and crumpled to his knees.

The small trinket elephants–the heart of this mystery that continually prompted Joran’s and Rasheb’s sleuthing for answers–arrived promptly and silently at specific, nondescript doorsteps. This scheme was confusing to the drivers hauling these tchotchkes around and dropping them off at very specific doorsteps, but they didn’t care. They were here to do a job, and that job was to deliver the elephant trinkets to certain addresses. They didn’t care to connect the dots, because they were taught that what was happening behind the scenes was none of their business.

After the big navy blue Amazon vans pulled up to the destinations, the delivery drivers stepped out and made their way into the back of the van. Heavy brown cardboard boxes that contained the valuable elephant trinkets were dropped off at the doorsteps of rich billionaires, politicians, shareholders and other wealthy people. When these billionaires opened the box, they were each greeted by the elephant trinket, a theater mask, a knife and a note that said: “Put on the mask.”

In dozens of mansions and villas across the country, people were putting on masks with sometimes blank, sometimes frightened, or sometimes sadistically smiling expressions. They dropped to the floor, then rose again. Their bloodshot eyes peeked through eyes holes in their masks, and they had cuts into their arms which read, “I’M NOT WHO I ONCE WAS. PROPERTY OF LUCIANA FRANCESCI.” Then, they walked outside and gathered at the end of a mountain.

Rasheb Nevim, meanwhile, was trailing Joran as he made his way to the edge of the cliff with the other seemingly possessed people. He didn’t understand how dozens of people from across the country gathered at this exact cliff to seemingly commit suicide, but he understood that it had something to do with the masks. He cried for his friend; he was approaching the highest point of that cliff which everyone was making their way towards, wailing for Joran, but his screams fell on deaf ears.

Joran, like these others, were making their way up the cliff with no intent to go back down,

He was the first to the very top, and just as he was about to jump, Rasheb cried, “Get down! All of you!” He rushed to the top as fast as he could, sweat rushing down the front and the sleeves of his red jacket. You don’t need to do this!” He used his body as a barricade, trying to gently push away the twenty six or so people trying to end their lives on the hill. “Listen to my voice!

“You don’t need to end your lives!” Joran–a common man turned secret agent–and all of these wealthy people gathered on the cliffside and inches away from leaping to their brainwashed deaths, turned to look at Rasheb. They wore ragged suits and tattered shirts and pants, and weathered loafers.

Rasheb belllowed, “I can see the cuts on your arms–this must be because of those masks.” His eyes frantically darting and his mind racing with thoughts, he realized the one factor all of these people had in common: at one point or another, all of them backstabbed Luciana Francesci. “You need to snap out of this trance! You need to fight back! Don’t let the masks prey on your mind!”

Suddenly, the crowd of spies, politicians, CEOs, investors, and entrepreneurs snapped out of the deadly trance, and all looked at each other with confusion. Only Joran seemed to understand what was going on, and he ran over to Rasheb; Joran and Rasheb hugged each other on the cliff, and they were the only two remaining as the twenty five wealthy folks walked away with their heads in their phones, calling for limousines and private jets to take them back home.

Canto X

There was a small, silent noise echoing through the cramped corridors, as Joran and Rasheb fought a dual-wielding Ivan Bold, drawing his breath and his energy. Rasheb leapt in from an angle, delivering a blow through his side using the longsword mechanically attached to where his hand was. This was not enough to bring Ivan Bold down.

Joran whipped out a sword as well, one of many from his collection of blades with eccentric designs. This one was a retractable saber with the hilt disguised as a pin, and the pin was shaped like a red rose. He leapt after Rasheb, swiping violently at one of Ivan’s swords.

Together, the two had pushed Ivan through the claustrophobic halls of his own home and into a room with a TV, a leather sofa that acted as an archive of wasted coffee, chips and other food items that were ignored by those who once carried them, lost change, retainers and paintings strung up on the walls, only held by poorly applied nails.

Joran’s sword cut through the damp air of the living room, one that smelled of expired mayo and onions. Ivan leapt out of the way, then stumbled towards the couch. He dropped both swords, grabbed a cushion off the sofa and he threw it as hard as he could, hoping to knock Joran into his own soft, pillowy grave. But, Joran stood tall and sliced the couch cushion apart with his blade dressed in roses.

Though Ivan knew that he had no way of outfighting them, he still kept trying to put up a fight. At first, the rending of his blades were fluid, each movement like a ballerina pirouetting across the stage. The usage of objects around him as throwable ammunition was only one example of his quick thinking. However, as the fight went on, he quickly found himself running out of options, and he tripped on the white aglets of his shoelaces and fell over a dark brown coffee table with a chess board and its army once neatly arranged, now knocked over. A white and black king rolled towards a pair of crimson sneakers and shiny black shoes made of dyed alligator skin; the rest of the chessmen in the set were scattered across the floor, and the chess board itself had shattered.

Rasheb and Joran closed in like vultures on their fallen prey, stepping over the patriarchs and their hand-carved crowns.

Rasheb said, “Alright, Ivan. Tell us where Luciana’s run off to and we’ll go easy on you.”

“I won’t say a word,” Ivan cried, attempting one last time to desperately spar against the two men. One of his swords had flown across the room during the fight, shattering into a million pieces behind a large, moldy green cabinet, and the other was still wrapped in his prickly, dry fingers. “I won’t say anything… I can’t betray her!”

He dropped the other sword, his face covered in a watery stream of clear, sparkling tears. His body, a frail, fragile, withering mess with a maze of deep blue veins running up his arms, across his chest and down his ankles, and his eyes were a stinging, sharp red. He was tortured, perhaps by the same devices used to torture Joran.

The world around him started to drown in gloomy, lifeless, monochromatic grays. The colorful coffee shop across the corner from Joran’s apartment began to turn into a withering, lifeless and desolate wasteland. Eventually, the place was reduced to a hollowed out cube of concrete, and the only life that came upon the cube of concrete wrapped in yellow caution tape and held together by steel support beams were the rats that crawled in and out, as well as the vandals.

Joran walked past the coffee shop and towards the old museum, once a small establishment bustling with people curious to know about the city’s history. Now, it was a place where addicts whose lives were torn apart went to smoke crack. The big displays which that sat behind glass windows–the displays that told stories of historical parades done to raise money for war efforts and the skirmishes and ambushes that happened on the outskirts of town–were ravaged, and the windows that once shielded them were now the dozens of glass blades littering the sidewalk.

As he walked through those wrecked city streets, a ringing noise filled his mind. This screechy, vibrant ringing grew, and it wouldn’t quiet down no matter how much he tried to get it to go away. Following the screechy, tinnitus-like ringing was a beam of white light, one as brilliant as a cherubim’s glow. Joran fell to his knees as pain jolted through his body, his arms growing weak and the bones in his knees collapsing in on themselves.

The deathly irritating screech in his ear earlier multiplied, and now he also heard the Emergency Alert System go off on his phone. As the pain subsided, he got to his feet and checked his phone, the lock screen now filled with unanswered messages and phone calls. He looked around him; the streets were covered in dead bodies. The stomachs of these corpses were emptied out, and their brains were carved into, like a spoon had dug into a tin of strawberry ice cream, and the tin was drizzled in cranberry jam. Their hands were still extended, reaching out to some imagined help that would come and save them from their peril.i

Some of them had bludgeoned each other up and stabbed each other to death using rolling pins and kitchen knives stolen from pastry shops, while another had seemingly taken a rake from a gardening supply store and raked out his friend’s face, bloody bits of skull gushing out like candy from a piñata at a child’s birthday party.

Joran said, “W–what’s going on?”

Rasheb walked up towards him, rested his bloody hand on Joran’s shoulder and said, “It’s Alan Roy and Luciana. They’re trying to provoke us into facing them.”

“How do you know?”

“Why else would they do this? The question is, how are they able to send these noisy sound frequencies that get people to commit such violent actions en masse?”

That night, the city mayor went on the TV to give a speech, accompanied by blurred out images of the gruesome casualties. “What happened in the city today was tragic, and our thoughts go to the families of those killed in the seemingly sudden mass-slaughtering. On a bright and sunny day such as today, one would not think that extreme violence would be the first thing on people’s minds, but unfortunately it is.”

Joran watched the mayor speak; his strong, commanding figure and resilient voice was almost enough to put his anxieties to rest.

The mayor continued, “We worked with the police to find out what happened, and we believe that this unfortunate incident was a coordinated effort between all of the victims involved, who were secretly members of a mafia gang. The leader of this mafia has been arrested. If your child, parent, relative or friend was a part of this, I’m terribly sorry. While they may have lived secret lives as criminals, I’m sure you never had to see that part of them, and I’m sure you saw them much differently than how they saw themselves.

“My father always said that people could be redeemed, and unfortunately we’ll never get to see the folks that died in this incident redeem themselves. May the Lord guide our city in navigating the tremendous feelings of grief, and may He bless us throughout the process of healing and moving on. Good night, everyone.”

Canto XI

Circa the next day. Pixels blazed, flashing into Rasheb Nevim’s eyes, as the image of cloths being flown high as the American Flag, banners of rainbow, pink and blue being strewn across small neighborhood stores that were crammed between oil factories and office buildings, streaks coloring a muted world, giving the silenced a voice to speak. Rasheb Nevim was enveloped into that world, watching a blurry parade of rainbow balloons drifting through the gray industrial roads, running by windows, those atop floats waving at the onlookers, a crowd of humans with identities freed and their allies. Sparks of caring pride filled the air, an invisible flame that kept everything alive.

It was a moving image on a television screen where gender hurt and judgment had no home, a stirring swirl of fluorescent colors and inclusivity. It was where Rasheb Nevim wanted to be, a fantasy barely out of reach, a thirty minute motorcycle ride to freedom, a way out from the gray dimness that was transphobic laws and bigoted minds.

“It’s beautiful,” Rasheb muttered, a tear slowly rolling down his face, a charred crimson glove reaching towards the screen. “It’s so, so beautiful.” It was a dream to live for, a motivation to persevere and see his aspirations come to fruition.

Joran walked down the steps, through the grungy hallway and out of his apartment, making sure to lock the gate with the keys before he headed down Garrainer Avenue, heading past the Blue Gala building and generally keeping to himself. He felt waves of nausea rush over him when he walked past that building, compounding terrible emotions and memories entering his mind as he saw the neon blue sign glaring down onto the sidewalk from high above. He remembered a time when he was captured off the backstreets, when he was depressed and lonely, a shadow of his former secret agent self.

He was over that now, at least that’s what he thought to himself. But at the time, he was a walking coagulation skin, bones and a dust-gathering spirit. He was duct taped to a wall like it was some sort of prank, and he was interviewed by a mysterious being, a shrewd man with the turning, winding cogs of a corrupted machine, a human without humanity, a person whose motivations only fueled himself. He was Alan Roy, and he and Luciana had tortured Joran to no end.

Joran remembered this today, and he frowned. Two people caused an entire town to massacre each other, brutally maiming and killing each other without hesitation. As he passed the coffee shop–that specific floor and the floors above it being reconstructed into a billionaire’s lounge–he wondered on every one Luciana’s and Alan’s intentions for all of this.

