Glittering Gold | ONC 2024

Chapter 1: Morning Dew

CONTENT WARNING

This chapter contains mature themes and a lot of profanity that may not be suitable for a very young audience.

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Danilo wanted to die. For a long time, his heart had twisted in tight and painful knots of anguish, fear, and depression, but it all unraveled when his escape finally came to him. All he needed to do was jump.

He weighed the heavy rock in his hands, cradling it against his slowly heaving stomach. He wasn't the most competent man--only a high school graduate, not like his sister and brothers who went to college--but he understood that he would sink and drown with the rock tied to his leg.

He opened his eyes and watched the small ripples on the lake made by the cool December winds. The warm lights of Burnham Park shimmered over the water. Living in Baguio City all his life, he had never appreciated this view. It had always been an ordinary thing, a part of his ordinary life. He never thought it was beautiful until now, when all he could think about was death.

He couldn't remember the last time he felt relieved. He was at peace, knowing his rest was only a step away. Death would give him what he needed. He had thought about it for a while now. It played a game of tug-of-war in his mind. But when he eventually gave in, the fighting stopped. The anguish, the fear, the depression, all of it vanished.

A slow smile curved his lips, and he allowed himself to indulge in the Oooh-yes sensation. Despite the large rock exhausting his shoulders, his whole body was afloat. It wasn't due to the alcohol or the cigarette. He was so sure it was because death was welcoming him to the finality of his suffering.

"What are you doing?" A voice behind Danilo rattled him from the cemented railing he stood on. He toppled back and fell on his ass. The rock dropped on the ground beside him with a heavy thud.

"Fuck!" Danilo cursed and looked up. A woman, wearing a shawl and tapis patterned in the striped red and black tapestry of the Igorots, stood before him. What the hell was a girl like her doing here at three in the morning?

"Can you see me?" the woman asked. Her voice was soft, like the glow of lights against the dark.

"What?" Danilo asked as if he couldn't comprehend the question, shaking his head to lose his drunkenness. He squinted, his vision fuzzy, trying to focus until the woman in front of him steadied.

"You can see me." The woman gave a shaky breath. "And you can hear me too." She grinned.

"What are you ta--" the words stuck in Danilo's throat when he grasped who or what he was looking at as if his brain had just completed the processing of the image in front of him. Alarm bells rang in his mind.

The woman was barefoot. Her clothes weren't enough to guard against the cold. But those weren't what triggered Danilo's panic button. It was the fact that he could see through her. Like through the stretched fabric of a lady's stockings, he saw the dark and tiny green leaves of the shrubs behind her.

"What the fuck!" He crawled backward away from her but only got a few added inches of distance. The rope tied to his leg tugged him to stop. "Shit! Shit!" He reached for the rope, trying to untie it, but the knot was too tight. "Shit!"

"Wait, no. Please." The woman reached for him.

"Mother of fuck! God help me!" This wasn't how he wanted to die.

"Please." The woman touched his knee.

Danilo gasped but felt nothing as her fingers sunk into his leg. "No!"