22/09/2025
𝙇𝙄𝙏𝙀𝙍𝘼𝙍𝙔 | Did you hear that, Elena?
✒️: Jefferson G. Musa
“𝘗𝘶𝘭𝘢 𝘢𝘯𝘨 𝘯𝘢𝘪𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘢 𝘴𝘢 𝘣𝘢𝘭𝘢𝘵 𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘢𝘴𝘢, 𝘬𝘢𝘺𝘢 𝘱𝘶𝘭𝘢 𝘳𝘪𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘢𝘱𝘰𝘴 𝘴𝘢 𝘬𝘢𝘴𝘢𝘺𝘴𝘢𝘺𝘢𝘯 𝘯𝘨 𝘥𝘪𝘬𝘵𝘢𝘥𝘶𝘳𝘢.”
The sirens began at dusk, slicing through the Manila sky like the shriek of a wounded animal. They warned of curfew, but what they truly heralded was the hunt. By the time the last echo dissolved, the streets had already turned into open graves, waiting for another feet to pry open.
Inside a small house, Elena clutched her son so tightly her fingernails left crescents in his skin. “Don’t breathe,” she whispered, though her own breath came in ragged sobs. Outside, boots marched in unison—an endless procession of iron feet. Every thud felt like a nail hammered into her door.
Then came the pounding.
Three heavy blows.
“Open.”
The word was not spoken; it slithered.
The wood split. Uniformed shadows poured in, their eyes glowing with the blankness of predators. Their armbands gleamed red—not the red of roses, but the red of meat left out to rot. One hand gripped the boy by his hair, dragging him across the floor as he screamed. His voice echoed almost like a bird’s neck being snapped.
Elena fell to her knees, reaching for his only son. Her hands brushed his ankle for a heartbeat—before he was gone into the dark maw of the night.
Her scream clawed its way out, but the soldier’s baton slammed across her chest, caging it back inside.
The prison smelled of rust, sweat, and something sweet—like fruit gone black. On its walls were carvings made with broken nails: HELP. MOTHER. FREE. Blood filled the grooves like ink filling lines on a page. The air was thick with sobbing, but when a sob grew too loud, the sound was cut short—like paper torn in half.
In the corner sat a girl whose eyes were already emptied. “They don’t want us dead,” she whispered, her lips split and purple. “They want us erased. They want our names to vanish like footprints in blood washed by rain.”
The guards arrived carrying a ledger. Its pages dripped, the red ink spreading like veins. When they called Elena’s name, she felt her blood leap from her veins toward the paper, binding her to it. She clawed at her skin, as though she could stop herself from being written down.
Her child’s name was already there. The stain beside it was darker.
The nights blurred together, stitched with screams and muffled prayers. Some begged God, others cursed Him. Elena sat in silence, because silence was the only thing they had not yet taken from her.
Sometimes, in the dead of night, she swore she could hear children’s cries in the walls, as though the concrete itself had learned to wail. The ceiling dripped—not water, but a slow seep of something darker. The guards laughed when it fell on their shoulders, as if even the building had been forced to bleed with them.
And then one day, the city erupted.
The streets burned—not with fire, but with people. Tens of thousands filled the avenues, their throats torn raw with chants. They carried banners painted in the same red the soldiers once wore, but now it was no longer the red of silence, nor the red of blood spilled in alleyways. It was the red of defiance, of rage, of memory that refused to die.
Elena, broken and hollow, stood among them. The faces of the disappeared hovered over the crowd—children, brothers, mothers, fathers—ghosts painted on skin and placards. They were not forgotten; they marched with them too.
And when the dictator’s throne finally crumbled, the air quivered with a truth that could never again be erased.
But listen...do not think the monster died when the dictator fell. Monsters are clever. They molt. They learn to wear masks. The boots are softer, the fists are hidden, but the red silence stalks still, patient as ever.
The battle was never over. It only changed its face. And the ink that once bled in Elena’s time is the same ink that stains today.
The Philippines is a land full of endless wealth, yet its true treasure lurks beneath the weight of corruption and awful monsters.
𝘕𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘪𝘵, 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰, 𝘌𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘢?
🎨: Gwen Kirsten Ehrl Tanopo