There was a fuzzy memory floating around in his head, members of the The Superpeople droning over his body, Rasheb Nevim worryingly bent over him and Rasheb’s crimson motorcycle helmet gleaming even from across the room, a dwarf wearing a gnome hat standing in the corner of the room, a woman wearing yellow and black striped leotard, a man wearing muted blues and a yellow insignia on his superhero armor looking over him as he woke up.

“What are you doing here?” asked Joran.

“You got knocked out in a fight with Luciana Francesci,” Everaine replied, Ezio sighing in relief behind her. “You were injured in a fight with the superpowered mafia villain Queen Boss, and we had to bring you to the ER to get surgery. You’re lucky to make it out of there alive. The bad news is, we don’t think you’re still physically fit enough to fight for the team.”

Everaine was correct; Joran was sixty nine years old (turning seventy next year) and he was already growing gray hairs. He served as a Marine Commando (MARCOS) in India, before working as a spy for several private companies, then returning to India to serve out counterterrorism missions for the FBI. The next events were mere blurry recollections, but he did remember strolling out of the hospital with his head tilted down, his eyes squeezed shut to prevent a single tear from breaking through and shattering on his fresh Versace suit, and his hands clenched into fists, subtly sobbing as he walked, only stopping when he bumped into a gang of figures with stubbles and a symbol on their jackets.

Joran backed away, his cuffs bracing his face, his slender body trembling as an array of burly men dragged him into an alleyway and kicked him in the face. As he was being beaten down, he saw a pin one of the men’s lapels, a shiny emblem, the same one he saw on Alan Roy’s suit when they first met

Joran remembered this tiny, seemingly insignificant detail today, and deduced that the reason why Luciana and Alan Roy were after him was because he interfered in the largest criminal operation in the history of the United States.

He’d seen this logo before, on a backlot of ragged streets behind the Blue Gala building, He was certain that this was Luciana’s base of operations; he imagined their latest being drawn out onto blueprints, evidence boards being laid out everywhere with pins and strings denoting connections, sticky notes and print-outs of satellite images trying to pinpoint his location.

He secretly enjoyed the idea that he was being watched–it meant that they would try and come after him, and he would be ready. Joran walked down the streets, thinking to himself, his hands in front of him and fidgeting quietly. He passed the coffee shop. “If they want me, they can come and get me.”

Rasheb Nevim also floated in his memories, a man more than who he perceived himself to be, more than a blurry red silhouette in other people’s minds. Maybe Luciana and Alan Roy were chasing him purely because of him breaking up with Luciana; he didn’t know, but he wanted to keep his Guy Red safe.

Joran pulled out his phone and entered a query into Google, scrolling through the results before a flashy video advertisement for refrigerators beamed onto his face, temporarily disorienting him and causing passersby to look peek at his phone with confused faces. He closed the ad and tapped a button on the screen, then stuffed his phone back into his pocket and walked along. Thinking about his next moves, he couldn’t help but smile.

Epilogue

Suddenly, she had a bodyguard. She knew this because when she walked towards Alan Roy’s and Luciana’s hideout, someone stepped in front of her.

It was a man with burly arms and legs, and a sleeveless black shirt trickling with sweat, black shorts and black boots, a man ready to stop her but not ready enough to stop her, muttering, “You can’t go in here, Guy Red.”

Reisha Nevim–formerly Rasheb Nevim–adjusted her motorcycle jacket, a glistening crimson prize he earned at a derby in Idaho: She removed her motorcycle helmet and looked the guard in the eyes. “It’s Lady Scarlet, and let me through.” She heard a rumbling in the background, and saw–through a window–Joran being thrown across the room like a shuttlecock, flying against the tinted glass window and slumping against the wall.

The guard stepped aside, wiping his brow, and Lady Scarlet entered the fray, wearing crimson boots, tights and a crimson skirt, crashing in on her red motorcycle. Her entire attire above the waist was scarlet, from a thick motorcycle jacket to a pair of knuckles and a slimmer helmet that had a fake mohawk running from the front to the back. This wasn’t Guy Red; this was Lady Scarlet.

She ran up to one of the thugs–a man wearing a white tee, white shirt and white shoes tinted neon red under the glaring scarlet shades of the ceiling lamps–and punched him in the face with her gloves. As a group of cronies ran up to her, her precise fighting shuttled them away in an intense blue of reds. She jabbed one in the stomach, punched another, kicked another crook to the floor, was kicked to the floor herself and got to her feet, an explosive moving red light filling the room.

She took off her glove and leapt off the walls, her mohawk flying. Beneath the glove was a knife grafted to her arm, and that knife nearly slashed apart a foe’s neck, until a blast of blue light sent everyone backwards and Joran entered the fold, running after Luciana, leaving Lady Scarlet to fight Alan Roy.

Lady Scarlet rushed at Alan Roy, crying, “What the hell did you do?” She punched Alan Roy in the face and kicked him in between his legs, the metal platelet on her knee sending pain up his groin. “What the hell did you and Luciana do?”

“Luciana?” scoffed Alan Roy. “She was merely someone to take the fall in this convoluted scheme! By golly, this entire story is convoluted, Guy Red!” Alan Roy punched Lady Scarlet; but, she dodged the attack, and Alan Roy instead hit a wall.

“It’s Lady Scarlet, and you’re a monster!” Lady Scarlet yelled, striking him in the face with her knife hand and kicking him in the chest, sending him backwards and breathless. She had him pinned to the wall, and she was absolutely ready to unleash upon him her pent up anger, her rage, her fury until she was stopped by Everaine Stinger, and the police entered the scene.

“Alright, you won,” said Everaine. “Let the police handle this, Lady Scarlet.” Lady Scarlet–La Scar–crumpled into Everaine’s arms, breaking down into tears. “Everything’s going to be alright, La Scar. Everything’s going to be alright.”

Lady Scarlet reached under her helmet, wiped her tears and got onto her motorcycle, looking at the scene of the brawl one last time before zipping off into the distance.

Training day–no time for chess. Lady Scarlet threw her fist back and shuttled it forward, jamming it into Joran’s face. Joran ducked from her attack, then swung forward with his own punch, knocking Lady Scarlet back, sending her stumbling into a stack of boxes, burying herself in cardboard.

She cleared away the wreckage, got to her feet and muttered, “Really, why did you need to hire a bodyguard to follow me around?”

Joran replanted his feet against the ground, parting away the black dreads running down his face, tucking them behind his collar. “I was just worried about you–there’s nothing more to it than that.” He chuckled a little, causing Lady Scarlet to squint at him from under her visor. “Sorry, I was just thinking of something.”

Lady Scarlet pounced at him, gifting his chin a clenched fist and drawing her leg around to kick him in the side, knocking him to the ground. Joran’s nose was bleeding, and Lady Scarlet could taste the blood on her tongue, but neither cared. “You know I can handle myself.”

“I know,” said Joran, flailing as he regained his balance. “I just care about you as a friend. That’s all I’m saying.” He wiped a drooling, salivating puddle of blood from his face using his sleeve. “Everaine and I were talking, and she wants you and me to rejoin The Superpeople–the new roster includes you, me, Everaine, the dragon, the elf, and… oh my God, it’s the worst name on the line up.”

“What is it?”

Joran handed her the invitation, a letter written with a feather and a canister of ink, received in an envelope sealed with red wax. “See for yourself. It’s the worst.”

The last name on the envelope was Ezio. Reisha Nevim didn’t know why he felt a sudden sense of disgust towards the name.

All of the billionaires and millionaires involved in Alan Roy’s scheme were arrested, and Luciana was not convicted of having any involvement in Alan Roy’s schemes; perhaps, the question of what struck up Joran’s anger upon seeing Ezio listed as a member of The Superpeople was a question best answered another time.

[magnumversumplus]

Aswang Force

Chapter 6: Remarried

Written By Joseph M.

Crisanto Dalisay walked down the aisle in the same garments he wore during the failed wedding, an ironed black suit with silky black slacks and black loafers. He wore a white shirt under his black suit, and his teeth showed through his wide grin. He prepared so long for this moment, and finally his dreams would come true. He was finally going to be married to the love of his life, and this time their wedding would be complete.

Lagg followed him, her eyes gazing into his as she floated down the aisle, wearing the same billowing white wedding dress that covered her underside, now embossed with golden designs, gilded and sparkling. The wedding dress flowed over her head, curling over her ears and wrapping over her wings. All she wanted was to finally be wedded to Crisanto, and she was finally getting that wish today. She walked down the aisle, towards Crisanto.

Efren, Danilo and Leon waited for her to the left of Crisanto; and Agung, Bujang and Makisig waited for her on the right. It was the perfect scene: all of The Tribunal’s constituents were watching, and there was a new priest standing at the altar of the church–the new location of their marriage–waiting for them, excited to bind the couple through matrimony. Lagg was escorted by her father, Benananggal, down the rows of attendants and towards her soon-to-be.

The groom Crisanto looked into her eyes, his pupils glowing with an indescribable satisfaction as the priest waved his hand over to Crisanto and asked him to speak. Gleefully, he said, “Lagg, you’re the only one I have, and you’re the only one I want. If this marriage doesn’t go through, well, I don’t know how I’d feel. I remember when we kissed for the first time in the jeepney, and ever since that fateful day, for you I’ve only felt nothing but–”

Someone burst into the courtroom, a human woman wearing a similar white wedding dress–just without the gold and glimmer–and marched down the aisle, pointing her finger at Crisanto. She marched up to the jeepney driver and slapped him in the face, her palm looked to almost phase through his face with her swiftness.

Efren–the blond-haired man with tanned skin that kept himself well-groomed and trained as a combatant–drew his pistol and pointed it at the new wedding attendee; the priest ordered him to stand down and asked her, “What grudge do you hold against the groom?”

Danilo–another soldier with smooth, dark skin and black hair that covered part of his youthful face–pulled his gun when the surprise guest drew closer to the priest’s face.

Leon–a man wearing a more tattered suit with scars running across his face and down his chin, followed Danilo, though Efren still put away his gun as the priest again asked, “What grudge do you hold?”

The woman’s face had been concealed so far, hidden beneath the hood roughly stitched to her gown. When she removed it, the human priest had been shocked to see who it was. Efren whipped the pistol out from his olive suit and tried to take her down, bullets flying down the rows of seats, the creatures of the Malay Archipelago ducking down and shouting chaotically.

Leon also drew a pistol of the exact same model from his azure suit, designed by a company named Volo; all of the human members, snipers in the Philippine Army, were high class shooters. They picked the finest weapons, even though in the direst of stakes they could use whatever was at their disposal. In this case, the weapons that packed more of a punch were stashed away in a fortress in Indonesia, so they resorted to the arms in their suits.

Danilo wore ragged indigo silk to compliment the chilly blues and greens, and again readily pointed a fully-loaded Volo pistol at her neck. He was less maintained then the others, specks of dust and the remains of his military past splattering his suit, he had a metal orb for a right eye, a shiny silvery steel sphere swiveling in its socket. He stood in the new guest’s way as they tried to slap Crisanto again, saying, “Back off.” in a serious voice.

