The houses were all built inside what appeared to be a crater, so Libum shoved his hands into his pockets and slid down the dirt, stopping himself with his feet when he reached level ground. The home Tikba stayed in the day they arrived at the Village—Mutya’s, had steps leading up to the front door, and charms that hung from bamboo rope chained around the outside. Libum didn’t bother staying quiet as he threw the door open and walked inside. 

The woman was nowhere to be seen. 

Libum asked Tikba to check the other houses, and the two searched until they both came up empty.  None of the Tagkawal were where they were supposed to be. As his mind mulled over possibilities, he said, “Stay here, maybe they’ll come back. I’m going to make sure they’re not somewhere off-limits.”

He broke into a sprint and didn’t stop running until the familiar crowd of children gathered around him, unharmed. They were too concerned with the way Libum arrived to act young, but Libum only looked at each one of their faces and thought, Where the hell did they go? The only place left to check was an abandoned trail leading up to the mountain. Libum only went there on rare occasions to forage for ingredients, but it went mostly untouched. As a child, he frequented the trail, collecting herbs that he traded with Mutya and Silat, if they taught him useful information. But he hadn’t been that desperate in quite some time.

The Anito rendezvoused on the trail together and Libum explained where they might be, using his lips to show the trail that went into the mountains. The trail was actually a gorge, but no water ran through it, so Libum showed Tikba the way as they entered. It used to lead to an opening where humans could interact with the Hummingbird God, but it’d long been closed off, even before Libum formed a contract. The sky just above the gorge was a muddled inky color. 

He was told that a boulder now replaced the opening, and he never bothered to go far into the gorge. Dead vines wrapped around the entrance, so Libum and Tikba took careful steps over it in order to avoid tripping over themselves. As they ventured further and further in, Libum thought he could hear voices, or people moving. 

“Hey, Tikba?” he whispered over the Anito’s shoulder.

“Yes, bosing?” 

“I can’t hear very well, can you hear anything?”

Tikba jogged a few steps ahead and put their hands behind their ears and listened intently. “There’s someone yelling, like they’ve been hurt,” they said after listening. “Are they…allowed to hurt each other?”

“Let’s go see what those idiots are up to.” Libum bit his tongue to keep the anger anchored inside his body. “They used to beat each other to bloody pulps for fun. Whoever was left standing won all this money.” The road went on for about twenty meters before Libum could hear the noise himself. The closer they got to the end, where the boulder supposedly was, the louder the voices became. It had to have been all the Anito and the Tagkawal in the Village.

Just around the bend, Libum’s jaw dropped when he saw the pagoda. It was three tiers and glowed yellow from the inside out, like the warmth of the sun. And it was conveniently placed where he was told the boulder had been. A boxing ring was set up in front of the entrance, with a straggling group of Anito, Tagkawal, and—

“Humans.” Libum grinded his teeth together. “How’d they get in?” He looked to Tikba, who instantly cowered. 

“I know it wasn’t me, but I still feel like I need to apologize. It wasn’t me.” Tikba said. “There’s that soul! What was his name? Hark?” Libum scanned the crowd for Hukla, and the pair met eyes. The lowest of the Tagkawal screeched and hid deep inside the crowd. Libum stomped after him, but Hukla had gone into the safety of the boxing ring. He motioned for two men, humans, to enter the ring together, whistled, and the two wasted no time in attacking each other.

Silat found them and dragged them away from the crowd, the humans in particular growing more fervent and tumultuous. They shouted swears at each other, at the men fighting, and drummed their palms against the floor of the ring. “Don’t go causing a riot over us, kids,” said Silat. “Newcomer! You overheard us talking, huh? You actually dragged Libum out here. What kind of demon are you?”

“What the hell is this, Silat? Why are humans here?”

“The roads used to connect the humans and the godly realms and permitted travel. Just behind the rock is one of Kolupati’s altars, and these people felt…abandoned by their God,” Silat dragged out the last few words as if he had been personally abandoned himself. “A portal can be opened through the boulder, and humans are able to come through here to play games with us.”

