THE RIVER TREMBLED. It was subtle at first. A low pulse in the current. A tremor ran through the dirt beneath their feet, like the bones of the world shifting. Then came the shape. No longer just a shadow on the edge of imagination, but a thing with form and size. Enormous, slow, deliberate. It stepped into the glow of Amara's bracelet-light, and what Gray saw stole the air from his lungs.
The creature rose from the riverbed like a monument. Its body was a towering mass. Ogre-shaped, wide-shouldered and stooped forward, but it moved with the glacial grace of something ancient. Its limbs were long and heavy, wrapped in trailing ropes of riverweed and kelp, some of which curled like seahorse tails or twisted like barnacled cords.
Patches of its body shimmered with fish-scale glints, but other parts looked like rough stone eroded by centuries of tide. Its back was tangled with fronds and vines, as though the river had tried to reclaim it. As it moved, little creatures like eels, shrimp, river crabs, and a lot skittered in and out of the thick mats of kelp that crowned its hunched shoulders like living armor.
Two large yellow eyes blinked into view, luminous as lanterns, set deep under a shelf of bone and waterlogged moss. When it exhaled, bubbles floated up around its lips in slow-motion, rising and bursting against the dome of water above them. The sheer size of it was enough to make the world feel smaller, more fragile.
Gray didn't move. He didn't breathe. His mouth had fallen open, useless. The sheer absurdity of the creature's existence crushed the last bits of doubt he might've had about this world. It was one thing to believe in monsters. It was another thing to be stared at by one. Beside him, Amara stepped forward with trained poise. Her blade angled just slightly forward, not threatening, but ready. Her eyes narrowed in the way soldiers measure gods, by their weaknesses, not their titles.
Then came a voice. Calm, unshaken. "Lower your weapons," said the siokoy, who floated near them with that same eerie tranquility. "He's a friend."
The words didn't quite register at first. Gray looked from the siokoy to the behemoth again. A friend? The towering thing blinked slowly, then, so gently it was almost comedic, raised one massive, five-fingered hand. It gave them a hesitant wave.
And then it smiled.
Wide. Toothless. Almost sheepish. "Hi," it said, in a voice so deep and slow it felt like a tree was learning to speak. The word bubbled from its throat and rippled through the water around them like a warm current.
Gray blinked again. "You have got to be kidding me."
Amara lowered her blade, but didn't sheathe it. Her face was unreadable. Gray nearly laughed. Nearly. Not because it was funny, but because after everything, this might've been the most ridiculous thing yet. And somehow... the most endearing.
"This right here," said the siokoy, swimming closer and placing a webbed hand affectionately on the enormous, kelp-entwined tail, "is my berberoka friend. His name is Lamad."
"Ber—what?"
The creature smiled again, as if pleased to finally be formally acknowledged. His massive form barely shifted, yet the water trembled around him with every subtle motion. His glowing eyes blinked slowly, casting golden streaks against the river walls.
Gray took an unconscious step back, eyes still glued to the towering bulk of the creature. "Friend," he muttered under his breath. "Sure."
The siokoy turned toward them again, still resting a hand on the kelp-bound tail, his tone calm, matter-of-fact. "If we walked, it would take days to reach Mount Banahaw. Berberokas... swim quick."
Gray leaned forward, speaking low to the girl ahead of him. "So is this the part where he asks us to mount the living swamp monster and hold onto seaweed reins?"
Before Amara could respond, the siokoy glanced over his shoulder, clearly having heard every word. "Don't worry," he said dryly. "We have a seat."
The berberoka shifted with a long, rolling movement, his massive tail curling around. And as he did, the river rippled to reveal something hidden behind the bulk of his body.
A cabin. A carriage, really, though not one made by hands familiar with steel or horses.
It was a structure of ancient design, lashed with braided vines and reinforced with what looked like bamboo turned dark with age. Kelp strands, thick and sinewy, clung to its underframe like the harness of a beast of burden. Glass, murky but intact, served as windows, while faded carvings ran across its wooden panels, etched in patterns that whispered of forgotten voyages. The edges were lined with shell inlays, dulled by time. It wasn't beautiful in the traditional sense. It was older than beauty. It felt sacred. Like it had stories.
