DIARY OF VALERIA [ COMPLETED ]

Chapter 17

Weeks have passed, and there was still no sign of my immortal friends, as if Valeria didn't exist at all. And the meeting that we had was just a pigment of my imagination. Gakud on the other hand, didn't pay me another visit. But I was happy with that, because he was really scary in person. The creature got his diary, and I believe that it's the only thing he wanted. But, the two of them left a huge impact in my life. I was agitated, and my anxiety attacks became frequent; it was affecting my daily life. I was a changed person because of what happened, and my views about life in general changed forever.

In life, there are things that can't be unseen and unlearned; you just have to learn how to deal with it. How could someone recover from meeting a truly immortal beings like Valeria and Gakud? The answer is no. You can't.

Albert went back to his normal self, living his normal life as if nothing happened. I can't blame him, because he didn't actually meet either one of them. For him, the Wah'dli tribe was just a story that I weaved to make sense of everything. I bet he thought that I was nuts, but he didn't say a thing because he didn't want to upset me. It didn't matter anyway, I know what I saw and what I saw was the truth. I did my best to bounce back and gradually; our lives went back to normal. Or at least close to normal, for me. Despite how hard it was, I tried to bury myself with homework and college because it's the only way I could cope. Living one day at a time, the final exams were just around the corner. Albert focused himself with his workouts and his thesis assignment. Occasionally, he would drag me to the gym to work on my cardio. He enjoyed playing as my gym trainer, and he would beat me hard with his improvised workout routines, which really killed me. My body was sore the entire time; Albert said that his workout was working and soon enough, my body will be similar to the one he has, which I doubt will happen, but I played along with him. Besides, it was for my own good. And working out helped me cleared my head. During weekends, we would play video games like regular college dudes.

We're also graduating students. Didn't I say that earlier? Yes, we are. Finally!

Sooner or later, our college lives would end, and another chapter of our lives begins. I was looking forward to it, and I thought about leaving all this behind. But despite how I ignore these thoughts, Valeria and her tribe's existence loomed over my head like dark clouds that desperately needed sunlight. There was that question in my head - aside from the Wah'dli, what other creatures are out there?

I shouldn't be asking a question that I'm not prepared to know the answer, I learned that the hard way from Valeria, because I poked my head to a hole I wasn't supposed to. There were things in the world that should be left hidden – an underworld consisting of creatures who only existed in myths, thriving beneath the superficial current of the new world. Days turned into weeks, which turned into months, and there were still no signs of Valeria nor Gakud. Albert and I waited until we realized that the situation was futile, and we might as well give up. I shouldn't be looking forward to seeing them again, but I wanted to prove to Albert and to myself that they were actually real, and not just a mere hallucination due to my obsession with her. But I needed proof to carry with me, something tangible.

Albert and I then continued our website. As our editor-in-chief, I decided not to write anything about Valeria anymore. Some readers noticed this, and I humbly gave them a vague explanation while others were relieved that I no longer created posts that they believe, were from my lucid imagination. Although, I was thankful that the majority of our readers didn't seem to care at all, they were happy enough for our progress in terms of topics. IslaFilipinas remained true to its theme, and I still post pictures and stories that were relevant to Philippine history and literature. We had more than a hundred years' worth of looking back, and taking us back to the origin of our mother country. We believe that the site would be here for a long time. Of course, we also received materials from other enthusiasts around the country who were happy to help us with the site. Some of them offered to write guest posts, which we really appreciated a lot.

The community that Albert and I created with the site was thriving and the evidence was clear as we gathered more and more social media followers for the past month. We were happy about it; we wanted to focus on the site to make it more fun and user-friendly. The site became our safe haven, and we worked on it day and night, non-stop. One night, Albert told me about affiliated marketing, that we could make money out of the site. My eyes twinkled with excitement. I was already in it before Albert finished explaining everything. The next few days, Albert and I worked very hard on linking our site to AdSense and other local online advertisers that were interested. Having the site as a source of income was a blessing; at least we're earning money to do something that we were passionate about.