The sun never rose over Quiapo anymore. A thick
smog clung to the sky, and the oncevibrant
district had turned into a maze of collapsed
buildings and scavenger camps. The world had
ended not with fire or war, but with silence—
power grids died, communication networks failed,
and the government vanished overnight. What
remained was a patchwork of barter economies,
rogue militias, and the desperate clinging to
old routines.
Detective Marivic "Mae" Delgado had
seen it all.
Once a cop in the National Bureau of
Investigation, she now worked for a shadowy
syndicate that paid in rice and bullets. Her
hands were stained with blood, her faith long
since buried under layers of cynicism. But when
her younger sister, Liza, disappeared after
returning from Saudi Arabia, Mae found herself
walking streets she thought she’d left behind.
Liza had been working as a domestic helper,
saving every peso for her dream of opening a
bakery in their hometown. She vanished on the
day of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a
day Mae had always hated for its forced piety.
The only clue was a halfburned photo tucked
inside Liza’s bag—a shot of the old cathedral,
now a ruin, and a boy no older than fifteen
standing beside it.
Mae tracked him down in the slums of Tondo,
where the boy, named Jun, lived among a group of
orphans who scavenged for scrap metal. He didn’t
know who Liza was, but he knew the cathedral. It
had been a refuge for the homeless before the
collapse, and Jun claimed someone had taken
control of it—calling themselves “The Keeper.”
They demanded offerings of food and stories in
exchange for shelter, and those who refused
disappeared.
The rules were clear: no one entered the
cathedral without permission, and no one left
without a price. Mae ignored them. With a stolen
ID and a gun she hadn’t fired in years, she
slipped through the ruins, past rusted gates and
overgrown pathways. Inside, the air was thick
with incense and decay. The Keeper was a woman
in a tattered habit, her eyes sharp behind a
veil. She claimed to be a nun, but her voice
carried the weight of someone who had once held
power.
“You’re looking for your sister,” the Keeper
said, not as a question. “She came here seeking
answers. I gave her a choice: live in this world,
or leave it behind.”
Liza had chosen to stay. She had become the
Keeper’s apprentice, helping to run the
cathedral as a sanctuary for the lost. But the
cost was high—she had to give up her dreams, her
family, and any hope of escaping the past.
Mae had a choice too. She could take Liza back
to the world outside, where survival meant
betrayal and hunger. Or she could let her stay,
and let go of the sister she had failed to
protect.
In the end, it wasn’t a choice at all. Liza
walked out with Mae, leaving the cathedral
behind. The Keeper did not stop them. The city
still burned, but for the first time in years,
Mae felt something other than despair.
Hope was a fragile thing—but it was real.
