The Child of Scraps

Chapter 26

Noah Rizal climbed the stairs, her footsteps soft and slow on the paved concrete. The lighting was dim and reddish, giving the area an uneasy look. Noah wondered if the setting sun was a sign that their journey was finally over.

On the top of the stairs was an old wooden door. Noah opened it slowly, and peeped into the room.

The room was free of dust, but the walls and floor were unfurnished. It was filled with all sorts of antiques, most of them being books. None of the titles appeared to be familiar to her. An old TV sat in the corner, turned on and on the news channel. Noah didn't care about the news in that moment.

There was a large desk in the middle of the room, with two books and several scattered notes. Noah walked over to the desk and started reading the notes.

Jose Rizal - born 1861. Date of death unknown - no written references

Possibly contacted Adarna? His pen was possibly magic, possibly imbued with feather's properties

Spaniards have hidden most of Rizal's novels and prevented him from further damaging their rule

Noli and Fili are noted to include real-life priests  (Noah noted that the next lines had a strikethough) possibly autobiographical or non-fiction? No references for the other characters being real however

VP has admitted that Noli and Fili are based on real-life circumstances. Must research further.

Noah paused for a moment. Was this true? Was all of this true? Noah had an important piece of her country's history? Why was her surname Rizal? Was Rizal possibly her great-grandfather of sorts? The two books were definitely Noli and Fili. She reached out to touch one of them-

-and found her entire world collapsing.

Everything was blurring in front of her eyes. The brown and gray of the room she was in was slowly changing into greens and blues and yellows. The stale air was becoming fresher and more humid. She started smelling mud and grass. Most importantly, her body was feeling less real. This happened in seconds, but for Noah it felt like hours.

Suddenly, she was seeing something she had never seen before.

She was now on the edge of the forest, standing on the small cliff that was above a lake. To her left, she saw a large Hispanic house, only instead of looking old like most Hispanic house, it looked like it was newly built and well-maintained. It had an elegant design, with a lo of yellow light streaming through the large windows of the house. 

There was a balcony , and Noah could see a beautiful woman standing on it. Down below, a man was standing on a boat and Noah could hear him shouting sad dedications of love-

Wait. Shouting?

Noah could hear.

You'd think a deaf girl would immediately notice that she could hear but Noah didn't. But why? And why did her deafness suddenly go away?

But thinking about it, the pained yelling was familiar and Noah knew that she had heard it before somewhere-

And suddenly, just as quickly as she had gotten there, she was back in the room again, with one hand on top of Noli me Tangere. Only now, Avery and Leandro were inside the room as well, and they were staring at Noah pretty intently.

Avery rushed over to Noah's side and started checking her. She started speaking rapidly but Noah couldn't understand. She was deaf again.

Leandro covered his mouth with his hands and pointed at the small TV in the corner. His eyes wwere wide open in shock. Noah and Avery turned to face the TV, and they understood why immediately.

On the news, they were talking about the death of a very famous man. They showed a blurred picture of the body, but Noah could read the subtitles.

The president had been assassinated.