Maharlikans, in a sense, are known to be morning people. Fully awake; their tools in hand, their bodies rinsed during the dark of day. The national anthem hadn’t even been played on TV yet, but the crowds were bustling, and the morning was cold.

These are the everyday sounds of Barrio Nilad; a place in which two children managed to step foot upon.

The heat of noon is death to most people. They would rather get things done early on. However, the cold of dawn was just as arduous. The merchant near the bakery took that advantage. Seconds away from opening, he had already sold his first two cups.

Alas, efforts of the children’s begging finally paid off; Two orders of rice porridge on a cold, Sunday morning.

“Psst. Hey. I bought your favorite.”

With a little frizz on his bread-like hair, Kali woke Anito up. He was sleeping snugly in a fetal position, surrounded by dirty little cardboard boxes to keep him comfortable. His scarlet eyes opened; his nose waking to the scent of chocolate.

“Is that… champorado?”

Doubting the smell, he drew closer and took a few more sniffs.

“Smells like it…” He responded carefully.

Kali chuckled at his response. “What are you doing? Take it, we still have to pay for the bus, you know?”

“Oh, right…”

A few minutes passed by as their very light stench lingered amongst the crowd. Groggy as he is, Anito was a rare sight to behold in a crowd of energetic people. At least there was no litter; his rice porridge had been emptied, yet he was holding it uptight with his eyes barely open.

An impossible feat.

There was an endless wave of comprehensible noise, the same noise Kali’s teacher used to compare her civil war of a classroom. Some talked about pork, others talked about a church mass, while others gossiped about a ghoul that has been running about.

“Hey, are you alright?” Kali asked Anito, to whom he looked as they wandered about.

“I barely got any sleep last night.” Anito exhaustedly replied.

“I promise you, that jet lag won’t be around for long,” Kali responded. “Come on! Let’s beg for money near the church gate!”

Kali and Anito swiftly made their way through the sidewalks. A few people were wearing fancy dresses as the two passed by. A line of monotone cars carefully trekked the church’s parking space.

For many, a church mass at six and a cup of Barako on a Sunday is an ideal way to start the day. For beggars and sampaguita vendors, however, Sunday is their paycheck, and the church is merely their workplace. For Kali, it was the latter; he was never really that pious to begin with.

The children outside had to wait for an hour for the church to finish their worship session. During such, Anito gave in and snugged himself tightly; his head laid perfectly on Kali’s lap.

And so, the chrysolite’s final words were said, and the bells began ringing.

“Hey, wake up! The worship has ended!” Kali tickled Anito’s ears.

“Can I still sleep?” He replied with his eyes shut tight.

“Okay, okay.”

The downpour of people exiting the church began, and so did the coins. The harsh words of the churchgoers tagged along with it, but for the children of the streets, it was nothing but white noise.

"Sorry, child, all I have is two nits."

"Bathala bless these poor children…"

"If only you had jasmines to sell."

"Who's teaching these kids to leech off money from the church!?"

Anito, still with his eyes shut tight, overheard the people’s ruckus. He clings to his chest, a sensitive and feeble soul. He was pretty much attacked by those words.

A few more steps were taken by the people, but one peculiar girl, younger than the two adolescents, seemed to go against the flow. Her wheelbarrow was just as weird as she was, being ridden by her in utmost balance like it had a mind of its own. Anito would’ve been stumped by such a wheelbarrow, but he chose to be blind to it for a while.

From the pockets of the girl’s hand-sewn purple dress, a purse; containing a few coins and what seemed to be herbs. She left the wheelbarrow and began counting thoroughly.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Two, three, five! Here, Five nits for the two of you!” She counted enthusiastically.

“Oh, thank you!” Kali responded with a smile.

“Don’t mention it!” The girl retorted. “Anyway… I can’t believe it’s the first time I’m saying this in years but… Who are the both of you, exactly?”

Suddenly, the eyes of the surrounding people… well… surrounded them, as if the eyes had ears that were ready to listen. That’s four ears. Metaphorically speaking, that’s about the average amount of ears for the average Maharlikan.

The silence was pretty loud for Anito, so he gradually lifted his eyelids.

“What’s going on—”

He instantaneously shook at the sight of the people surrounding them.

“WHY IS EVERYONE LOOKING AT US LIKE THAT?” Anito shrieks, startled.

“Oh, you mean them? Haiyah. Don’t mind them! They’re just not used to me not knowing everyone.” The girl emanated a swift response.

Suddenly, the white noise was about the little girl.

“Eh, I’ll see you around. I still have to deliver these things, hehe!” The girl uttered as she rode her wheelbarrow, lifting a bag of essential oils. Specifically, the unlicensed ones that you often hear on the radio while the barber cuts your hair.

And so, the wheelbarrow flowed with the people. Anito was stumped by such a wheelbarrow, and he can’t believe he chose to be blind to it for a while.

“Did that wheelbarrow just… drive out on its own?” He asked Kali confusedly. Conveniently enough, a townswoman was close by to answer his question in his stead.