"Woah," Gray breathed.
The siokoy approached the door, placing a hand flat against its surface. He whispered something, words that felt older than the river itself:
"Hangin ng itaas, higupin mo ang hinga ng tubig."
The spell curled through the water like a current. In response, the carriage gave a soft creak as water hissed and drained itself from within, pouring through unseen seams and vents like breath exhaled. The interior dried in seconds, though no air had moved.
The door eased open with a wooden groan. Inside, it was plain. No ornaments. No velvet cushions. Just smooth, worn benches that bore the marks of long use, and faintly glowing Baybayin symbols running along the beams. Protective wards or enchantments, perhaps. It smelled faintly of brine and age, but not unpleasantly.
Gray stepped in, still glancing around like it might collapse on them. He dropped onto the nearest corner by the window, peering out at the distorted shapes of fish and river debris through the thick glass. Amara entered next and took the opposite side, ever watchful, ever unreadable. The siokoy followed last, folding himself across the seat facing them, as if he'd done this a hundred times before.
Outside, Lamad let out a low grumble that shook the cabin gently, more vibration than sound, and with that, they began to move. The river swallowed them whole. And the current whispered secrets only the old ones remembered.
The siokoy watched the river drift by through the murky glass before slowly turning his gaze to the two humans seated across from him. His eyes, though unblinking, seemed to weigh something unspoken, as though choosing the right moment to speak. After some time, he broke the stillness with a voice calm and low, almost as if it were echoing from a deeper trench beneath the water.
"I am Agta," he said, simply. No flourish. No ceremony.
Gray blinked, straightened his back a little. "Gray. Gray Sandoval," he replied, almost reflexively, his voice a shade quieter than intended. He had never spoken his full name to a creature from a mythbook before. And yet, Agta nodded in recognition, like the name was good enough, like it fit a space in his memory where other human names once lived.
Amara did not answer right away. She had been staring at the siokoy the whole time, eyes narrowed just slightly, not with hostility, but with a kind of practiced caution. It was the look of someone who had measured more than a few strangers in her lifetime. Finally, she gave her name, short and clipped. "Amara."
There was something final in the way she said it. A line drawn in salt. Gray turned to her, expecting more—perhaps a surname, a fragment of small talk, anything. But she was already looking past him, eyes distant, fixed out the glass window where the soft shapes of river life flickered like old film. She wasn't really watching them, though. Her thoughts had drifted somewhere deeper. Somewhere far away. Gray waited a moment longer, then gave up and sank back into the bench with a shrug.
Agta looked between them once more, then closed his eyes briefly, like he could feel the weight of the river against the wooden walls. "You should rest," he said. "It will be a long travel still."
No one argued.
Silence unfurled between them like a slow-moving current. Not awkward. Just heavy. A kind of stillness only found underwater or in sacred spaces. The motion of the carriage had a rhythm to it, a gentle rocking that mimicked the lull of tide and time. Outside, Lamad moved with eerie silence, his massive form parting the waters as though the world itself made way for him. The lights within the carriage dimmed slightly, softening into an amber hue. One by one, their eyes closed.
Gray felt himself slipping beneath the weight of it. Not just sleep, but something deeper, thicker. Like he was being pulled into a place where the world forgot to be solid. He drifted into dream.
The cave again.
It always began with the cave.
But this time, something felt... off. The cave was still wrapped in that strange twilight, its walls slick with glistening stone, surfaces half-alive, pulsing with a color he couldn't quite name. Light came from nowhere. Shadows clung to everything. He was standing at its mouth, the cool air against his skin, but when he turned to look behind him, there was no path. Only more darkness. The entrance had vanished, swallowed by some shifting dream logic.
He looked forward. The cave waited.