“There’s something you need to know!” cried the woman in the familiar wedding dress. “Something you all need to know!”

Agung the leyak, wearing black robes, slowly flew down from the aisle to calm the humans down. He was the intelligent, collected member of the group when not in a fight, wings fluttering, the hairs on his mane flying away from his face like gilded wheat against a hurricane wind. Instead of aggressively attacking, he stood in her way and calmly uttered, “You need to step back.”

Bujang the penanggalan tried to get around Agung’s wings, his blue eyes glowing with compounding rage. The wedding was ruined once, and he didn’t want to see it ruined again. His jaws clamped down, yellowed teeth grinding against each other; long, grayed hair flying frantically.

Makisig, a manananggal of red-eyed and bloodthirsty fame, swooped down and pulled at Bujang, his claws wrapping around the penanggalan’s dislocated shoulders and ripping the beast away from the mysterious new character. Makisig was appointed by his mystical colleagues and The Tribunal to represent them in litigation, to sign documents on behalf of the Aswang Force and advocate for the monetary and health needs of the monsters and to The Tribunal. Given his prestigious title and tremendous responsibilities, he formed a quiet and cunning aura. He said to the newly arrived visitor in white, “If you want to get to Crisanto, you’ll have to get through us.”

“You don’t understand,” cried the guest. “There’s lies–you’ve all been lied to! Crisanto is a cheater; he’s cheated on me, he’s cheated on his next wife Mahalnananggal, and he cheated on Lagg with Imeldnananggal! He’s cheating on Imeldnananggal and Lagg too, with me, Blessica, his latest ex!”

Lagg suddenly pounced at Blessica, tackling her to the floor; there was a flurry of bleeding red eyes and thick fur ripping at Blessica’s skin. They ripped at each other’s hair, wrestling and trading blows on the floor. Their sabunutan was embarrassing for those attending the wedding, guests holding back cringing faces and slowly filing out of the chapel. Blessica punched Lagg in the face and tried to pry off her wings.

Lagg swiped at Blessica with her talon. Blessica punched her in the nose. Lagg clenched her fist and shot back. Blessica ripped off a tuft of the manananggal’s enviably well-kept hair, ripping off chunks of her braids until Crisanto pulled his wives away from each other.

Under pressure, Crisanto fabricated an unconfident lie to keep his jealous old amour and angry new wife off the scent of vile infidelity.

[magnumversumplus]

Aswang Force

Chapter 5: Rebellion

Written By Joseph M.

Manananggals, leyaks and penanggalans crowded the steps leading up to courthouse–a section of courthouses attached to The Tribunal Palace–shrieking and demanding answers for the recent events. A manananggal named Councilwoman Lagg of The Tribunal Second Council further stepping out of line by showing the Philippine public that manananggals were real and chasing after Diego Bayani and now his son, classified documents telling how enforcer squadrons randomly entered and searched the homes of manananggals reaching the public through anonymous government insiders, a manananggal member of The Tribunal Second Council accepting payoffs from an unknown source, and bombshell documents detailing a shocking fact: all three judges in The Tribunal First Council tried to withdraw their respective factions from The Tribunal.

And the most shocking reveal: evidence emerged to show that all three judges in the First Council were murdering humans and devouring their flesh. This primitive way of life, these secrets being kept from the mythological public, these injustices outraged the community, and constituents of the Muka Layu, Band Kelima and the Fraksi Hantu screeched at Judge Memerintah as she left the courthouse, crying for her to give answers to these pressing rumors. She declined to give any.

Amongst the crowd was a shared expression of outrage and disappointment–bushy eyebrows pointed down, the screeches parched from crying, pleading for the rumors to not be true. Judge Memerintah’s bodyguards pushed the crowd away, using brute force to the point of even slashing their wings apart, gray aswang blood sprouting up like fountain springs, spraying onto the crowd and onto the concrete pavement. The agonized cries of rebels dropping and bleeding onto the floor was heard from far away, as even the trees couldn’t mask the wails of terror and the resilient screams for justice.

Judge Memerintah ducked down as her escorts followed her into the palace foyer, slashing apart the glistening eyes of the penanggalans and swiping at the tongues of the manananggals. She heard the raspy howls of her constituents, the bawling of subversives bawling loudly over their revolutionary loved ones. She crawled back into her shelter beneath her high seat at the bench, trembling.

One of her bodyguards, Ipatupad, opened up the compartment where she stowed away, reached out his shriveled hand of fuzz and grease and posed a question to her. “You’re a great leader and I’ll guard you with my life, but you need to step up and be the pangulo I know you to be. Tell me, what’s going on?”

Judge Memerintah looked at Ipatupad. His claws trembled quietly. The judge’s eyes watered, salty tears rolling down her grizzly face and dissipating on her tongue, a watery pink snake that slithered up and down and moistened her face. She lashed at Ipatupad, he dropped and she crumpled over the dead body of her fallen friend.

Tears streamed down her downy cheeks like mildew rolling down a hare on a summery morning. Ipatupad’s ghost drifted away from her, now walking on two gnarled bat legs into the light. His apparition turned around to look at the judge he served for so long, gazing one last time into her eyes; and though she couldn’t see him, Ipatupad could see the distress in her teary eyes, and he solemnly walked away.

Judge Memerintah carefully laid down Ipatupad’s corpse and rose, her intestines slithering upwards like a dead jellyfish’s stingers lifted from the sand. She droned through the halls of her and her people’s palace, her crooked fingernails out in front of her, still trying to give her passed friend a hug. She pried away the gates, the undeceived calls for truth filling the entrance, and she admitted everything.

Her words were marked with devastation, a need to make right what was done wrong. She admitted to the judges–as well as several other members of different Councils in The Tribunal resorting to primordial attacks on humankind when food shortages plagued the factions. Her voice, a once calming presence to those under her protection, was now an untrustworthy whisper, and her words were the utterances of a traitor.

Members of the police force that governed The Tribunal ordered her to stand down, and she was cuffed on the very podium of grass blades from which she spoke, and the other judges were lined up alongside her. A baton struck her back, forcing her to move. The harrowing creatures of Southeast Asian mythos paraded her around the crowd of protestors, and she drifted on the very blood of those who she ordered dead.

She hovered over the bodies of protestors, mutinies that picketed to a bitter end, revolutionaries with calls for a reformed government etched into placards. She was walked back into her own palace by her own police force, escorted into a place even she had never been to; it was a dim dungeon, the walls consisted of mud and stone, and a rag in the corner was her bed.

She was locked into her own mind in a sense, an empty, compact void where she and another voice shared a space. There was another inmate sharing this dingy cell with her–where the only light came from a small crack in the back wall and a flickering light bulb above their heads. There was a repugnant smell in the room, a filthy odor that reminded her of cigarettes and urine, a scent that caused her to turn away in disgust.

The prisoner whom Memerintah shared the cramped chamber with seemed to be the cause of this aroma, a cellmate who seemingly hadn’t showered in weeks. He was sitting on his own rag, blue, and his puffy hair of head was buried into his legs. He was human, this one, and though Memerintah didn’t know it, this man’s personality was so charming nobody would think he’d end up in a place like this.

Memerintah called out to him, deciding that any conversation was better than complete silence–even a drunken one, as Memerintah perceived a talk with this stranger might be, was better than nothing. “Answer me this, weak mortal: who are you, and why are you in here?” The ex-judge almost deduced that her delivery could’ve been kinder, but Memerintah stopped examining her own words for flaws when she realized where she was.

The man poked his head up, The Sun stabbing his bloodshot eyes with light. Not a spoken thought. No words; he just smiled a vicious smile, shared at that exact same moment by Grim Blood as he fought off the fabled creatures that lived in the Malay Archipelago and the humans that aided them.

Grim Blood drew a katana and carved shaved a tangle of black manananggal wool from Makisig’s shoulder, speckles of deteriorated gray flesh trapped in a web of black fuzz. Agung, the leyak, bit Grim Blood’s knee, a scene all too familiar to this villain. Efren gnashed at Grim Blood’s arm with his teeth, blunt vices that ripped off his flesh.

Grim Blood got down to his knees, and Efren, Danilo and Leon bashed at his spine with the butts of their rifles. It was like three metal baseball bats were belligerently pummeling him into the ground, buffeting him until his vertebral column could become a gravel walkway. All he could see was nothing, and then he saw his body getting hauled away, and then he found himself lying in a bed in a cell.

[magnumversumplus]

Aswang Force

Chapter 4: Manila

Written By Joseph M.

A hurricane of blankety fuzz, red eyes and thick bony talons crashed through the palengkes and sari sari stores of Manila, chasing Grim Blood past tahô carts and startling balut vendors. The twister of black fur and gleaming crimson irises leapt into the sky, ripping apart sheet metal and darting back down to continue chasing him. The typhoon of claws, scaly wings and gunky, and off-color white fangs took a bird’s eye view of the slums, crimped and colorful metal cityscapes filling her vision.

Grim Blood wore a black cloak, and he was running into an alleyway with stray dogs, garbage bags spilling out of dumpster bins and plastic bottles. The monster with red eyes hurtled down towards him, intending fully to rip apart chicharon stands, street food stands and balloon carts to catch Grim Blood. The blurry and confusing swirl of bleeding eye sockets and Vespertilio wings scared Grim Blood and caused him to draw his gun, firing at what he saw as an abominable beast. The hideous beast folded over the rainy day, the skies covered in her wings, and causing Grim Blood to trip.

The man known as Grim Blood got caught on his own shoelaces, and he was backing into a corner until Crisanto Dalisay, the beast’s lover, stepped in front of him and cried, “Lagg, stop this madness!”

The monster stopped and looked at him with an initial sense of confusion, and Grim Blood got a good look at the thing chasing him through the sidewalks and roads of Manila. The creature, a ferocious manananggal and a terror from the Filipino mythos, had long gray rags for hair, orbs that bled and shone for eyes, black Chiropetra and a tilted frown that turned into a scoundrelous grin. As this creature’s talons nearly pierced his fleshy face, Grim Blood passed out.

His eyes slowly closed as he laid on a pile of garbage bags in the middle of a back alley in Manila. He woke up caged in his father’s house, manananggal intruders cheering and gambling on a cockfight. There was a Sweater chicken named Suzy and a Hatch chicken named Rikan–the same two that fought while Diego Bayani Jr.’s father, Diego Bayani, fought Crisanto Dalisay.

Rikan won against Suzy once again, and moved on to fight an Asil chicken named Magascallis. Magascallis had a big, feathery tail and a feisty personality. He whacked Rikan with his tail and hobbled over to Rikan while aggressively squawking. Rikan swung back with a claw, attempting to rip apart Magascallis’ orange twig legs.

Magascallis eventually downed Rikan and faced a Sumatra chicken named Indy. Indy had a flowy carmine mane similar to the display of feathers by a peacock, and he charged at Magascallis with eager squawks. Magascallis downed Indy, then his next opponent Datu, then his next opponent Arnel. He kept ripping through his foes in a stirring squawk-off, beaks gnashing and tripod shanks slashing at each other, the combative energy ramping up amongst the contestants just as the cockpit began to clear out, revealing a bomb planted beneath the cockpit seats.