“She’s a witch, kid. She makes all sorts of weird potions and stuff. Who knows what demonic ritual she did to bring that thing to life?”

A devout Aequalian all her life, The townswoman’s first train of thought, of course, was that the child was Satan.

And a reckless, little ‘Satan’ the young girl was, hitting the church gate head-on as she drove out.

“I’M OKAY!” The kid squawked as Kali and Anito looked at each other in confusion.

It was hardly a slow day for almost everyone in the barrio. This is a common occurrence; the sabbath day usually flies by the quickest in the eyes of the people.

In a blink of an eye, the sun bode farewell, and the two children were someplace else: specifically, the park. It was still eighteen hundred hours late, but the place already had a concerning lack of lovers roaming about. To make matters worse, the park’s lights were rarely maintained, but that shouldn’t have been enough to stop the kissing… but it somehow did tonight.

Under the guidance of a failing lamp post, Kali and Anito had begun counting their coins.

"Can’t you believe it? 300 nits! You know what that means?" Kali asked in celebration.

“…We dance?” Anito answered obliviously.

“No, silly!” Kali lets out a quick chuckle. “It means we’re close to paying the bus liner! We can finally get our luggage!”

“Is 400 nits that much to ask your uncle, though?” A curious Anito wondered.

“That’s more than the daily wage in Asifusulu, Anito,” Kali replied with his hands behind his head, his eyes gazing at the sky. “Besides, I want a taste of what being homeless feels like.”

“I… think you aren’t supposed to romanticize homelessness.”

“…Was I?”

Kali looked at Anito intently. He took a small step and scooped up a few nits from their weathered bench.

“I just don’t wanna bother them financially, that’s all.” He added, swaying like an innocent child. “Besides, we’ve already given them enough trouble by telling them that I had to move, and they were certainly not expecting you.”

Anito retracted his next words even before it was blurted out. He simply nodded at the statement. He wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Kali’s father, after all.

“What’s with the neutral face?” Kali interrupted Anito’s somewhat poignant look. Was it something he said that zipped his mouth or was it because of their stomach acid rumbling about? He assumed the latter, so he thought a meal should be in order. It was dinner anyway, so they will be using a few nits no matter what.

“I’ll buy you some liver spread, what about it?” Kali asked Anito with a bright look on his face. Anito’s maroon eyes began shimmering at that moment, and the rather wholesome child began acting like a feline that tried catnip for the first time.

“Pet me,” Anito whispered as Kali’s nose cackled at the sight of his uncannily large pupils.

“Stop that, you’re acting like I domesticated you or something!” Kali laughingly replied as he walked away.

Anito was then quick to turn his attention to the coins on the bench. His eyes dawdled around for a second. In his mind, the story of a woman who lost it all is about to be told, and fortunately, no one was there to listen.

In the meantime, Kali had been searching for a store that was still open. With a little luck on his side, he managed to find one a few blocks ahead, but the old woman inside the store had no plans to shut late. The candies and the snacks weren’t on the countertop anymore; signs that a store was ending service for the day.

“Have you placed garlic near the doorstep, Nico!?” The woman exclaimed to his grandchild angrily.

“Let me finish this game first!” Nico replied, the sound of gunshots emanating from his obnoxiously loud headphones. It was a miracle that he even heard her.

“If literal death comes right at us, there’s no one else to blame but you!” She responded nefariously, aggressively dusting the store shelves. “Good thing I paid insurance for my funeral…” She added. At least she managed to siphon her rage just in time for Kali’s arrival.

“Oh, do you need anything, kid?”

“Liver spread and sardines, please.” Kali politely requested, dragging along a few nits to the counter.

“Coming right up.” The old woman replied as she browsed the shelves.

The next few seconds consisted of wait, wind, and utter silence. That is until the old woman decided to break the dead air as she gave the bag of goods to Kali.

“Say, you should go home immediately. There have been reports of AWOL ghouls eating fetuses, kid. So if something happens to me… BLAME MY GRANDCHILD.”

The last three words were maniacally spoken.

Just as Kali was about to reply, a cold breeze brushed through like static. Both parties were quick to notice, the two of them pointing their eyes at a distance, but one acted quicker than in the other in fear. The woman had slammed the store window shut. Kali thought nothing of it, as he couldn’t seem to feel the gravity of the situation because there wasn’t anyone there… Until there was.

A screech was heard from the streets; the source of which Kali assumed was just a few blocks away.

“Anito, is that you?” He questioned the wind, only for it to reply with an echo.

It took only another screech for Kali to lose his flight response.

With his bag of goods in hand, he made his way to an abandoned alleyway, a place which he suspected was the source of the screeching. His eyes drew ever closer as he noticed a silhouette from a distance. The shadow faces Kali with a rather tortured look.

“What are you doing here…” The silhouette asked, barely stitching his words in pain.

“Uh, I was just wandering about when I heard you.”

The sound of silence had Kali and the silhouette in a chokehold. It was just a matter of time before all hell broke loose.