I regret even the ounce of sympathy or trust I had given Bathala in the past few hours that I had stayed in his hole he referred to lovingly as his "man cave". As soon as I had accomplished what he needed to be done, he did not hesitate to plunge me into the pits of darkness that I do not think I can escape from. I do not think this is the afterlife yet, as trapped as I was feeling right now. The sinister feeling of not being able to see anything felt terrifying yet oddly familiar, and I did not have to will my body to make it tap and claw on anything that it can hold on to.

And at that moment, I got to feel the coarseness of a wooden surface. I willed all the strength of my body to push through the wooden surface. As a creaking sound of what could be a hinge rang through my ears, light had now gone through my eyes, allowing me to see two blurry figures. One of the figures was significantly larger than the other and acted as if it was ready to swallow the smaller figure whole. But the smaller figure fought back, and slowly, the muffling of my ears were removed, and I heard their voices.

"Another minute I'll spend with you will drive me insane! LET. ME. GO!" I heard a woman yell at the top of her lungs as the smaller figure scrambled to get away from the larger figure. I could not place where I heard the voice before, but my heart ached from the familiarity with her breathy voice.

"Go on and leave! I'll make sure that you'll never see her!" A man's voice shouted back, a gravelly voice I also felt familiar with, but I also could not place whose voice it was.

"Pinta!" I heard another deep voice say.

"PINTA!" The deep voice called for my name again, this time with urgency. As soon as he said that, I felt myself freed from the constricting contraption that enveloped my head, and I could now see Bathala's face up close, etched with worry.

"Are you okay?"

"Clearly, I was not. Duh," were the words running through my mind, but I just found myself staring at Bathala's furrowed eyebrows and squinted eyes, the lines on his face looking more pronounced and betraying his true age.

"Of course you aren't, silly me," he said as if he read my mind. "I was too excited to show him to you, and I didn't think you'd react like this to wearing a VR headset. I'm so sorry."

The mighty Bathala saying sorry? I almost choked while looking at his back, that was now turned towards me as he rummaged for something in his mini pantry. I could not even fathom the sudden 180-degree change in his attitude towards me. From acting like a predator ready to kill its prey just a few hours earlier, he turned into a nurturing parent, taking care of his vulnerable youngling.

"Here, have some tea," he gestured towards me, holding a ceramic cup with blue patterns of smiling cats in one hand, and another ceramic cup with a character I did not recognize written in brown ink. He might have noticed me looking more interested in the cats than the tea, for he added, "They're fortune cats. I had these customized from Japan."

"From before the Big One?" I asked, still not taking the cup as I continued staring at the fortune cats.

"No, my cups are new. I just got them last month," he answered, now handing me the cup etched with the fortune cats. "All the other countries still exist, you know."

"But we had been told—"

"Precisely what he was about to discuss through the VR headset," Bathala interrupted with a serious look on his face. "Anito was about to set the record straight for you."

"Anito ... the same Anito referred to in the binary code message you asked me to decode?"

Bathala just nodded with his eyes closed.

"T-the same Anito who was in some photos with Diwata when I tried to follow the code's message and Google the name?"

I was about to turn on the computer again to look for Anito's photos, but Bathala grabbed my hand to stop me, then shook his head.

"No need to show me what you saw earlier," he said, now putting more pressure on my hand while staring at me with piercing eyes. "I already knew."

"Th-then why ask—no, threaten—me earlier when you already knew?"

Bathala loosened his grip on me as he laughed out loud without malice, hints of bliss in his laughter. To be honest, I felt like I would have preferred him to laugh menacingly as it aligns better to what I could expect. Now he had been more unpredictable than ever, and I did not know what exactly made him laugh like this.

"I was just testing your wits," Bathala answered in between laughs. He wiped some tears now forming at the corner of his eyes, then added, "I need to know who would be good enough to be of help. I also need to know who to trust."

"Who to trust?" I said in disbelief. Now it was my turn to laugh. "You just had me in a chokehold earlier. You were threatening to kill me!"

"Those were just empty threats," he said, amusement leaving his face and his tone. "And you'd rather I was the one who got a hold of you for a chance to live, rather than immediate death, if it were the Tanggulaw who caught up to you."

I tried to open my mouth in protest, but I stopped myself because I knew he was right. My desperation in trying to solve the code stems from a sliver of hope that he would not kill me, something that the Tanggulaw would not give me the luxury of. They would try to pretend they would do a trial, but that was just a day of agony at most, waiting for the inevitable death by whatever method they deem fit.

"Then what's your end goal?"

"I want to put everything back to its rightful place and help my mentor return here."

