Earthly Realm, Year 2007 of the Second Earth 

Behind the Illustre Ancestral House, Dusk

The brook behind the Illustre house whispered with the wind, its waters gliding softly over worn stones as if humming an old lullaby. Cassandra Illustre sat on a stone bench worn smooth by time and prayer, the rustle of leaves above her providing scant comfort against the storm inside her chest. This was where her great-grandmother had once told her tales of Amihan; the first head Babaylan of the East, and of the King of the Abyss who, strangely enough, had once smiled upon their line.

Cassandra traced the edge of her shawl, eyes distant.

"He loved her, you know," her great-grandmother would whisper, when Cassandra was just a child. "Not in the way mortals love each other, but in the way eternity longs for something it cannot possess. She was his friend. His equal."

And now, Cassandra's granddaughter, her Lualhati, was caught in a prophecy too dark for words. A conqueror? A bearer of the Nephilim's curse? She had other grandchildren who are strong, capable, even devout. Why must it be her?

Tears slid down her cheeks unbidden. "Not my Lualhati," she whispered hoarsely. "Not the child who paints flowers on her skin. She was meant for gardens, not swords. For grace, not war."

A soft tremor brushed the air around her, and the brook, ever loyal to their bloodline, stilled.

"Come to me, King of the Abyss," Cassandra cried out, her voice breaking. "If you ever held affection for Amihan or the line she left behind... come now. I beg you."

The shadows thickened under the trees. The rustling ceased. A figure stepped from the mist beyond the brook, clad in black, his presence impossibly still. He bore no wings, no crown, and yet the world seemed to bow around him. It was Abaddon, not as the man called Apollyon Ramos who Cassandra knew was Abaddon's earthly persona; but rather, as the Abyss King in full dominion, draped in power like nightfall.

"I heard you call," he said, his voice both solemn and thunderous.

Cassandra turned, trembling. "I pray heed my please, Abyss king."

Abaddon's wings settled themselves around him and shifted to become a dark ominous cape, "Speak."

Cassandra bowed her head, "Please, I beseech you, my granddaughter, Lualhati. Please... not her. I know the signs. We all do. But she's kind, too kind for this war you bring."

His gaze softened. "You believe I want this?" he asked, stepping closer, his boots soundless on the moss-covered stone. "Do not mistake fate for desire. I did not choose her."

"But she dreams of you," Cassandra said. "Even as a child. The guardian in the brook, it you, isn't it?"

Abaddon hesitated. For the first time in an age, vulnerability passed over his features. "Yes," he murmured. "I didn't understand it then. I thought it a kindness, a gift from the Great Ehyeh, my rest between torments. But even as she grew... when she thought of me, I came. I was pulled to her. I heard her laughter. Her sorrow. Her prayers."

Cassandra gasped softly. "She was tethered to you all this time?"

Abaddon nodded. "And I was to her. And now, as the prophecy nears, the bond has become a shackle I cannot undo."

She clenched her fists. "Then break it! If you are truly her guardian, break it and spare her."

He closed his eyes. "Do not ask of me what I do not control. I am master of the Abyss, but not of fate. Not of Lucifer's curse. If she is the one foretold, then the only mercy left to us is to prepare her for what she must become."

Cassandra wept. "But she's not a warrior. She is not filled with hatred. How can she wield any weapon against you,you, the Harbinger of Doom?"

"She need not hate me to conquer me," Abaddon replied, his voice like smoke. "Only understand me."

They stood in silence, the air between them taut with millennia of unspoken truths.

Finally, Cassandra looked up, eyes wet but resolute. "Then we prepare her. But if she falls because of this... I will hold you responsible."

"I would expect no less," Abaddon said.

As he turned to go, Cassandra stopped him. "You're... not what I expected."

He looked over his shoulder, a wry, haunted smile touching his lips. "That is how I've survived so long."

Then his expression darkened, a gleam of something infernal in his eyes.

"Besides," he added with a low, sardonic chuckle, "if I were truly the monster the songs say I am... she would have already worshipped me."

The words struck Cassandra like cold iron. She watched him vanish into the shadows, the brook returning to its gentle murmur as if nothing had passed at all.

But Cassandra knew better.

The King of the Abyss had wept without tears.
And her granddaughter's dreams were no longer just dreams.