“You have them beat the shit out of each other?” questioned Tikba, their face changing at the same moment blood sprayed onto the floor of the ring. “Kolupati would kill you if she found out.”

“That’s why we only do it when Kolupati isn’t here!” Silat grinned. “How else are we supposed to enjoy ourselves in this drab place? We’d kill each other out of boredom. I even started tying nooses for all of us. But then I remembered this place and thought, ‘Why not make a little money and have humans do it for fun’? The dead don’t have morals, so it was easy to get everyone involved, or at least convince them to not care enough to mention it to Lady Kolupati.”

“What do these humans get out of it?” Libum asked, winding up his fist no matter the answer. “They wouldn’t try to kill each other without an incentive.”

“We promised them favors in the next life.”

Libum made a clean hit for him, but he leaned to the right and barely missed his fist. “Coward,” Libum spit at his feet. “You can hardly even feel my hits. Why don’t you take them? Scared I’ll actually hurt you?”

“I don’t feel like being a punching bag to an emotionally unstable child, painful or not. We’ve been doing this for years and we’re not going to stop now. Come inside! There might actually be some games you’ll find interesting—though you don’t have much to offer, babantay. You don't have anything worth taking away. Tikba, on the other hand, is a different story.” Silat made a circle with his finger to indicate that the match was over and to announce the winner, and while Hukla claimed the human who won, the crowd began to disperse into two separate categories.

Libum and Tikba followed Silat through a gold-beaded doorway that Libum recognized as charms for protection. Before he entered the actual building, he stopped dead in his tracks, something screaming inside him to not touch it. He would rather live in ignorance and forget he’d ever seen the Tagkawal and their games. He stepped in the building before he could turn and run like a coward.

There was thrumming inside the pagoda, like it was alive, but no birds of any sort to be found. 

“A casino!” said Tikba, drowned out by the sounds of machines and people shouting at one another. It was a casino, but perhaps a shoddy excuse for one. The paint was peeling off the walls, unknown stains decorated the carpet. Anito worked inside of the casino. Rotted walls surrounded them. Six rows of slot games were spread throughout the first floor, and it appeared that the other floors were abandoned and closed off, guarded from the humans. “I told you they were up to something, bosing. How does it work?”

“Bosing? Ha! Tikba, don’t you know he’s just a guard dog? I’m the boss around here.”

Silat slapped Libum on the side of his head before returning to answer Tikba.

“We give them each a portion of our bulawani,” explained Silat, putting an arm across Tikba’s shoulder as if they were old drinking buddies. “The more they borrow from us, the more we take in return. Some have even resulted in gambling off their future children in order to get more bulawani tokens to gamble with. They’ll do anything to gamble for fortune in the next life, but they eventually stop caring about the one they’re living. Humans are so funny, tiny Lord.” Libum resisted the urge to roll his eyes. 

“How did you discover this? The portals were closed off.” Libum found that he didn’t want to be in this pagoda. He wanted to grab Silat by the face and pound his fist into it until he felt better. Knowing Silat, he might take that offer.

“The portals still have some power, little sacrifice.” Silat exchanged Tikba for Libum. “Ah, man…Don’t think too much, Libum. Once we found out a portal could still be opened here, we decided to do it ourselves. It takes a lot out of us Tagkawal, so it’s only for special occasions. You’ve got to admit that it’s funny making them squirm sometimes.” A human began slamming his fists against one of the machines.

“Hoy!” Silat yelled at him. “Benjamin! You ran out, better luck next time. Get off the game and let these two play.” The man had to be ripped away by an Anito who looked familiar and another one Libum couldn’t quite place, but he eventually left an open seat. “How about it?” the Tagkawal member asked. “Wanna play a Village slot game? You could win some luck when you pass on to whatever’s next, Tikba.”

Tikba dug through their pockets for bulawani, which made Libum glare from behind their head. “I’m going to use my own money to play. There’s no life worth putting in your hands. I’m not going to be indebted to you…” Tikba pulled out a couple coins and passed them to the Tagkawal. “How many games for this?”