"In short, you wanted to usurp power from Diwata and give it to Anito? Sorry, you got the wrong person," I said as I put down my fortune cat cup and tried to get away from Bathala.

"That's not it," Bathala answered, now just slumping on his bean bag couch. "I wanted to correct my mistake, and free the people from Diwata's clutches."

"Then why don't you just ask Mulat's help? Surely, they have the same end goal as yours," I answered, now trying to find the edges to the door towards Bathala's library so I could finally get out of here.

"I'm not sure about that. I don't really know what Mulat's intentions are. I'm afraid that their leader might turn out to be worse than Diwata," Bathala huffed, moving in a manner that made him become one with his bean bag couch. "But I knew my mentor well, and him trying to stop Diwata's greediness was the reason for their falling out."

I stopped looking for the edges, not just because they were in vain, but because of what he said. "Diwata's greediness?"

"All the help that Diwata claimed were from hers alone were dole outs from other nations who stopped the third world war after the Big One hit and moved the Philippines to its newest position, where it united as one land mass from its old archipelagic structure."

"That's not what we were told, and why are you even still referring to Tanglawan as its old name?"

"Because it's still the Philippines, and it's still internationally recognized as so," Bathala answered, his legs now the only thing I could see from his bean bag. "But all of these cheesy stuff, from our new names to how the land is being governed, it's all Diwata—no, let me use her real name—Donna's utopic dreams. And what's being told to the people was only what Donna wanted you to know and what she wanted you to believe."

"I still don't understand," I answered as I tried to pull Bathala's legs, which made him slide from his bean bag. I expected him to get mad, but he just laughed in glee, like a child moving down a slide on the water park in Station 6.

"As I said," he said as he sat on the floor in a crossed position. "She made everyone believe that she was the one who gathered all the resources, when in fact she and Wesley—that's Anito's real name by the way—were just at the right place at the right time when all the help from the nations that were previously at war came pouring in."

"Right place at the right time?" I repeated as I mirrored the position that Bathala put himself into.

"Wesley told me they were on a honeymoon in Batanes at that time when the Big One hit. It was already a miracle that they were the only survivors left, but their greater fortune was being at the spot where the marine vessel carrying the relief packages went through."

"Didn't they have airplanes years ago? I'm pretty sure I learned about it on Hulmandayan." I challenged the information that he was offering me.

"Donna and her corny names. Just say school!" Bathala winced as he said the words. "And yes, there were airplanes, but they agreed to limit the transportation into land and maritime, with one big vessel going around the nations to help each other recuperate and avoid betrayals after the war."

"But if you say that Anito and Diwata, whom you referred to as Wesley and Donna, were both at that place, then it's not just entirely Diwata's ideas and efforts. Anito was on it as well."

"His fatal mistake, I agree. But he was too in love, so he heeded too much on Donna's whims, believing everything she does had good reasons. But that was all in the past. He wanted to make things right," Bathala agreed.

"If he wanted to make things right, then why isn't he here? Why did he leave you here alone?"

"Not entirely," Bathala answered with pride. "I knew where and how to contact him, but we're being cautious. We need to wait for the right time before we act, or it will all be in vain."

"And that time is when?"

"When we found enough people who could help us," he answered.

"But your excitement tells me I was the first one you found. At this rate, you'll die first before you accomplish your goals."

"You aren't the first one, actually. But I knew you'd be different from them who were too selfish and chose to defect and sought refuge in other countries. Or those who were too stupid to think they could change the Philippines alone. Maybe you can even find out about Mulat's true intentions."

"I still think you judged me wrong. I'm just as selfish and as stupid as those you've described. After all, I just wanted to be together with Agui."

"And you wanted to accomplish that by changing the Exorbit. You won't be able to do that without changing the system that allowed the Exorbit to dictate your lives in the first place."

"You may be right, but I'm just a kid. If you old Tanglawos can't even change anything, what made you believe I could?"

"Because you'll be the best person to know what Mulat's intentions are."

"I don't think so."

"Then it's up to you," Bathala said as he reached out for what could be a remote or console, then pressed a button on it. I heard a whirring sound and, just like that, I saw one side of the wall sliding open. "You may choose to tell everything to Tanggulaw, but it can be your word against mine. You may also choose to forget everything you've heard from me and move on from your life."

I ran as fast as I could before Bathala could change his mind and trap me here again, but just as I was about to step into the other room, he added, "Or you may choose to work with us and know everything about Mulat by meeting with them on Station 7, and maybe you can also have a chance to change your Exorbit and be with the man you're holding dear. Your call."