******

Rome Airport, Earthly Realm, Year 2010 of the Second Earth

LUALHATI

Three years had passed since I left for Venice.

I'd imagined this flight home a thousand different ways. With headphones on, thoughts to myself, and a quiet seat in economy where I could reflect on everything that had changed. 

But when the gate attendant smiled at me, looked at her screen, and said, "Ms. Lualhati Illustre? You've been upgraded to first class," I blinked at her like she'd just offered me a throne.

"Is this... a mistake?"

"No mistake, ma'am. It's your lucky day," she beamed.

I didn't argue. Maybe it was my lucky day.

The cabin was like another world; plush, quiet, with an elegance I'd only seen in movies. I was still taking it in when the food trolley rolled into the aisle, and I stepped aside too quickly. My heel caught on the edge of the seat.

I fell.

Not just any fall, I fell right onto the lap of the man beside me.

"Oh my God...I'm so, so sorry!" I stammered, scrambling off him in full panic mode, my face on fire.

But he was laughing---gently, as if I were a petal that had landed softly in his arms. "Are you hurt?" he asked, his voice smooth like midnight silk.

And then I looked at him.

His beauty was blinding. Raven-dark hair that shimmered under the dim cabin lights, and silver eyes that pierced through me like moonlight through glass. My breath caught. It was impossible not to stare. Something about him felt... known. As if my soul recognized his before my brain could explain it.

And then he smiled...not politely, not distantly, but like I was someone he'd waited years to see again.

"I---I'm really sorry," I said again, standing straight and smoothing my blouse, heart thundering in my chest.

He waved it off, eyes still on mine. "Don't be. I'm glad you're talking to me."

I blinked. "You are?"

He chuckled. "Of course. I'm Appolyon Ramos."

Appolyon.

It rang in my ears like a bell tolling at midnight. Like the echo of something forbidden.

"I'm Lualhati," I replied, my voice softer now, guarded but drawn in.

"I know," he said, almost inaudibly, then caught himself. "I mean, I'm honored."

He said he was a businessman, coming home from a trip. It was a nineteen-hour flight with two stopovers. Normally I would've buried myself in a book or stared out the window for hours, but somehow, I found myself talking. A lot. To him.

I told him about Venice; about the art, the language, the espresso, and the lonely beauty of the canals at midnight. I told him about what I missed most from home: sinigang on rainy days, taho from the morning vendor, my Lola Cassandra's calm voice.

And Appolyon... he listened like my words were poetry. He told me about his own travels across the world...Persia, Morocco, Prague, forgotten corners of the globe where stories still breathed. He spoke about literature like he'd been there when it was written.

"How old are you, really?" I asked with a grin, narrowing my eyes. "You talk like you were there when Homer was dictating The Odyssey."

He just smirked. "Let's just say I'm older than I look."

I let it go, because being near him felt so natural. Too natural. There was something in the rhythm of our talk that made me feel like I had known him all my life.

And maybe I had.

I didn't dream of my guardian anymore. Not for three years. Not once. But sitting beside Appolyon, I realized something.

I hadn't needed to. Because he was here.

When we reached Singapore, he asked if I wanted to join him at the first-class lounge while we waited for the next leg of our flight. I should've said no.

But I didn't.

There, over warm soup and shared silence, he asked, "What will you do when you return home?"

"I want to write," I answered, without hesitation. "Stories. Ones that help people feel less alone."

He looked at me with a kind of reverence that made my chest ache. "Then write. The world needs your voice."

Before we returned to the plane, he handed me a journal. Soft leather, worn at the edges. Inside, he'd written something in delicate script.

Write your truth. Even if it terrifies you.

Tucked inside was a business card.

A. Ramos - Antiquities & Private Holdings
And a handwritten number.

"I want to hear your stories," he said.

I didn't want to leave his side.

Neither did he.

But when we landed in Manila and I saw my father waiting at the gate, his stance stiff, protective... I turned for Appolyon.

He was gone.

As if he'd vanished.

I scanned the crowd. Nothing. No trace. Just the fading echo of his voice in my mind, and the warmth of the journal in my hands.

*******

The Abyssal Realm, Year 2010 of the Second Earth

ABBADON

The shadows followed him like loyal dogs as he strode away from the Council chamber, the obsidian doors closing with a final, thunderous clang behind him. Yet even the echo of that sound could not shake free the lingering memory that clung to him like warmth after frost: the memory of her.

