The world had crumbled under ash and silence. By
2078, the Philippines was a patchwork of walled
enclaves and forgotten villages, where the old
gods still whispered through the rice fields. In
Barangay Maligaya, now ruled by a council of
survivors, the old ways were not dead—just
buried deeper.
Eduardo Reyes, 24, had been raised by his aunt
after his father vanished during the last
typhoon. He worked the fields, kept his head
down, and avoided the rumors that swirled around
the new woman in his aunt’s home. Her name was
Lourdes, and she had come with a past as dark as
the storm clouds that rolled over the mountains.
Lourdes had made a deal. A long time ago, in the
ruins of Manila, she had bargained with an
aswang—an old spirit that fed on secrets and
promises. It had given her power to heal, but at
a cost: every life she saved would be taken from
someone else. She had used it to survive, to
rise above the chaos, until she met Eduardo.
She saw in him something rare: a man who had
never asked for anything. And so, she broke the
rules. She healed him when he collapsed from
fever, not knowing the price would be her own
son’s life. The aswang came for her, but she ran.
She ran to the hills, where the old spirits
still watched, and found Eduardo waiting.
He knew what she had done. He had seen the scars
on her arms—the marks of the pact. He had also
seen the way she looked at him, like he was both
salvation and damnation. Forbidden love had no
place in a world where survival was the only law,
but they were bound by something deeper than
blood.
They made a new pact. One that would change the
rules of the old world. Eduardo would find the
aswang’s lair, where the pact could be broken or
rewritten. Lourdes would stay behind, guarding
their barangay from the hungry ghosts that
roamed the night.
The pact was sealed with a drop of blood, and a
promise: that love, even forbidden, could
rewrite the end of the world.
The aswang was waiting. But this time, the
balance would shift.