A tremor passed through him, subtle but real. The kind that wasn't fear exactly, but the realization that something was watching him. That he wasn't alone in this space. He took a step forward, the floor echoing beneath him, but it sounded distant, like it didn't belong to his body.
Then he heard it.
A voice. Soft, hoarse. Like someone out of breath.
"Help..."
He stopped cold.
The voice was close. Male. Young. Not a scream, but a plea. Barely audible over the dream-hum of silence. He turned his head slowly toward the heart of the cave. The air felt tighter. He couldn't tell if the voice was behind a wall or inside the stone itself.
"Help me..."
The second call cut deeper. Familiar somehow. Like hearing a voice from an old home you no longer remembered living in. His feet moved on their own, drawn toward the source. The tunnel yawned wider, the walls bending like they were breathing. Just as he was about to call out—
Gray's eyes snapped open, his breath catching for a second like he'd been pulled out of deep water. The carriage felt colder now, or maybe it was just the sweat cooling on his skin. His gaze darted around the dim cabin, eyes adjusting to the stillness. The walls groaned softly as the currents shifted around them, and beyond the window, shadows moved with the slow rhythm of the river.
Across from him sat Agta, slouched slightly with his sibat resting along his shoulder like an old staff. His eyes were closed, head bowed just enough to suggest sleep, though from his lips came a low, steady hum of snores that rose and fell with the sway of the current. It was the kind of peaceful noise that would've been oddly comforting in any other world.
Then a sound pierced the quiet.
A soft whimper.
Gray turned his head, and there, beside him, Amara lay slumped against the side of the carriage, body curled ever so slightly inward. Her brow was damp with sweat, and though her eyes were shut, her expression was far from restful. Her limbs twitched in small, tight movements, like she was trying to run but her body wouldn't let her. Then came the whisper, thin and cracked.
"Rome..."
The name slipped past her lips like a wound reopening.
Gray stiffened. Rome? His mind spun briefly. Was that someone from her unit? Her boyfriend? A brother?
"No... don't..."
Her voice cracked again, barely audible, but so raw that it didn't matter what she was dreaming. It was hurting her. Gray leaned forward and reached out, his hand brushing her shoulder with the gentleness of someone handling fragile glass.
"Hey," he said softly. "Hey... wake up."
She stirred, but the nightmare held on tight.
Then her body jolted and her eyes flew open. "Rome!" she cried out.
Her gaze landed on him, and suddenly her arms wrapped around him. She pulled him close, fast and without hesitation, as though she had just been drowning and he was the first breath of air. Gray froze. Her head buried itself against his chest, her hair tickling his chin, her body trembling. And then he felt it. Her tears soaking into the front of his shirt, warm and unsteady.
She was crying.
Her arms clung tightly around his back, and for a brief, suspended moment, the world outside could have ended and it wouldn't have mattered. There was no magic. No monsters. No war. Just her holding onto something she mistook for safety, and him unsure of how to hold her back without breaking something.
He hesitated, unsure, then slowly let his hand rest between her shoulder blades. He didn't say a word.
Eventually, the tension in her body shifted. Her arms loosened. Her breathing slowed. And then, all at once, realization struck her. She pulled away quickly, her face turned from his as she wiped at her tears with swift, embarrassed hands.
"Sorry," she muttered, her voice barely above a whisper.
Gray sat back again, saying nothing. There was no sarcasm in him this time, no witty deflection. Only silence. Amara faced the window now, her expression unreadable, though the glass reflected the way her fingers wouldn't stay still.
He turned away, giving her the space she clearly needed, only to find Agta sitting upright again. The siokoy's glowing eyes blinked at him, caught somewhere between amusement and surprise. His arms remained folded across his chest, and though his face barely moved, there was something in the subtle twitch of his brow that made it clear—he'd seen everything.
Gray gave him a helpless look, one that said I-don't-even-know-what-that-was.
Agta's lips curved slightly. He lifted one webbed hand in a simple shrug, like the sea had seen stranger things. Then, without a word, he turned his eyes back toward the river outside.