It was a metal box with a tangle of red, blue, and green wires; it was a blob of circuits and steel components, and a timer was strapped to the front; it started from 60:00 and was counting down till every digit read zero. The bomb rattled as it ticked down, even as a set of claws picked it up and placed it in front of Grim Blood’s cage. Grim Blood’s eyes watched the bomb, the rest of his body frozen in terror. Grim Blood struggled to escape the cage, but he was handcuffed and there was a lock on the door.

He was trapped behind bars, shackled to the wall. He shook the cage again, rattling the steel cylinders and banging his head against the bars behind him, but he couldn’t break free. He kicked. It was time for him to break free from the shackles of secrecy.

He tore the handcuffs into shreds, grabbed hold of the steel bars and bent them and climbed out of the prison that held him. A flurry of winged forms rushed at him, black fuzz with red pearls and a form that embraced the sunlight intensely slashing apart his face, his nose and face opening up. He grabbed one of these figures midair and crushed them, held another by the elbow and bent until he heard a sickening crunch.

He grabbed another rushing beast and held it for the others to see, black lightning circling him. He crushed the joint with his fist and let the manananggal go, their hand crooked and bones jangling. Grim Blood had super strength and the reaction time of a manananggal, and every emotion and instinct within him had intensified. He became more violent, and his hatred for the manananggals grew.

He walked out of his father’s and his home as warm crackles twisted and burned like his soul, flames vomiting more flames. He had accomplished almost everything he set out to do. He wiped almost all of the manananggals out and nearly completed his father’s work, he set the cockfighting ring on fire, he caused a scene and made himself known to Manila.

He walked forth with a bitter smile, oranges and yellows blasting up in the skies behind him. As his shoes contacted the fire-warmed soil, he heard a bitterly hateful hiss, like a serpent seeking revenge for its fallen brethren. He slowly turned his head, a full 360° swivel as dirty white bones in his body grinded together. The paranormal and human members of the Aswang Force stood behind him.

Agung, Bujang, Makisig were the leyak, penanggalan and manananggal of the team. Efren Jejomar, Danilo Luzviminda and Leon Rajah were the humans. Efren carried dual pistols, Efren carried a shotgun, Danilo carried two pistols and Leon carried a rocket launcher. They approached him, all shoulder to shoulder and carrying faces that were determined–no matter how much bloodshed, toil, sweat or pain–to take Grim Blood down and bring fear, honor and respect back to the creatures of Southeast Asian mythos.

[magnumversumplus]

Aswang Force

Chapter 3: Tribunal

Joseph M.

Drool splattered down the faces of Judge Memerintah’s bodyguards, their wild eyes falling out of their sockets and wet tongues lathering their own chins in saliva. The leader of the Band Kelima, Judge Bambang, was trailed by an escort of his own kind, leyaks in black suits and red ties, dressing over their exposed organs with silky fabrics. Judge Amir, the leader of the Muka Layu, was followed by a parade of bodyguards with exposed fur like the manananggals, heads floating into the courtroom.

Judge Memerintah–floating towards the bench whilst her bodyguards watched her with reverence–was the leader of the Fraksi Hantu and The Tribunal as a whole. The other judges sat on equally leveled seats, Judge Amir’s and Judge Bambang’s eyes watching a party of severed figures filing into the courtroom and hovering comfortably into the rows. Today was the first meeting of The Tribunal since the events in Manila, where Lagg revealed herself to Manong Diego Bayani during a thrilling chase.

Judge Memerintah slammed down a makeshift gavel, a bamboo twig with a metal prism fixed to it; the erosion of steel consumed where the gavel contacted its resting place on the table, and the edges had been dulled and worn by time. Judge Memerintah glanced carefully across the courtroom as the human members of the Aswang Force silently walked to the back of the courtroom.

Judge Memerintah glanced over at the other judges, nodding with an obligatory sense of respect. There was tension amongst them, but they had to show unity and dignity when seated in front of their constituents instead of bickering in heated clashes. The leyaks had garnered a brash hatred for the manananggals, who had garnered a brash hatred for the penanggalans, who allied with the leyaks against the manananggals.

Judge Memerintah began The Tribunal’s meeting by saying, “Let me preface our discussion by denying a rumor.” Judge Memerintah knew that she would not be denying a rumor, but propagating a lie that nobody would believe. “It has come to the attention of myself and my fellow judges that some of you believe we have strife. This is false–I get along perfectly fine with my fellow judges, and they would agree.”

The other judges nodded, but their facial expressions contrasted the lies they were pushing. Sweat filled their hair, dripped down their faces, rolled down their chins. Seething snarls spread through the crowd like a plague, penanggalans and leyaks turning to their mutual enemies–the manananggals–and hissed in disgust, who in turn flicked their tongues at them both.

Judge Amir spoke with a confident aura, a mane of golden hair fluttering around his head as he addressed the anger festering amongst the attendees. “Rest assured that there is no conflict between the judges. We, like you all, wish to attain peace.”

Judge Bambang suddenly rose from his bench, the other judges turning their mangled bodies to face him. He directed a stare brimming with contempt at the other judges, before crying, “These are lies my fellow judges are saying! We’re in shambles–shambles, I say! These others are deceivers!”

“Lies!” cried Judge Amir. “You’re the one spouting lies!”

“I have proof of these deceptions!” Judge Bambang nodded at a group of manananggals standing at the back of the courtroom, and they brought forth a stack of manila folders, handing them out to everyone present. As leyaks, manananggals and penanggalans sifted through the files, Judge Bambang explained the contents of the files.

There were confidential documents, papers detailing the arguments the judges had against one another, files by all of the judges attempting to step down from their positions in The Tribunal. There were cassettes taped to the inside of the folders, and when played in the courtroom’s old-style black-and-white TV it showed the judges screaming at each other, cursing and renouncing each other and storming away.

The audience gasped at the recordings; Judge Bambang’s mane quivered as he delivered an earth-breaking shriek, as Judge Memerintah hurtled Judge Amir into the ground. It was bombshell footage, classified debates and quarrels between the judges where they tried to leave The Tribunal alongside their respective factions. Judge Amir and Judge Bambang gnashed at each other while Judge Memerintah rose into the sky, lightning smiting her shadow into the ground.

Judge Amir continued to refute the allegations of the rivalry despite seeing the tapes. “Nothing in that footage is real! It’s all a falsification, a trick, a scam, a lie!” Judge Amir dramatically stormed out of the courtroom, his bodyguards chasing after him in confusion. The visitors rose from their seats, storming in front of the bench and demanding answers for why the judges were lying to those whom they served.

The human members of the Aswang Force–Leon Rajah, Danilo Luzviminda and Efren Jejomar–were still behind the rows of seats, listening to the protests while keeping their heads down. All three were sharpshooters that served in the US Army and the Philippine Army; they earned badges and medals for their service, the golden slivers that decorated their camouflage outfits. Efren, Leon and Danilo weren’t close to their mythical creature teammates hovering next to them but they were learning to get along.

“There’s a lot of drama in the courtroom today,” muttered Leon.

“The infighting, the lies,” Danilo whispered back. “When will this end?”

“I don’t know when it’ll end, Danilo. Every time we come here, our meetings always spiral into some sort of argument.”

“Maybe we should find new work.” Danilo placed his arm on Leon’s shoulder. “Pare, we need to find a new line of work… I can’t stand working with these creatures.” Makisig, Agung and Bujang gave him dirty looks, their furry brows lowering in disgust at Danilo’s remarks, batting their cruel eyes.

“But what new line of work, bros?” said Efren. “There’s nowhere else for us to go. We need to stay, at least until we can get enough paychecks to move out of our apartment in Quezon.”

Manong Crisanto Dalisay–who had wandered in while Leon, Danilo and Efren were debating–approached the bench, pushing through a crowd of severed heads and flapping wings until he met Judge Memerintah’s gaze. “There’s something you might want to see on the news, Your Honor.” Crisanto rolled the monochromatic TV over to the bench and switched it on. Grayscale images flickered in the judge’s face, the muted oranges of flame illuminating her face.

The entire courthouse went quiet, and Crisanto gave a few words. “It’s Lagg, Your Honor. She’s wrecked Manila.”

[magnumversumplus]

Aswang Force

Chapter 2: Cackling

Written By Joseph M.

Diego Bayani Jr. walked down the dim sewer tunnels, lugging a jer black briefcase in his arms, the metal scratching against his sleeves, the fabrics of his suit flapping in the wind. He turned around to a ticking noise, dropped his briefcase and fired several shots into the corridor behind him, a pistol’s copper spit zipping down an arched concrete hallway that stretched into the void of secrecy. There was no noise after, so the man known as Grim Blood continued down the waste chambers of Metro Manila. Little did he know, no noise meant nothing dropped? and he was still being followed.

Grim Blood turned a corner, both of his pistols pointing down an infinite void. The strange tick-tick-tick he heard earlier crept back towards him. His boots scraped through mud, trudged through tap water and caused rats to scurry away. Three pairs of crimson eyes illuminated, causing him to pause.

A winged creature burst out of the veins of darkness, talons carving into his arm. Two headless creatures headbutted into his sides. He tried to fight back, his pistols letting off flashes of orange and yellow light, but there was no use. A pair talon-capped paws grabbed his shoulders, and Diego felt a sharp pain in his forehead.

It was like two steel pincers were entering his skull, piercing parts of his skull and hooking onto his brain. He saw a drop of blood roll down his right eye as the two fangs extracted a chunk of his head, skewering his face twice like a two-speared fork. He felt another pain in his leg, as four sets of blunt jaws chomped into his knee like a baseball bat, paralyzing him completely from head to toe.

Blood sprouted from his knees, but not like a fountain of kool-aid. It was gooey and the bleeding was drawn-out. He couldn’t feel the pain inflicted by these creatures, but he could see his leg bones jutting out, and he could almost poke his two index fingers into the two holes in his forehead and feel chunks of his brain and skull, but he couldn’t because the creatures still had him paralyzed.

Yet somehow, he didn’t die. He watched as a manananggal (Makisig), a leyak (Agung), and a penanggalan (Bujang) floated over him with their red eyes. He felt a wave of sewer water rush over him, filling the holes in his flesh like they were test tubes and he was some sort of twisted lab experiment. Diego Bayani Jr. squirmed as this happened–though most of the pain receptors in him were gone, his brain was now hypersensitive to pain.

Makisig, Bujang, and Agung hovered away, their undersides as mutilated and as gory as his mangled body. He was left without a funeral, and they voyaged back to the Fraksi Hantu’s, Muka Layu’s and Band Kelimah’s compound in Manila, known amongst the manananggals, penanggalans and leyaks as The Tribunal Capitol.

It was a grand, abandoned palace, once the home of a Philippine president and used for official court hearings, but the interior’s halls were very worn and thin and the building was now used by these creatures. The walls were adorned with paintings of former presidents, including Ninoy Aquino, Apolinario Mabini and Danilo Kadaggeran. As Agung, Bujang and Makisig wandered, they happened upon the place where the Keeper of the Colony resided.

