Why was Rosariel here? For once in his life, Rosaldo felt a greater purpose, a calling, a meaning in search of everything fucked up with his life. And his sister was always there to remind him how his life was just that.

“Goddamnit,” Rosaldo swore, staggering over a sandy beach. The door he’d entered into this world was gone. It was night, the moon bright and jarring over the reflecting ocean, endless in its rippling vastness.

Something approached, a dark shadow, spiking out from the horizon, fluttering sails. A ship. Several smaller vessels, rowboats, skimmed over the waves, men shouting in what sounded like Spanish, their armor glinting with swords and muskets. Muskets pointed at him.

“What the—” Rosaldo swore as cracks of gunfire smoked out from the boats. “Oh fuck, shit—”

He stumbled and fell over the sand, and realized he’d lost his glasses, yet he could still see clearly. A shadow loomed behind him.

“Get up,” said a man, dressed in a skirt, a loincloth more or less, black tribal geometric tattoos etched over his lean body. He knelt alongside Rosaldo, gesturing for him to follow away from the shoreline.

More men, armed with bamboo spears or bows, huddled behind the cover of several huts.

Rosaldo peeked past. Some of the rowboats were landing, men hollering, forming a scattered line along the beach.

“Where are we? Why are they here?” Rosaldo asked.

The man beside him looked at him, bewildered. “Has your head been hit by a rock, brother? We’re here to drive back the bastard invaders and the Christian betrayers with them. Until then, we wait until the Datu gives us the order.”

Rosaldo wasn’t sure what to say, so he nodded instead of saying anything. The man spoke in another language, yet Rosaldo could still understand him. Was this a vision of his ancestors? It felt so real. It was exhilarating knowing it was real, at one point in time. Yet Rosaldo knew, by some strange certainty, that he couldn’t be harmed despite what he was witnessing.

So he stayed and huddled with the rest of the warriors.

Someone called out from beyond the shore, a native’s voice, “We come in the name of Datu Zula, by ultimate authority of Christian Rajah of Cebu and the Kingdom of Spain. Prepare to submit, or face our force.”

“Go fuck your Spanish masters!” yelled out the man beside Rosaldo. “Our Datu accepts your wish to die! If you wish, we will fight you in the morning.”

One of the other natives beside them sniggered. “By then, they’ll be dead in the water.”

There was no answer, only the rustling and dull clanking of armored men moving towards them.

“Shoot the bastards!” cried out the native beside Rosaldo, drawing a bow.

Several cracks of musket fire exploded past the hut, met with the warriors ducking down and shooting back arrows with their bows. Some of them were caught in the gunfire, screaming and collapsing as others dragged them back to the cover of the shanty. The smell of blood, coppery and raw, spread in the sea breeze.

Rosaldo was given a bamboo spear by the man who’d guided him out from the shore.

“Apolaki will guide our hands, brothers. Go, now!”

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Rosaldo lurched forward as the man and the other warriors charged out to face the invaders, howling a warcry. The enemy were busy reloading, dropping their muskets to draw out their sabers.

It all happened in a frenzied rush. Men yelled until they didn’t sound like men, snarling and unintelligible. The natives wielded wooden weaponry but speared the conquistadors’ unarmored legs with practiced coordination. The Spaniards collapsed from their wounds or retreated. Those left behind were swarmed by the surging mob of natives, who hacked at them until they stopped screaming.

Rosaldo tightened his grip over his bamboo spear, feeling nauseous from their act of slaughter.

“You disagree with their methods?” a man asked.

Rosaldo turned to face him. He was tall, looming over seven feet, with a mane of black hair over his wide shoulders. Scars criss-crossed his face and chest, a round, mottled mark over his torso. He wore a sweeping crimson kilt, half a robe of the same red cloth curtaining one shoulder. Tattoos like the natives’ adorned his limbs and body, though these glowed with golden power, and his eyes flared with a divine light, bright against the nightfall.

“Are you a god?” Rosaldo asked.

The man shrugged as Rosaldo heard more screams in the distance. “Depends who you ask. I was, to them. Apolaki, the god of war. I was feared, and worshiped, until I wasn’t. You didn’t answer my question. You dislike your past countrymens’ choice of war?”

“I… don’t know who or why they did what they did. If it happened, I guess it’s fine with me.”

“You don’t sound very sure. You see the spear you hold?”

Rosaldo looked down at the fired-hardened bamboo he held, sharpened to a tipped point. It seemed a fragile, useless thing now before the god of war.

“I want you to kill one of those conquistadors with it.”

“Why?”

“Would you ask me if you knew he would pillage, subjugate, and rape one of your great-great grandmothers?”

Rosaldo loosened his grip over the spear. “By that logic, I’d be killing myself, then.”

Apolaki laughed, a laugh deep from his belly, a sound extremely unnerving to Rosaldo, something one made when they didn’t care one speck for their listener. “You’re a smart one. I was hoping you’d take the bait. But perhaps you’re just like your father.”

“How do you know my father?” Rosaldo asked.

“He is a part of you, just like I am a small part of him, of all of you. You’ve never really let go of the spear. Maybe it’s no longer a spear, but it’s still there. That niggling call, that primal answer. The first answer. War is man’s true nature. War with himself, war with the world around himself. You seek my knowledge, that’s why you’re here. But you’ve always known. You just haven’t faced it yet, your true nature. You think you’re a quiet, timid thing? You’ve killed through your ancestors, a long line of murderers, even most recently through your father, the greatest butcher of them all. Give my regards to him for me.”

“What do you mean my father?” Rosaldo questioned, whirling around after the man, who had seemingly vanished.

Someone tackled him, driving Rosaldo to the ground, knocking his breath out from his chest. A shadowed man, a conquistador with sour breath and strong, prying hands began to strangle him. Rosaldo squirmed and gasped, fingers crushing his neck with their iron grip, pain that felt too real branding his skin. His hand curled over the bamboo spear he still held as his head began to dizzy and pound with a throbbing ache, his vision starting to fade and darken. He feebly raised the spear towards the strangler’s exposed neck.

Rosaldo felt the stake jam through flesh, like a knife sticking through hard butter. The man gurgled and collapsed over him, warm blood trickling onto Rosaldo’s face. He pushed off the dying man, reeling backwards on his elbows and hands. He looked around wildly, taking long ragged breaths with his bruised throat. The huts nearby were burning, and men lay dead or dying across the beach.

Still he gripped his spear, holding it for desperate security, the weapon he’d used to kill, to save himself.

Someone bashed the backside of his head, a sharp crack blooming out from his skull, and Rosaldo’s vision glazed as he fell facedown. His limbs wouldn’t answer him, weak, helpless. He felt someone grabbing him by the hunch of his neck, dragging him until he felt cold water wash over his legs, chest, face, and the salt sting of the seawater burned his eyes and nasal passages as his head was forced down into the tides.

Rosaldo flailed, slapping and striking his attacker, trying to wrench him off. His struggle weakened with each raw inhale of saltwater, each failed breath.

The stars seemed awfully bright now, the full moon gazing back as the shadowed form of the man stood over him, still holding him down. Rosaldo tried to scream, an insane act driven by a hopeless urge for survival. Instead he felt he died, dragged down to a bottomless deep.

Then he opened his eyes.