Lualhati.

He whispered her name only in his thoughts. To speak it aloud here would be a treason his heart could not afford.

In the mortal realm, he had worn the name Appolyon Ramos, a businessman, an antique curator, a man of cultivated charm and collected silences. It was a mask he'd worn before, many times over the centuries, but never had the mask felt so fragile, so easily shattered by the sound of a girl's laughter turned woman's voice.

Abaddon just wanted a chance to see her, to see his ward. Curious of how much she has grown from the years that he had not seen or heard of her.

It had been three years since he last laid eyes on her as a child, sleeping in the arms of her guardian spirit. But when he saw her again, stepping onto that plane from Venice, he had nearly forgotten to breathe. She was a woman now, luminous in her confidence, her curiosity, her soft but unbreakable fire. And fate, that cruel architect, had conspired to place her beside him for nineteen hours.

He had watched as she was led to her upgraded seat beside him. The Universe, ever mocking, placed her in the cocoon of luxury that bordered on intimacy. And when the food trolley veered close and she stumbled, her body falling onto his lap in a brief flash of chaos, he had to wrestle every demonic instinct in him to remain still , unchanged. Unmoved.

But he was moved.

Her scent, of wildflowers and old pages; the warmth of her breath, trembling with flustered apologies; her eyes, wide and doe-like, locking into his with recognition. Not of him, of course—not yet. But something deeper. A soul's memory. A thread, frayed but not severed.

And then she smiled.

By the power of the Great Eiyeh, she smiled. And he,Abaddon, King of the Abyss---Warden of Eternal Shadows, was undone.

He had prepared to spend the flight in silence, perhaps mild cordiality. But she spoke to him. Freely. Genuinely. She laughed with him, told him of Venice, of poetry, of the ache of missing home and the warmth of sinigang and rainy days in Bohol. She spoke of things she loved and things she feared, as if he were no more than a stranger she had known forever.

And as she spoke, he found himself answering, not as Appolyon, the worldly entrepreneur. But as himself, in pieces. Telling her tales from his travels that spanned eras, centuries he cloaked in vague modern retellings. She marveled at his knowledge, innocently asked how he seemed to speak of ancient literature as if he'd been there. He had smiled and dodged her curiosity with a joke, though inside he ached to confess that yes, he had been there at the burning of Alexandria, at the Sistine's first brushstroke, in every ruined temple where love and war had collided.

But what disturbed him most was not her beauty, nor her kindness, nor even her uncanny familiarity with him. It was the hunger that stirred in him; a carnal, consuming desire that belonged not to a king, but to a mere being. A being who hadn't wanted anyone in a thousand years. Not since, 

He stopped that thought.

At the Singapore lounge, they had dined like old friends, sharing noodles and stories and laughter. He gave her the travel journal on impulse, the gesture more intimate than he intended. He had written his number inside with a strange flutter in his chest, hoping...no, needing,,,for her to reach out to him. To think of him. To remember him.

And then, just before their last flight back to Manila, just as he reached for her hand again—

Her father appeared. And Abaddon felt himself displaced. The moment shattered. The veil of his mortal form flickered for a heartbeat.

By the time Lualhati turned back, he was gone.

Now, in the silence of the Abyss, Abaddon touched the obsidian wall beside him. It thrummed with his power, but gave him no comfort. The memories of her laughter, her warmth, her eyes...those eyes, burned brighter than the eternal flame of his dominion.

She had grown. The child he had protected was now a woman who could unravel him.

And that terrified him.

Because for the first time in a millennium, Abaddon---a Fallen, king, weapon of divine wrath---wanted something for himself.

Not vengeance.

Not dominion.

Not power.

Her.

He wanted her.

And the worst part? The prophecy his council feared... the one that claimed a conqueror born of Amihan's blood would bring him to his knees?

Abaddon was beginning to believe it.

Not because Lualhati would raise a sword against him.

But because she already had; and it was her smile that had pierced him. Her voice that had split the armor around his soul.

He clenched his jaw and turned toward the deepest part of the Abyss, where no light ever reached.

There, he would meditate.

He would not see her again.

He must not.

But still... her name echoed in him, soft as dusk.

Lualhati.

And the shadows around him trembled.

*******