Silat let a boisterous laugh escape his mouth. “Ha? No fun!” he said. “Here, let me take those and convert them into tokens. You can play six full rounds of slots, or…” Silat handed them gold cone-shaped tokens, about the size of a bead. “You could play some poker, too. You have to pay to fight, but you don’t have enough.” He pulled out a sleeve of poker chips, each stack colored from black, blue, yellow, green, and red. “Each chip represents something the human can improve upon.”

“Hey,” Tikba said as they suddenly thought of something. They pulled a red chip and ran their thumb over the indentation. A white Sampaguita flower was in the center. Libum hoped that they were realizing how absurd this entire thing was, but they only said, “Could I win better looks in these games? I don’t think anyone will flock to me if I look this way.” Tikba’s gaze stayed glued to Libum, and he pretended not to notice. “When I reincarnate, or whatever, I want to turn everyone’s heads.”

“Well, let’s just hope your luck is good, newcomer.” Silat turned to Libum and he watched his face drop. In a less amused voice, he said, “How about it, boy? Want to try to win a better face?” He wanted to punch Silat again, but he refrained. Libum curled his fist and let his overgrown nails dig into the flesh. Distraction. He needed to focus on the pain instead.

“I’m not risking anything,” he finally said through gritted teeth. “Tikba, are you sure about this?”

“Tikba’s a grown adult.” Silat answered for them. “They can make their own choices.” Tikba sat in the chair and swiveled around so that they were facing the slot machine.

“Yeah, bosing,” Tikba said, sounding far away. The machine had a slit for tokens and a few scratched buttons. The soul took a token and inserted it into the ‘mouth’ of the machine, where it lit up. “I don’t have much to lose or gain right now. If I lose this round, I’ll stop playing. I’ll survive.” Tikba laughed at their own joke. “Don’t worry about me.”

“I’m not worried about you!” Libum said, exasperated. “This is just stupid and wrong. I don’t care if you gamble the rest of your life away, but maybe just don’t drag other people who could get hurt into it. Especially humans who come here as a last resort.” His fist connected with Silat’s chest, but it had no power behind it. Silat only sighed and grabbed Libum’s fist, looking like he was about to chastise him. 

The Tagkawal always looked at Libum like he was a little brother they were forced to spend time with, even though Libum outranked them.

“I knew you would lose it over this,” muttered Silat. “Thankfully we’ve never had to worry about you, until today.” Silat placed both hands on Libum’s shoulders, keeping him in place. “Look, babantay, the humans are here because they want to be. And, if they’re so quick to auction off other people’s lives, then who cares about them, really? No one decent comes through here. They all have a reason to play or to fight. Anyway,” Silat changed the subject and put Libum in a black stool. “If you’re not going to play, buy a drink and watch your…” Silat thought for a moment before he stuck his tongue out. “Your partner.” His eyes lit up in surprise before he added, “You might not want to let them stay in here too long. They look like the type to never stop once they win.”

Libum groaned, slamming his head against the bar. Stupid Tagkawal. Stupid humans. Stupid Silat, especially. Fucking morons. The Anito working the bar stayed at the far end of it, away from the human. “Fuck you right now, too, partner.” He slapped his hand against the bar, gaining the attention of the Anito. “Whose pagoda is this?” he asked. She glared at him, before he ordered a drink. 

The Anito placed a glass in front of him. Libum licked his chapped lips. Water. He’d wanted water to quench his thirst, but they didn’t provide it here. Liquor would have to do.

“Don’t you recognize it, Lord?” she asked while polishing a glass with the sleeve of her white shirt. “It’s Tagkan’s place.” The name hung heavy in the air between them, and he felt all of the Tagkawal’s eyes on him. The man of which they were speaking about was not to be mentioned by anyone. An unspoken rule. One Kolupati enforced heavily, but now the Death God wasn't here to say otherwise.

The human’s breath caught in his throat. He set the glass down, suddenly uninterested. All the blame and guilt he’d been forced to carry weighed him down like blood in his lungs. Libum hadn’t heard that name in a few years. Not since Libum caused his death. His death. Nothingness. The final end, brought upon by Libum’s own foolishness and Kolupati’s hand. He could still hear the sound of his voice…