Memerintah lived in her courtroom. It was where she convened with the members of The Tribunal–the manananggals, leyaks and penanggalans that awaited her words. She had a humble abode, revealed when she accessed a compartment inside the bench. There was a small mattress and some photos, a blanket and a cabinet.

There was some overhang when she slept on her bed. Her organs tended to drip over, but nobody knew that. Judge Memerintah settled there in solitude, away from the living quarters of those she ruled. As Agung, Makisig and Bujang entered the courtroom, she was leaving her quarters, closing the secret door to her home.

“I assume our fight against Diego Bayani Jr. has resulted in victory?” she asked, tapping her claws together in anticipation.

Agung’s head and organs quivered with terror and respect for the honorable judge. “As for Diego Bayani Jr., we don’t know his condition.” This was an eccentric answer, as the three non-human members of the Aswang Force all agreed that Diego Bayani Jr. died in the sewer tunnels. “I heard something as we left: a heartbeat, ma’am.”

“That’s rather suspect,” whispered Judge Memerintah, approaching the leyak with frightening swiftness. “You didn’t bring him back with you, did you? Those were my orders, after all–arrest him and bring him in for questioning and a proper trial.”

Makisig immediately jumped into the conversation, his tongue slithering outward like a python leaving its shelter. “To be frank, we forgot that you wanted us to bring him back, ma’am.” Agung and Bujang hissed at him, but this didn’t stop him from exposing his and his colleagues’ poor memory. “Our exploits and… methods, so to speak… were not according to your commands.”

Makisig bowed, finishing his monologue with a begging, “I’m sorry, madame.” The others in the courtroom couldn’t see it, but Makisig’s heart was racing like a speeding car. Aswang Force’s folly almost guarantees the dismantling of the team, and The Tribune would surely be upset to learn that the manananggals, penanggalans and leyaks took an attack so far. “Again, we are so sorry.”

“Well, I’m not happy,” grumbled Memerintah gruffly, floating up to the bench. Her intestines draped over the judge’s chair as she lowered herself, pinkish-gray snakes dangling over the seat. Insides mixed with crusty bones as the judge and Keeper of the Colony spoke once more. “You will all return to the site of the attack and bring him back, and you will find him if he is not there.”

Bujang’s head floated up to the bench, his mouth moving in protest. The judge tried to parse his words, but he couldn’t speak clearly enough for the others to hear until he had overcome a wave of shock. “We can’t chase after him! It’ll only create more complications, and we run the risk of exposing the existence of The Tribunal to the world!”

“Then I pray you bring him here quickly,” Judge Memerintah said with discernable frustration, audible growling and gelatinous spit. “You are dismissed. So go, and honor The Tribunal, my children.” As the three creatures flew out of the courtroom and through the lusterless chambers, her utters were replaced with a hearty cackle.

[magnumversumplus]

Musing On Possibilities - The Springs Saga Episode 1: Falling Springs

Donovan Springs stepped back as a man wearing a black suit slashed at him with a longsword. The timeline of this terra was falling apart, caused by three events happening simultaneously. The first was the reversal of time and the second was the complete destruction of one terra in order to create another, and the last was the annihilation of matter. All were equally terrifying events where absolute destruction was nearly fully guaranteed.

Donovan Springs was spared from this destruction, and only had to face the wrath of a loathing man in jet black pouncing around that struck at him with a sword and shot at him with two pistols. The man Donovan was fighting leapt away from an explosion of light, hues of neon blue shattering and fragmenting, like reality was a crumbling cookie.

Donovan stomped the man in the suit to the ground and shouted, "Reality will be the way I want it, Agent! Reality will be the way I want it!"

A red motorcycle zipped into his sight, a man wearing a red helmet and red from his pauldron to his boots dashing into battle. As the man drove past Donovan, he punched Donovan in the face, sending Springs falling backwards into a wall. Springs didn't know about the other events happening concurrently–he thought he was in full control on how the new reality would operate, and he thought wrong.

Donovan tried to get to his feet, but he was knocked down by a quick-moving wolf. Fangs and claws, teeth and talons scratched at his face, his arms. Evil-hearted Donovan Springs roared at the ferocious canine. The wolf, the red biker and the agent in the suit, as well as Marten De Brosse–the man who Donovan had a rivalry with since the beginning–all stood in a straight line, facing Springs.

"This was you!" Donovan screamed at Marten, charging at the poacher's son with a gun. Bullets sprayed from his assault rifle, some dodging and some grazing the younger De Brosse, but none fatal. Marten punched Donovan in the gut and kicked him in the stomach, then pushed him away as he cried, "You're coming with me to this new world!

"You all are!"

The wolf, the hunter's kin, man in red and the jet black suited agent all dealt blows to Donovan's chest, as a black hole sent all of them flying into emptiness. Only Donovan Springs and Martin were the same in this new world, engaged in the same fight over hitherto unknown reasons.

[magnumversumplus]

Aswang Force

Chapter 1: Wedlocked

Written By Joseph M.

Lagg and Crisanto slowly walked down the wedding aisle, manananggals whose slimy intestines were draped over rows of chairs on either side of them clapping their arms together, screeching and cheering the couple on as they approached the bench, approaching matrimony with every valiant step. The new Keeper of the Colony, a manananggal named Memerintah, stood at the front of the courtroom, greeting them with a jagged smile.

Memerintah reached forward with a crooked left hand, malnourished fingers that could snap like a twig at any moment pressing on Lagg’s forehead. “Do you, Lagg Nabanda Ananam, take Crisanto Viga Dalisay to be your wedded groom?”

Memerintah grabbed some ashes with her right hand, and smeared them on Lagg’s wings as she she replied with a sound, “I do.”

Memerintah turned to Crisanto and smeared his greasy forehead with ashes, crumbly gray dust settling in wrinkles, falling down Crisanto’s face and onto his tongue. With a raspy dryness that mimicked a dehydrated desert, Memerintah asked, “And Crisanto Viga Dalisay, do you take Lagg to be your wedded bride?”

Crisanto’s gaze fell onto Lagg’s, his eyes filled with a sparkle that challenged the Sun. His short black hair fluttered as manananggal wings flapped, his blue eyes stared into Lagg’s, and his right hand settled gently on Lagg’s shoulder. Memerintah held back a flattered smile as Crisanto gave an equally resounding, “I do.”

Memerintah held her hands over both of them and hovered down the aisle, her ashen intestines, heart and lungs now flowing out like a dress as she processed around and returned to her seat on the bench. “Then I now pronounce you wedded. Crisanto, you may kiss the–” An explosion rocked the courtroom, orange and yellow blazes sending everyone backwards.

Crisanto grabbed Lagg by the wings, dragging her body away from the flames. He was still in his wedding suit and Lagg was still in her gown, both crawling away heartbroken on the day their hearts were supposed to be united. Memerintah was still in the fire, flying around the courtroom and saving the other winged parasites, a mangled and blurry flying carpet with red eyes saving her comrades from the jaws of death.

Within the flames, yellow and orange spikes with the gray hands of smoke and death crawling out, Memerintah saw something walk out of the fire. It was a tattered shadow of terror, a swift figure who forced the flames to their knees, then brought them back up with the flick of his wrist. The quickly moving creature wearing the cowl of the blaze never took a false step, always propelling towards the new Keeper of the Colony with horrifyingly fearless resilience.

Memerintah pointed one talon at this new entity and cried out, “Show yourself, fiend!”

The thing moving towards her stopped, the fire nearly embracing it whole. It was a man, and he could’ve been swallowed if the flames hadn’t followed his every command. He made a gesture with his hands, and the flames formed a circle. The courtroom crumbled, and he still didn’t speak.

“Walk into the light,” Memerintah beckoned with a strong command bellow. “I do not fear you, and if you are equally as brave you should face me!”

The man abandoned mystery, walking away from the cover of ashes and basked in the secretless heart of the flames. “My name is Diego Bayani Jr., but you can call me Grim Blood, because I can heal and destroy at the same time.”

Memerintah restrained her terrified quivering and paced towards Grim Blood. She held back the urge to rush into the fight, holding her claws forward with caution. Grim Blood, on the other hand, walked forward with a march that loathed restraint. Memerintah looked to either side at the rows of chairs–the aromas of burnt log filling her fuzzy nostrils–and she looked at her new enemy in front of her.

Grim Blood returned a glance, a more sinister gaze with his eyes redder than even those of the manananggals. It was then that Memerintah realized that Grim Blood lived up to his moniker, and he was a man with grim intentions. He was a man driven by bloodthirst.

Grim Blood charged at her, holding nothing back as he ripped a dagger out from his pocket. They clashed at the center of the aisle, and time flew by like a bird. It seemed as if the slashes and strikes Memerintah and Grim Blood dealt against each other ended in an instant, and the flow of time dramatically rushed forward, crashing to a halt as Memerintah found herself in a new courtroom filled with manananggals, penanggalans and leyaks discussing the events that happened in the courtroom prior.

Bisik, an erratic penanggalan that spoke his mind, flew around the courtroom in sporadic circles, whipping his head around to stare into Memerintah’s glowing red eyes. He spoke with difficult resentment and his heart, clinging onto his fleshy gray neck, beat faster as he raised his voice. “You’re telling me that this was a one-time attack? Bayani and his men have been taking over Kuala Lumpur, Bali and Manila, executing people they believe to be manananggals!”

A leyak named Marah brought forth her own qualms. She spoke with a croaky gargle, her tongue splattering with saliva. “You’re a liar, Judge Memerintah! You’re a darned, good-for-nothing cheat!” These accusatory statements riled up the courtroom, protests and asservations filling the aisle

A manananggal named Karibal shouted, “They bombed our courtroom! You must do something!” Karibal raised her fist, her claws curling into her own hand. “Justice for the wedded!”

The rest of the manananggals, penanggalans and leyaks joined the chant. It was a sea of wilting faces, protesting the lack of justice for the shattered day of union. There were shared wails of disgust, parched gray mouths spitting at the floor and red bleeding through courtroom walls. The more emotional the manananggals got, the redder their eyes became.

“Silence!” cried Judge Memerintah. “I have already done something about this: I have assembled a crew consisting of leyaks, penanggalans and manananggals to track down and arrest the fiendish Grim Blood. There is Makisig the manananggal from the Fraksi Hantu, Agung the leyak from the Band Kelima, and Bujang from the Muka Layu, as well as some human allies of ours.

“We will find Grim Blood, and I will make sure the wedding is made official. This is the fight of the manananggals, leyaks, penanggalans and all who provide their services. We will find justice!” Judge Memerintah’s monologue elicited scratchy roars from the attendees, as the mythical creatures of Southeast Asia sparked rebellious outcry that blasted through the courthouse, echoed by the leyaks, manananggals and penanggalans yowling outside.

[magnumversumplus]

Manananggal Ko

Episode 12: Abangan Part III (Look Out Part III)

Written By Joseph M.

