Glittering Gold | ONC 2024

Chapter 2: A Grande Friend

CONTENT WARNING

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

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The darkness faded from Danilo's eyes, his four-hour restless sleep dissipating. The cracking pain in his head reminded him he had been drinking the night before.

His memory swirled. Bottles of beer. A pack of cigarettes. Laughing with his friends about the old angry lady in the park. A heavy rock in his hands. The dark lake water reflecting yellow lights. The fading figure of a woman in the night.

Dulnuan.

"Shit!" Danilo sat upright. "That was some dream," he said to himself. He rubbed the heels of his hands over his eyes to stifle his headache, grappling with the notion that what he experienced was more than just a fevered dream.

"Danilo!" His mother's voice came.

Looking down at his lap, his horrible life came to him--the life of a custodian, a drunk and a chain-smoker, a High School graduate who had no better opportunities, and a son whose mother hated him for being himself.

He pressed his hand to his knee, feeling the bone there, cupping the hard roundness of it to jerk himself back to reality--any sensation to make him realize he was safe in his room.

His hand traveled down his bent leg until he reached his ankle. His skin was sore there. When he lifted the hem of his pants, an angry red line braceleted his ankle.

A dream flashed--him squirming on the ground, his leg tugging on a rope tied to a rock as he tried to get away.

"No," he whispered as his fingers traced the gash. "It was just a dream. It can't be real." He tried to tell himself this, but the girl--transparent, barefoot, in Igorot attire, with a gold hoop earring--was real.

"Danilo! Come out of your room!" He heard his mother screaming.

"What do you want?!" he shouted back.

"Just because it's your day off doesn't mean you can sleep all you want. And where have you been last night?! I heard you come in at six in the morning!" His mother started to nag.

"Fuck," he whispered, wanting to shout it. No one understood what he was going through in life. And, he was sure, no one would believe he had seen a ghost last night.

"Danilo!"

He swung his legs off the bed and padded out of his room.

As soon as he opened the door, his face was met with a flying slipper. "What the--"

"Where have you been last night?!" The other pair followed, soaring from his mother's hand.

Danilo caught it in both hands. "Ma!"

"Don't you Ma me!" She started to swat his arm over and over. "Where did you go last night!"

Danilo hunched and curled, pressing his elbows to his side and guarding his face with his hands. "Ma, please!"

"Where did you go!" His mother stopped to take a breath. She pointed with a furious finger. "You've been drinking again. When will you ever stop? When will you change?"

"Ma, please. I have a headache!" he pleaded.

"That's because you've been drinking again. That's all you do. My God!" She fisted her hands and placed them on her hips. "When will you ever change?"