“You still alive, bunso?”

The little boy could only manage a groan in response. Pain shot through his eye, down to his neck, finally reaching his legs. His eye was swollen shut. He wanted to close both of them and sleep, but he was sure if he let himself do so, he would never wake up again.

Keep living. You have to keep living for the ones you love. Stay alive, it’s not your time to go yet, mahal ko.

His mother?

The boy opened his eyes and saw the leader of the Tagkawal for the first time. Though he didn't know it, he was slightly taken aback by how strange he looked. He was an older man with a narrow face, his dark thick eyebrows giving off the impression that he had a permanent scowl. He was speaking to another person just outside of the boy’s view.

“Kolupati,” he said. “Is it going to survive?”

“Yes.” That was another woman’s voice. “Give him a few minutes to adjust.”

“What should we do with it?” asked the man. “You’re not getting soft on me after what we—”

“Let him heal.” Even with the boy’s limited movement, he could hear the sharpness in the woman’s voice. “Can you sit up?” She was speaking directly to him now. He wanted nothing less. The pain made him disoriented, but a few minutes later he finally lifted his head.

“Where’s my parents?” he tried to ask. The boy began a coughing fit, black staining the floor beneath him. He blinked, and he could barely make out anything due to the fuzziness in his eyes. A woman in a black mask looked down at him, but didn’t appear to have heard what he said. 

He tried again, but the woman suddenly cried out and dropped to the floor. The man he’d seen upon awakening appeared at her side. “Damn,” the woman said, rummaging through her pocket for something. She found what she was looking for, broke the—the boy couldn’t tell if it was a cookie or a dense piece of cake—in half, and shoved some of it into her mouth. 

Eat it, a voice urged. Before she kills you.

The boy was starting to heal and had a burst of energy, so before he could think about the consequences he attached himself to the leg of the woman and swiped the other half of what she ate. He stuffed it in his mouth. As soon as it touched his tongue, tears leaked from his eyes.

The flavor was indescribable.

He hadn’t had a chance to examine it before eating it, but whatever he’d eaten left an oily residue on his fingers. He quickly stuck his fingers in his mouth to let the taste linger on his tongue for a few minutes.

It was the closest thing to perfect any human could have ever experienced. Dense sweetened gold in edible form. 

The last thing he heard before he passed out was: “Ha? You damn insolent child, what the hell did you just do?!”

The boy woke up with only a vague memory of who he was and how he’d gotten there. When he looked at himself in the mirror, a stranger looked back at him. Scars decorated his face and made it appear puffier. They coiled like snakes around his hands and fingers. His hair was the color of frost. His eyes were the same blue-green color, a cloudy haze surrounding them. 

He’d seen eyes like this. Before. In people who were mostly blind.

“It’s still alive. Look at what the Food for the Gods did to it.” The boy turned to see an intimidating man standing over him, but he only smiled and kneeled down. 

“My name is Tagkan,” he introduced himself. “I rescued you from the debris.” Despite the man sharing hardly any physical resemblance, he reminded the boy of his own father. However, he had a paleness to his skin that was almost sickly.

Libum came back to himself before he could dwell deeper into his past. Tikba was glued to the slot screen. “I’m leaving!” he yelled in their direction. Tikba acknowledged him and waved their hand to say goodbye.

“I’ll be right out!” they promised.

Libum walked out of the pagoda, past the boxing ring, and watched for a little while. He watched until the line for fighters dwindled down to nothing and a new winner, different from the man before, struggled to keep himself up. Holding onto his broken nose, and what Libum guessed were a few broken ribs he yelled,“I won!” His eyes scanned the crowd. “No one else wants to fight?” He earned a few swears and shouts from the beaten crowd. A familiar face entered the line, her smile like a hyena’s as she bounced into the ring.

“I’ll fight you,” the Tagkawal squealed, sprawling her legs across the ring. “But if I kill you, I get to keep your body!” She started jumping around, careful not to step in the blood around her. “Ref!” Mutya barked. “Call it!”

It was over in less than a minute. Mutya aimed for the human’s foot and dragged him down so that he lost his footing. He crashed into the floor, his chin taking the worst of it. The man was thrown about like a doll. She grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked it back, and the man screamed out in pain. Mutya silenced him with a swift punch to the face, the bones beneath her fist cracking. When the man looked up, a blood vessel had burst and stained the white of his eye red.

“Stop!” the man screamed loud enough for Hukla to hear. He spit out some blood and loose teeth. “I’ll give you the money I’ve earned if you spare my life! Please!” Mutya smiled in satisfaction and knocked the man out of the ring. 

When she spotted Libum, he couldn’t tell whether she was annoyed or happy to see him. “Oy!” she called. “Wanna try fighting me, babantay? Bring him here! Come on, little boy, grow a spine and fight me!” Libum shook his head, refusing to watch anymore. Though he wasn't particularly violent towards humans, he twisted the wrist of a man who tried to grab him. Just as he did so, two others restrained his arms, pushing the man forward into the ring. Mutya winked at the two before blowing them a few kisses, then smiled at the man. "If you can manage to land a punch, I'll give you the sum of all the bulawani that's been collected today."

"Ten thousand?" One of the men who restrained him shouted. 

"I don't want to fight," Libum said. "Go die."

Mutya charged forward, her body sliding against the blood-soaked ring, using the slickness to move around. "Shut up," she hissed. "You walk in here and act as if you're better than us, but really, you're not. You don't have a life worth living, babantay, no one wants you in the human realm, either." He was not familiar with the way she fought like he was the others, but he managed to avoid her punch as it came up from below him. He dodged, and as if Mutya anticipated this, she brought her palm to his throat, knocking the wind out of him and forcing him to hit against the ropes surrounding the ring. "Why don't you get a life?"

Libum ran away.

He walked back through the gorge and into the Village that he knew. He’d started to feel sick from the sight of gore playing out in front of him, and he should have tried to eat something to settle his stomach, but he couldn’t bring himself to. He finally gave in once he realized how dizzy he was after not eating for most of the day, and began throwing vegetables together. It would be enough to clear some of the fog from his head. He’d have to eat, anyway, in order to keep his strength up. His throat ached.

Sleep sounded so appealing, though.

Libum could dream about his mother. He swallowed some of the vegetables despite the pain, not registering the taste or texture. The food took away that empty feeling that had been growing inside him once he found out he’d just been in a place that he had never been, but knew that it existed. Since he’d come in contact with the fire, it all blended together into something Libum was too tired to handle.

His memories were strange. He poked at the vegetables that filled most of the pot, thinking to himself, I know Kolupati's gone, but I still made a second plate. Libum sat in front of his half-eaten meal and stared at the empty space across from him.