Manananggal wings swept over the facility’s walls, black, scaly wings blanketing the Sun, a cowl of darkness constantly hovering over this rusty building in Bali. Manananggals swept around every corridor, prowled every inch of the perimeter, their eyes illuminating every corner in a glowing red light. The Sun set, and true darkness marched upon the skies, completely surrounding Bali in an aura of mystery.

Still, the manananggals patrolled the compound, hissing ferociously even at the rats that moved. The only non-manananggal creatures allowed were the Malaysian penanggalans–living heads with dried lungs dangling below their necks, their remaining spine held together by worn bone and jellyfish-like veins; and, the Indonesian leyaks–bodyless creatures with their organs billowing out from below them. The penanggalans and the leyaks droned over the facility with the manananggals, their eyes vigilantly prying apart the treetops to search for intruders.

Not only defended by the Philippines’, Malaysia’s and Indonesia’s severed mythical creatures, Crisanto Dalisay wandered the perimeter of the compound with a steel baseball bat, smoking a pipe. He watched the parades of dismembered, winged and wingless soaring over his head, and dragged his right hand against the limestone walls of the facility. There was no element of surprise, as the defense of the compound was held together by the glue that was its inhabitants and those that volunteered their aid.

Crisanto’s defense of the facility was like his defense of his dearest love–Lagg the manananggal. While he abandoned both Lagg and this compound at one point, he made his amends by putting the needs of the facility and his lover first. Crisanto’s weapon-toting madness stemmed from the same desire, to defend his “manananggal ko” and to redeem himself in the eyes of the other manananggals.

Tipping his fedora and stowing his baseball bat, Crisanto decided that another weapon was more appropriate, a double-barreled arm of violent force. The barrels of his shotgun poked through the thin arms of shrubbery and crinkly blankets of greenery. He skulked through a puddle, groggily looking at his reflection and wondering where it all went on, sulking until a swarm of men jumped him.

Crisanto’s shotgun went off, a bullet whirring and biting into a wooden log. Crunching, and Crisanto’s shotgun fired again. The bullet hit one of the men in the knee; he stumbled out of Crisanto’s sight and the eyes of the arm spat out another lead monster, a whistling horror ricocheting off an abandoned sheet of metal and hitting Crisanto in his left knee.

A man wrestled Crisanto for his blasting arm, nearly winning it from his grasp–these were Diego’s cronies. The killing arm vomited a spray of bullets until the two-eyes firearm was a gunpowder museum. As a winged shadow enshrouded the woods, and as Crisanto backed up against the walls of the compound, the hoard of attackers scattered.

Agile wings embraced the forest. Diego’s men raced away from the facility, but not in time–they were either picked off by a pair of clawed arms or swept off the ground by a hurricane of abominable fuzz that reeked of sweat and bats. A man, Diego’s, was dropped from the treetops by a set of talons. Impaling on a branch, from there Diego’s cronie bled. Only a drop of blood, gray in the midnight, dripped from his corpse onto Crisanto’s face as he woke up.

Lagg, whose love for Crisanto impelled her to save the day, swooped down to greet her lover with a tight embrace. Goons surrounded the two, men wearing salakots leaping out of shrubbery and emerging from the shadows. Lagg and Crisanto took one last look at each other, nodded, turned away and fought back to back.

Lagg slashed apart the pitchfork one of Diego’s men toted, Crisanto pushed another away and shot him in the chest. Lagg gave a raspy, earth-shaking wail and Manong Crisanto Dalisay cried with daring ferocity, and Lagg ripped through the air with her claws. As more men ran at them, Crisanto’s and Lagg’s bond only grew stronger, a love not easily quantified by romantic dialogue or quirky pick-up lines, but shown through the defense of one’s creed and one’s lover.

It was the story of Lagg and Crisanto; she was a manananggal, he was a jeepney driver, and they were a couple.

[magnumversumplus]

Manananggal Ko

Episode 11: Abangan Part II (Look Out Part II)

Written By Joseph M.

In the slums of Metro Manila, in a coven of manananggals, in a ring of gambling, cockfighting and other illegal activities, Imeldnananggal droned through the chambers, her head tilted down and her heart ripped apart by Crisanto, who left her in shambles to be with his lost romantic partner again. His rediscovered lover, Lagg the manananggal, used to be a shoulder to lean on. Imeldnananggal met Lagg during a coven ritual in which the leader of their clan, the Fraksi Hantu pangulo.

Now Imeldnananggal was searching for a new male to call her love, a new beau homme, a gwapong lalake to call her own. She consulted the Fraksi Hantu’s fearsome but respected leader, the Keeper of the Colony known as Bananananggal, or simply Madame Saging (saging is Tagalog for banana, a fruit from which Bananananggal’s name derives.) Madame Saging lived in a bahay kubo–a hut designed with intricate bamboo patterns and topped with corrugated metal roof and straws, and the entire bahay kubo was bolstered on bamboo pillars.

The bahay was outside of the manananggal hideout itself, looking over the dirty, scrappy Manila ghettos. At the doorstep of the house was a welcome mat, and by the bintana (window) of the bahay was a shelf of escrima batons. Displayed above the shelf was a manananggal claw, and in front of the cabinet were two rocking chairs and a table, where Bananananggal invited Imeldnananggal to sit.

Imeldnananggal and Banananggal had a motherly-daughterly bond that transcended their relationship as members of the same coven. Bananananggal’s deep soothing growl always provided comfort to a troubled Imeldnananggal, and Madame Saging’s red eyes always glowed with maternal love towards the coven members closest to her. Imeldnananggal, also known as Imelda, always felt comfortable confiding her deepest and most personal secrets with the Madame.

Imelda–masmalunkot siya ngayon. Lungkot siya kasi she wanted him back, and he wanted someone else. It was like three batteries in an electronic; only two were required to make it run and the last was a spare.

In the weavings of fate, Imelda had to untangle herself from the web of destiny and find a lover. That’s why she consulted Madame Saging–she wanted Madame Saging to use her seeking powers to find Imelda her true love. The Madame’s seeking abilities were potent–not only was she able to seek through the future, but she was also able to manipulate and change the fates of those in her coven to an extent.

The Madame’s seekings always began the same way, and they commenced similarly today as well. She chanted a prayer in the language of Mananangglian while wrapping her arms around Imelda, she felt the boiling veins underneath Imelda’s sinews and the bubbling blood coursing through her body and she saw Imelda’s reflected in her irises, a vision of a man donning a red bandana and pamaypay staring into her eyes as a manananggal priestess announced their married status, thunderous roars and ear-piercing screeches filling the chapel.

Madame Saging’s body began to shudder, her arms trembling and her head twitching, her wings swinging outward, knocking down the shelf of eskrima sabers and whacking Imelda across the face. Madame Saging’s sooty and flowy hair lashed against the wall, her skin turning from slightly ashen and pallid to sickly as she saw misfortune in her eyes. Madame Saging wailed in agony, vomit rising from her face and overflowing like a dam, chunks of human flesh dripping from her lips and splattering on the table.

Imelda tried to awaken Madame Saging from her fretful nightmares, but she was convulsing too quickly to be held still. “Wake up! Madame Saging, wake up!”

Madame Saging’s irises dilated, her expression filling with shock. Her parched and ashen lips muttered something, her talons pulling Imelda close while she frantically tried to wake the frantically palpitating Madame up, and then Madame Saging froze and became very still.

Imelda’s beckoning was stifled when Madame Saging’s quavering halted, and was then filled with relief as she saw the legs of Madame Saging wandering the premises, her ghostly apparition still roaming the squalors of Manila.

Imelda, though knowing that Madame Saging still roamed in spiritual form, was filled with tremendous grief. Her begging cries for Madame Saging to wake up turned to silent cries, and she bitterly asked her mentor one final time to open her eyes. “Madame Saging, rise.” She turned to prayer.

[magnumversumplus]

Manananggal Ko

Episode 10: Abangan Part I (Look Out Part I)

Written By Joseph M.

Ragged, Manong Diego Bayani staggered through Singaraja, Bali. These were streets that he tore apart in his search for manananggals, and now he was selfishly leaving behind. He arrived in the Ninoy Aquino International Airport and was back home prowling through what he saw as his own domain within an hour. He viewed himself as a marshal, not a vigilante like the manananggals.

Still quivering, Diego dragged himself down the palengke, people ducking behind vending carts and a group of pulis trailing him closely. He was angry at the manananggals–they caused him to ravage Bali, host witch trials and become a wanted criminal all because he wanted to hunt them down. Diego carried a pistol in his pocket and held a manananggal skull in his hands, a bony head that had the snout of a bat–it was a special type of manananggal.

Whistling, Diego paused. He drew his pistol as a manananggal droned around the corner. As he prepared to gun down the putrid creature he was chasing after in cold blood, he paused, realizing that this was not just any manananggal.

The cold, deep crimson stare was one he had seen before, the rasp in its groan was a screechy undertone familiar to him, and the grizzly, charred fur was not an old sight. It was Tentara the manananggal, and their insides trickled after them as they approached Diego with a blazing stare. Diego recognized that they were not there to talk, and his finger closed in on the trigger.

This manananggal, Tentara, had supposedly stalked down his men and slaughtered them one by one in cold blood. This manananggal’s menacing stare pierced Diego’s soul, giving his trembling index finger the needed fright to frantically slam down on the trigger, sending the observers running and Tentara into a vicious charge, their maw and their talons headed right for him.

Frantically, the tricycle driver ducked behind a vending cart, his breath quickening. He aimed the pistol at the manananggal’s weakest point–the heart–closed his eyes and dragged his finger to the trigger. Time hapted to hail the moment, a fleeting chance for Diego to shoot down the creatures that horrified him the most and kept him awake at night.

His index finger crawled towards the trigger like a fleshy and bruised worm, finally grazing the trigger as time crawled forward. He emptied his pistol, cried, “Nakaloka!” in frustration and ran as fast as he could. He was hunted down by his own prey, chased through the claustrophobic corridors littered with spilled fruits and other items as Tentara’s talons slashed apart barbecue grills, burning coal puking out colorful flames. He dropped his gun as he was running, a spur of events with blurry recollection.

Diego was backed up against a fish stand, stuck with an ice-bathed, buggy-eyed mackerel, a spatula, and whatever else he could find as weapons against a winged, discombobulated entity. “Manlolokong manananggal kayo–nagloloko kayong lahat!” He grabbed a handful of cold, silvery flakes, shattered ice fragments that melted in his hand and threw them as well as mangoes; verdant kalamansi, sliced halves of delectably putrid durians and banana leaves, throwing the entire palengke’s stock with a desperation that feared finality; but alas, the mananaggal’s prowess outmatched last-ditch fighting efforts.

Tentara raised his claw. Diego held his hands over his face, cowering on the floor. Tentara swung down. Diego braced himself.

Before Tentara’s talons could swipe across Diego’s face, dealing a devastating series of slashes to gouge his bloodshot eyes, A disembodied figure swooped down, guts and dried blood spilling out below the waist and wings fanning out across the length of the palengke’s crowded chambers.

Tentara’s claws sliced apart a viridescent mango instead of Diego’s nose–Lagg sliced Tentara’s knee, her talon ripping through Tentara’s flesh like a knife through butter, trimming her pelt, speckling Diego’s face with the dessicated, colorless blood of a manananggal. “We don’t need to resort to this much violence to get what we want, Tentara. I hope you’d have realized that by now. But of course, you haven’t–not yet, at least.

