Chapter 2

It was already 7PM and the crickets were chirping away in their merriment. Not that Gabe cared but the plethora of sounds that assaulted his senses was starting to unsettle him. Why can't his ancestors live in a remote town in the lowlands instead of a mountain? It would have been easier, especially for someone like him who was a stranger to the place and would most probably get lost in the rain forest of a mountain. He heaved a sigh and took out his phone. Ignoring the silence that shrouded him and the girl that walked ahead of him.

He didn't even receive a text message from his family for the whole day. And it looked like he was losing phone service. At least he brought his charger and an he still had 92% battery life. Should he not use his phone as much as he expected, it would probably last for 5 days. Not that he was counting the number of days he was willing to stay, but that seemed enough a time to be around the lipi.

"You don't seem like you've been here before. Are you on some kind of excursion?" The woman suddenly asked, turning her attention to him.

Gabe shook his head and hesitantly told his outrageous story, wondering if she would receive it with an understanding smile or a raucous laughter. She seemed like someone who was educated enough to know that these kind of things shouldn't be taken seriously. But she did say she was on her way home, so perhaps she was a member of the lipi the letter mentioned.

But the woman merely nodded at him, as if understanding his whole situation.

"Yeah, I've heard a rumor about that. The story was that Haliya was the goddess of the moon, so I'm thinking that you're probably her descendant to a mortal man." She said. He was starting to ignore the language she used since she kept lapsing from English, Tagalog and her native tongue. But the curious thing was, he understood every word she said.

"And her descendants would always have a boy as a first born, but the baby will always die in her womb as a sacrifice to appease the serpent who tried to eat her. So all of her living first born descendants are women..." She trailed off.

"Except me." Gabe supplied weakly, feeling disheartened at the thought of becoming a sacrificial lamb to a random serpent who tried to devour the goddess of the moon. So much for being an ace philosophy student.

"Yup, except you."

"So what would happen if the first born male lives?" He should at least know what he should be doing since it seemed like a big deal to his grandparents.

"Simple. All of the children born to Haliya and the mortal dies," She answered without even a hint of worry in her tone. Gabe stared at the woman's back in shock.

"Oh, and the tribe won't be able to fight off the evil one's followers since most of the priestess are born to Haliya's lineage. Everything relating to her will be undone." she added, as if it was an afterthought.

Gabe's jaws slackened as he found himself starting to believe this outrageous story. He couldn't possibly be a descendant of a moon goddess. He probably wasn't and this woman was merely teasing him. And if their belief is thought to be real, he wouldn't still accept it since this idea of believing in gods and goddesses is merely a man-made concept to answer the unanswerable questions they had back then.

As they continued to walk the steep mountain path, the woman suddenly stopped.

"I can't go any further, but just keep going straight and you'll soon find yourself in the middle of a cluster of baheys. Look for their chieftain." She said as she gave him the instructions and gave her flashlight to him. Gabe was hesitant to take her flashlight but the woman was adamant and said that she knew the mountain like the back of her hand.

Following her instructions, he made his way deeper into the mountain with the woman's flashlight illuminating his way. Then it dawned to him that he wasn't able to ask her name.

'Wow Gabe, acting all chummy with a woman when you don't even know her name.' He thought cynically.

Soon enough, he found himself in the heart of the tiny village. Small nipa houses were built adjacent to each other and there were also small huts up in the trees. He could also feel eyes on his back as if he was being watched as he walked to one of the huts.

"Excuse me, could anyone point to me the house of the chieftain?" He asked loudly, not wanting to go inside the poor excuse of a house. But in the process, he was able to rouse the whole village and the chieftain, a short man with dark skin and kinky hair, stepped out of one of the houses.

He looked like he had been sleeping and Gabe felt guilty for waking them up, but couldn't help but wonder how in the world he ended up with an ethnic lineage. He jogged toward the man and introduced himself, recounting the details of how he arrived in the tribe. Sure enough, the chief told him to enter his hut and stay the night. Informing him that before the break of dawn, the priestess would come for him to help him settle in the tribe.

As soon as he hit the hardwood floor that served as a bed, the man immediately fell into a deep dream-filled sleep.

The darkness felt heavy and suffocating. His chest felt heavy and constricted as if the flow of breathable air was too limited for regular breathing. Little by little, he felt himself drop deeper into the dark abyss. He could almost feel the pressure crush his body. Yet he clung to a strand of hope that he would be taken away from this dreadful oblivion. And lo, a voice came calling out to him, telling him it was time.

*Confusion and curiosity rammed into his thoughts as he stirred into consciousness. A familiar yet still quite an unfamiliar voice guided him, telling him that he needed to prepare for the busy day ahead.

Suddenly, he was sucked into a different scenario, where the abrupt brightness nearly blinded him. People dressed in their native clothing gathered around him. Everyone looked curiously like they were out of his Philippine History books. Short, dark skinned, small nosed and kinky haired men and women marvelled at the sight of him.

A child stood before him and took his hand. The young boy guided him into one of the huts and once they reached a nook, Gabe stood face to face with himself and could only stare at his reflection. Despite being dressed in the native tartan-like cloth, he still stood out among the men of the tribe.

He was a mestizo with fair skin and hair dyed auburn. His eyes were also a striking shade of greenish-brown. All signs of being a native of the mountain was gone and buried in the past by his predecessors. He may have come from the line of the moon goddess and an Agta, but it didn't necessarily mean he would look anywhere like them.

The boy who guided him, smiled and told him that he looked beautiful. But before he could even reply to the boy's remark, his surroundings warped into a different room and the child was replaced by a girl who was perhaps around the age of 15. She held a wailing babe in her arms and tears were flowing down her cheeks. Gabe knelt beside her and tried to comfort her. He kissed the baby's forehead and fortunately, that was enough to quell the baby's cries. The girl attempted to smile at him, but ended up sobbing on the bamboo floor.

He was suddenly sucked into a different scenario and now it was dark. The stars lit up the sky and the full moon shone brilliantly over them. An old woman was dancing by a huge tree whilst striking a small drum. The people were chanting in a language he didn't know. A bolo knife was laid beside him.

The chants grew louder and the woman's drum beats were faster.

His heartbeat raced with every beat of the drum.

Sweat started to form on his temples.

Then, as if out of nowhere, his heart was suddenly plucked out of his chest. His entrails scattering on the bamboo floor*.

Blood dripping into a basin beneath him. It felt painfully surreal as he was again plunged into darkness.

Gabe stirred into consciousness. He was soaked in his own sweat. He could feel the small quakes on his arms and legs. He was trembling. Was going here really a good idea? Are the people turning him into a sacrifice to appease the evil that plagued them? As these streams of thoughts entered his mind, he didn't notice the old woman who was kneeling beside him. When he turned his attention to her, the woman gave him a toothless smile.

Gabe jumped up and ran out, screaming as if his life depended on it.

And maybe it did.

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