“You’re the well respected leader of Militer Aswang and you are a manananggal of many talents, but you haven’t yet mastered restraint and patience. We’re manananggals, but we don’t slaughter our prey like wild animals.” Lagg curled her prickly talons around Tentara's dislocated arm and felt the bones rattling in their body, the bristly skin on their forearm sagging and moist.

“I don’t need your compliments,” cried Tentara, bubbling with arrogance. “And I don’t need your corrections either! We’re the fearsome manananggal–according to legend, we’re the bloodthirsty members of the aswang race that feast on the unborn children! We’re supposed to be nasty, vile and irredeemable creatures!”

Amidst the bickering, Diego attempted a hasty escape, his eyeballs swiveling wildly within their sockets. People looked at Diego with bewildered faces as he darted through the crowded markets lining Manila’s roads. He got two blocks away from the palengke when he was stopped by a man donning a black bandana and shirt, and a swash of red on his pamaypay–a common handheld fan in the Philippines woven with palm leaves.

[magnumversumplus]

Manananggal Ko

Episode 9: Huwag Mo Akong Hawakan (Touch Me Not)

Written By Joseph M.

| Special thanks to my dad for advising me on the proper Tagalog! |

Long, billowing gowns flowed down the stage, models strutting down the runway. They wore earrings that clinked and ran down to their elbows, crowns adorned with sparkling jewelry and high heels that elevated them off the ground. There were models with square chins and models with pointed chins. There were pairs of green, blue, gray and brown eyes, and models with two eyes of different colors glowing down the runway in the SuperMall Pampanga Fashion Show.

The director of the fashion show stood by the photographers and other guests, gentlefolk with cameras snapping photos of each model, the crowd erupting in applause as each fashion model leisurely shuffled down the stage, hands on their hips. Their eyes looked straight forward, occasionally darting to wink at the cameras. The director clapped for them too, adjusting his glasses and rubbing his beard.

As the last model entered the stage, the room fell silent. The last model had no legs or feet, and shriveled organs hung from her waist. The only thing concealing her arid insides was a white wedding dress with enough holes poked through it that the director could see the shocked faces of the critics sitting near the other side of the stage from where the rest of the audience was.

This was no ordinary model–it was Lagg, a manananggal and ex-lover of Crisanto. Lagg found new love, but not for a human or another manananggal. She droned down the stage, showing off the span of her pakpak (her wings) at nakita ng director at mga ibang miyembro ng audience ang ganda niya–the director and the audience witnessed her beauty. Yet, they did not recognize it.

The director was horrified, and yelled, “Get that thing off the stage!” He took off his black top hat and got up from his seat, him and the critics running away while the photographers just snapped pictures of her in awe, their cameras shuttering quietly. There was a strange feeling of liberation as she revealed her true form to the remaining audience, her wings spreading across the entire length of the stage and spinning up a tornado.

Mga seguridad walked in, security officers working for some unknown higher up with stun guns and jet black shades. Upon seeing Lagg, they were frozen with shock. Lagg, seeing the seguridad, felt extreme resentment towards the looks of terror and fright shown to her. She swept her left arm and wing back and charged forward, preparing to deliver a fearsome slash.

She was rushing at the mga guardia at the speed of light, thrusting her talons forward and opening her jaws. She rushed forth, tilting right and swinging her furry talons back and forth. Two hands intervened in her attack, grabbing her two front fangs and sparing the security guards from the maws of death. There was a long moment of silence, only interrupted by the wimpy footsteps of the guards scampering away as Lagg looked into Crisanto’s eyes.

“What do you want now?” Lagg cried, looking at Crisanto with the same bleeding red eyes she always had. “You left me for Imeldnananggal! And for what–money, a car, a beautiful wife?

“You left me for one of my own race!”

Crisanto replied to her with the only words that came to his mind. “Patawarin mo ako. Mahal kita, at ikaw ang aking totoong mahal. Ikaw ang manananggal ko, at ikaw lang ay sa puso ‘to.”

This means something close to, “Forgive me. I love you, and you are my true love. You are my manananggal, and you are the only one in this heart.”

Lagg looked at him, a tattered shell of the lover she once knew. She harkened back to the time they first met in the palengke–she was a high class woman and he was the sweaty jeepney driver. She asked for a ride amidst a pouring thunderstorm and he obliged, offering her his coat and not charging her a centavo to get back home. Wandering back to this memory suppressed in the corner of her mind, she asked him, “Do you still love me?”

“Of course I love you. Mahal kita ngayon, and I will love you forever more.” As Lagg pulled Crisanto onto the runway and they kissed, the story of Lagg’s and Crisanto’s love had reached a pleasant cessation, and their romantic play was nearly ready for the entr’acte.

[magnumversumplus]

Manananggal Ko

Episode 8: Matinding Digmaan Part II (Gross War Part II)

Written By Joseph M.

A manananggal hovered over a tower in Bali, their eyes scanning the blazing horizon, watching the sun rise from afar. This manananggal was a member of the Fraksi Hantu clan, a clan with soldiers and combatants stationed in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and the Philippine Archipelago. This manananggal’s black scaly wings spread over the entire city of Singaraja, Indonesia.

This manananggal was in Bali to fight against a guerrilla invasion by a man named Diego Bayani–he was a tricycle driver, car mechanic, and a harbinger of accusations. This manananggal hosted a faction of the Fraksi Hantu including Imeldnananggal, Raja, Berani, and some lesser known members in an old military station on the edge of town.

This manananggal’s name was Pejuang, and he planned to lead his faction–The Tahan–into a final last-ditch skirmish against Diego at midnight. But in the morning, they were flying around the outpost, circling the towers and observing the brilliant sunrise. Within the outpost walls, Pejuang could see more of the manananggals–soldiers dressed in ragged camo scavenged from the corpses of soldiers, wearing the helmets and vests on themselves and ditching the rest–they had no use for shoes anyway.

A group of manananggal militants zipped across the courtyard, an area within the compound delineated with yellow lines and a sea of untrimmed grass; manananggals battled each other in practice fights, swiping at each other with their bony black claws. Manananggals poked their heads out of the compound–severed winged, disturbing and furry cupids poking their heads up and ducking back down.

Another group of manananggal fighters landed in the compound, a swarm of bat-like humanoids screaming a grueling war cry, a howling shriek into the night. Some manananggals perched on the treetops surrounding the compound–others landing on branches below and responding to the battlecry as night and thunder had befallen upon Bali.

Manong Diego and his farmers prowled through the forests below, small ants in the manananggals’ eyes. Pejuang swept down to the concrete pavement, lowering himself to see Raja’s eyes.

Raja commanded, “They are here. Prepare yourself.” He saluted Pejuang, who reciprocated the gesture. The manananggal soldiers had prepared themselves for this moment–the moment where they’d take Bali back from Diego and his regime.

A group of manananggal soldiers swept up into the skies, covering the shine of the moon with their sweeping wings. Bullets rang through the streets, a hoarde of men beating through the woods surrounding the compound with their guns–as ammo rained down on the compound, the disembodied manananggal rebels retaliated with thrilling shrieks and equally violent force.

Pejuang and the soldiers accompanying them–Tentara, Kuat and Marzekal–pounced through the forest. Pejuang ducked behind a tree–though his dried intestines flowing outward from his belly like a wedding dress still fluttered out with the wind–then leapt at one of the human fighters.

Tenatara, Kuat and Marzekal chased after Diego Bayani himself, three swirls of matter, wind and red eyes chasing the farmer down into the empty streets flanked by dimly lit building, down piers ghostly at that hour, and trapped him at the edge of a bridge, where the other side was a steep drop into the ocean.

Manong Diego Bayani whipped out a gun with two long barrels and fired at the manananggals, pairs of bullets flying past them. Their claws struck at him, a confusing flurry of blows harassing Diego into dropping his gun. Bullets, talons and Diego’s arms scraped against the pier, poking holes into the weaker timber beams.

Manong Diego finally let go of his shotgun, his hefty pinky weakly releasing the trigger and letting the gun drop into the foamy shores. Kuat raised their talon as the shotgun drifted into the ocean.

Tentara, meanwhile, dueled off the last of the farmers in Bali. This manananggal's movements were swift, their form like a spiral of wings and light leaving bamboo hats stuck in tree branches. One of the farmers approached with a rifle, but was quickly stunned by a ray of light that beamed down and bounced off Tentara’s wings, and fell.

Another farmer tried stabbing Tentara with a stake, but they simply plucked the stake from their wings and hurled it back. The corn farmer fled as Tentara bellowed victoriously. Tentara and their faction within the Fraksi Hantu–Militer Aswang–proudly served Singaraja and battled for Bali.

[magnumversumplus]

Manananggal Ko

Episode 7: Eskandaloso (Scandalous)

Written By Joseph M.

Beneath a sheet metal roof and within concrete walls, in an acrylic glass on a rosewood table, therein was held purified and filtered water. Cracks and holes in the scrap metal–between sheets fastened with zip ties and duct taped together–allowed dirtier water to trickle down and splatter on the table. Manong Crisanto Dalisay walked into the room and saw the acrylic glass, the chemically clean hydrogen dioxide mixing with an unfiltered mix of water, fleas and bacteria to form a substance that still looked like the pure aqua.

Except for when Crisanto held it up to his nostrils and sniffed it, it smelled of trash and cigarettes. And when he held the glass to his mouth and drank the water, it tasted like salt and stray dogs. There were still flavors derived of the Earth’s gift of springs, but injected into those layers of natural flavor of fresh lochs were the taste of another man’s–or possibly manananggal’s–poisonous vengeance.

The shot of Adam’s ale wasn’t as pure as he’d once thought, and accusations ran through his mind. The first one he deemed to be the suspect was Manong Diego Bayani–a traysikel driver who tried to stop Crisanto from reuniting with his long lost lover, attempting to help the pulis apprehend him. Cigarettes were something Manong Diego enjoyed, and trash was something Diego liked to eat.

Crisanto slammed down the glass, distortions and fractured images forming in the acrylic as he smacked it against the table. He got into his jeepney, Bigan, and hurriedly drove to the traysikel driver Diego’s shack, a similar shamble of corrugated metal and limestone lying around the corner of a palengke entrance. He banged on the door to which Diego’s drunken face answered him.

Looking at Diego’s tired eyes and slow-moving lips made him want to get into a hair-pulling fight with this man. This man–his skin swollen insect bites and rashes–and seemingly constantly agitated by the aggressive crowing of gamecocks and the cheering of the crowd in the illegal cockfighting arena behind him–suddenly found himself staggering into his own house as Crisanto pulled at his hair. Crisanto and Diego staggered around the kitchen, then into the cockfighting arena.

There were already two contestants duking it out in the arena, a sandpit repurposed for illegal gamefowl brawls. In the current matchup, there was a chicken of the notoriously victorious Sweater breed in one corner named Suzy, screeching loudly alongside the audience–a group of middle-aged men raising their fists and cheering. In another corner, there was a Hatch chicken named Rikan, an equally aggressive cock despite its less notorious win streak.

Each gamecock had stones strapped to their legs. And when the arbiter blew a whistle, the owners released their gamefowl to duke it out to each other. The quarrel between the dinosaurs’ survived was interrupted by a loud crash, and suddenly spectators were in for two side-by-side catfights.

Suzy swiped at Rikan with her claw, missing. Diego pinned Crisanto to the ground and raised a clenched fist. Rikan struck back. Crisanto stopped Diego’s fist in midair.

Rikan headbutted Suzy, the stones on her knees knocking the defeated Hatch fowl into the sand. Crisanto pushed Diego away, then jabbed him in the chest, much to the applause of the audience. Rikan butted Suzy with the side of her beak, and Suzy retaliated similarly. Crisanto punched Diego, then threw him into the crowd.

Diego fell into the arms of an inebriated gathering, a pile of tipsy men in their forties, wasting their precious pisos gambling. “Anong gusto mo, ha?” Diego was furious that their fight had escalated so much and this quickly. “What do you want?

Suddenly, someone in the crowd got to his feet, declaring that Diego had spiked them, rambling with intoxicated scorn. He was drizzled in beer stains, his hair was damp with bird poop. Other than his unfounded accusations, he spoke befuddled nonsense.

His unintelligible mumbling occupied most of his thought. The intoxicated man stumbled into the square cockfighting arena, straying far away from the stands on the left and right sides of the pit. “You poisoned me!”

Crisanto saw the opportunity to jump in and pressure the sweating, nervous Diego. “Walang hiya ka! Shameless you–you poisoned me as well!”

Other gamblers rose from their seats too, all gangly thin men with translucent moss green bottles in their hands and tattered sleeveless white shirts, all permeating with riveting tales of laced beer and tainted sodas. Diego felt karma draw tears of sweat from his arid face, his parched eyes watering up. He was under duress, and the visible breaking of his soul was as momentarily shattering as the relationship between Lagg and Crisanto.

As both star-crossed lovers soon shattered like meteors furiously hurtling into the atmosphere, Crisanto collapsed also. But like how Lagg found new love, Diego’s tears of stress turned into a wicked smile–a tangled mess of emotions weaving into his smirk. Siya ay nakakalason–he was poisonous.

He had perverted the job he once loved most, irreverent to the integrity a tricycle driver needed. The cockfight spectators all stumbled down into the sand pit and dragged the odiously leering Diego away. He was being taken to the Bongang Bonga Cockfight Arena in Pampanga to rest, but he festered with too much hatred for jeepney drivers to sleep.

[magnumversumplus]

Manananggal Ko

Episode 6: Tunay Na Kabaliwan (True Craziness)

Written By Joseph M.

Manong Crisanto Dalisay ran through the airport, neon signs glaring in his face, the checkout lines, small shops overflowing into the halls, airplanes taking off into the distance. He was in the Jakarta International Airport, running away from the fight in Bali, inspired with a cowardice never before seen. He shoved through a pilot escorted by flight attendants, pushed away a couple and their several kids, and raced through a gate filled with rows of drowsy passengers and food spilled onto the ground.

Crisanto was on a sloppy dash through the airport, crashing into displays and knocking over aisles in convenience stores to get to his destination: the airport’s only help desk. He slammed into a man from the Indonesian military, a decorated and embattled soldier wearing a thick camo jacket and an assortment of badges. The trooper stepped aside, and Crisanto just kept on running.

Crisanto had to run away from Imeldnananggal. He had to make things right and see Lagg N. Anananam again. He had to make things right with the only manananggal he ever actually cared about, the only one that mattered. He wished he could deal with what was happening in Bali, but his love needed him.

The way Crisanto saw it, love was like a pebble and selfless service was like a stone. Sa ating Lupa (in our Earth) from the highest points of Chocolate Hill to the lowest points of the West Philippines Sea, the stone always had more effect than the pebble. But in the expansive realms of the stars, asteroids and planets above the terra, loving one person was better than selflessly serving many; a pebble and a meteor both floated through the stars.

This was his flawed vision of the way one should love another, ang paraan na dapat mahalin ng isa ang iba. Perhaps, Crisanto, to justify his selfishness, created this fallacious view of the way mahal (love) works to exculpate himself and feel less guilty. Crisanto, falling down a set of moving stairs–the buzzing of the escalator resonating in his ear as his head slammed against every step–pondered on if running to the one he loved the most was more important than saving people he didn’t know.

Crisanto got to his feet, only to crash into a newspaper stand, Time magazines flying everywhere, faces of celebrities with chiseled chins and long, flowing hair flying in his face. He picked up one of the magazines as it fell and turned to a random page, skimmed through the words, flipped through the rest and crashed into a vending cart, the man running it falling out of his sandals.

“Apa yang dia pikir dia lakukan?” cried the man, as Crisanto got back up and tipped him several bills of different denominations.

Crisanto tripped on a banana peel. It was green like calamansi, rotting, and now it smelled like dog poop. His arms flailed miserably before he belly-flopped. He got back to his feet and bellowed that he could understand the man’s Indonesian: “Saya mengerti bahasa Indonesia juga, teman!”

Crisanto rushed through crowds of people jaunting through the airport, leisurely shuffling to their gates, not troubled by a plundering terrorist farmer and not scrambling to reunite with an ex-lover. Crisanto’s methods of getting to where he needed to be were flippant, berserk and frenzied. Adrenaline pumped through his blood like gasoline through the veins and bones of a traysikel, spiking as he kicked, pushed, pulled, punched and screamed his way through the airport and finally reached the airport help station.

The person manning the desk, a man named Emilio Dela Cruz, looked at him with a helpful and tender smile, speaking to him and gesturing with a friendly demeanor and explaining things with courtesy and politeness. “Hello, sir. What may I help you with?”

“Penerbangan ke Filipina!” Crisanto slammed his passport onto the desk and pulled Emilio towards him, demanding a flight to the Philippines amongst other things in incomplete phrases. all of a sudden, Crisanto Dalisay forgot all of the Indonesian he learned as a kid. “I need a flight to the Philippines ASAP!”

Emilio sighed and asked him for his credit card, saying, “Hindi mo alam? Marunong ako mag Tagalog at Ingles din!” He also knew how to speak Tagalog, and now Crisanto was in an awkward position.

“Forgive me, please,” Crisanto begged him urgently. “I need a flight to the Philippines, now!”

Emilio scanned over the passport, the driver’s license and the other IDs Crisanto laid out before him, the photos of a rugged man with bags under his eyes and an uncomfortable smile staring back at him. This was not too dissimilar to the hillbilly that stood in front of him, a man hurrying to get somewhere without any immediately apparent reason.

There was tension, escalating as a printer began vomiting out a boarding pass. The ink slowly filled out the sheet with Crisanto’s name, date of birth, and official-sounding jargon. Emilio held the boarding pass in his hand, wondering whether he should allow Crisanto Dalisay a ticket home.

What did Crisanto want? What if he had negative intentions? What was he running from? These were all questions that ran through Emilio Dela Cruz’ head as he ruminated on the possibility of malice.

[magnumversumplus]

Manananggal Ko

Episode 5: Matinding Digmaan Part I (Gross War Part I)

Written By Joseph M.

In Bali, Indonesia, beneath the landscape of neon and luminescence, beneath lambent neon lights wherein evil had no place to hide, beneath radiant cityscapes and tight streets blazing with vivid colors, there is a manananggal faction, “infecting Indonesia with gambling rings and illegal cockfighting matches.” These manananggals were all part of the same clan–dubbed by the citizens of Bali as “Fraksi Hantu”, or “The Ghost Faction” in Indonesian.

Fraksi Hantu members hid in plain sight, prowling through the night life with no disregard for people seeing their fleshy faces and askew body proportions. Their lower halves had been severed and separated from their bodies. Unlike others in their species whose jaws were dislocated and cracking at the seams, the manananggals of this clan had cleaner jaws. Unlike the glowing crimson eyes of any other manananggal, the manananggals had three gentle orbs with blue irises for hearts.

The Fraksi Hantu, though intimidating to those who didn’t know them, the people of Bali knew them very well. The Fraksi Hantu didn’t actually hold illegal activities–this was mythos. In reality, the Fraksi Hantu were simply escaping the hatred towards the manananggal and fleeing to a different country.

However, while most self-proclaimed manananggal hunters could shutter away their egos and their urge to shoot down all humanoids with bat wings and slithering tongues, some poachers traveled to Indonesia, patrolling the streets with their rifles, bursting into shops and houses in the middle of the night, dragging out folks suspected of being manananggals and burning them at the stake.

Leading the group of manananggal hunters was Manong Diego Bayani, a tricycle driver, car mechanic and farmer whose heart had nothing but hatred. He wore two triangular flags; there was one of the Philippines and the Indonesian flag–a glistening triangular banner divided between scarlet and snow white halves, both flags being carried on their back, as well as two katanas.

Diego Bayani was a tricycle driver, angry at the manananggal gangs that were scaring his customers from leaving their homes. He was an car mechanic, tired of seeing the cars with clawed hoods and smashed windows. He was a farmer with a hatred for the manananggals that were plucking his crops. He was hatred and evil incarnate, a jaded man with senseless anger.

As he marched down the roads of Bali, a spectrum of colors shining down on his face, people ducked into their homes, behind their doors and out of his sight. The three-eyed manananggals of Bali perched on the rooftops behind him and his hunters, their tongues licking with delight at their new meal. But they couldn’t feast on Diego just yet. The Fraksi Hantu were dignified members of the manananggal race, and they were going to find the right time to strike.

The pangulo of The Fraksi Hantu, the president named Raja, said to the others with gurgly snark, “Prepare to attack soon, boys. Let’s drive these men out of town.”

One of the other manananggals, Berani, whispered back in a quiet, screechy hiss, “We should strike now!”

Raja tapped on Berani’s shoulder with his talon and pointed at Diego, who was now entering the house of a newly married couple. “Look–they’re going after the innocents! Even us manananggals wouldn’t do such horrendous acts!”

Raja and Berani watched Manong Diego and his fiends ransack the property, dragging the couple out of the small home–the bride still dressed in her wedding gown and the groom still dressed in a jet black suit–and watched the farmers stand back as an abode for a loving couple turned orange, yellow and red all at once.

It burned like the old embers in Lagg’s and Manong Crisanto Dalisay’s romance, and it burned down and crumbled into ashes like their long-gone love.

And Crisanto–who was in Bali and watching the blazes consume everything from a distance, Imeldnananggal’s thick and fuzzy arms wrapped around his chest, her wings wrapped around his stomach and her spanning, her scaly wings escorting him over the chaotic scene–cried, for he was in disbelief at the desecration of his ancestors’ city.

Imeldnananggal left Crisanto at the gate of the Tirta Empul temple, the image of the Hindu deity Bhoma on the entrance. His new manananggal lover had dropped him off in a place far away from the chaos, sitting him on the steps of the temple while she joined the members of her and Lagg’s clan to fight back against Manong Diego’s barbaric witch trials.