We continued walking towards the place that only Andres knows.

I tried to gather my thoughts as I stepped over the dirt and rocks along the way. I could not fully understand myself as to why I have so much trust towards someone whom I haven’t seen or spoken with for a lot of years – why I’m blindly following him without questioning his motives.

Despite the darkness embracing us while only having the moons illuminate our path, I felt my cheeks tinge with red as his hand reached out to me and held mine. I trailed behind him slowly, with our hands still linked.

Perhaps Andres did that because he noticed that my pace began to decrease earlier. I think it’s normal to be distracted like that as I am close to drowning in my thoughts, so much that I didn’t bother to complain or to even point out such a daring move. Would I have reacted the same if this happened to our world? Would my feelings of apprehension disappear like it did since we got here? In the grander scheme of things, is it even fair that we ended up in another world, where we could potentially be killed by those supernatural beings? At the back of my head, I knew that it was not a matter of being fair. It was my fault after all why we ended up here. Andres was the one dragged into this because of my curiosity.

Andres’ warmth never let go of my hand, despite the distance that we’ve already traversed. I briefly looked at him and noticed that he has been glancing at every direction as we continued heading towards the moons, as if wary that a monster of some sort could just jump out of nowhere.

“We need to find a place where we can sleep. It’s extremely dangerous out here.” Andres spoke calmly before glancing back at me. So I was right – he was being alert with our surroundings. With danger lurking in the corner, I decided not to let go of his hand. “Plus, I don’t think we should continue walking. We’ve been at it for almost two hours already.”

His eyes darted south and stayed focused on my feet. I see, so he was worried about me.

We found a cave not too far in the south-western direction and sat on the cold floor. The both of us tried to get a feel of the other, but seeing as we didn’t have anything in particular to say, silence prevailed.

He went out a bit and brought back a few twigs which he threw on the floor a few feet from us.

When Andres noticed that I was beginning to shiver, he immediately removed his polo shirt and hung it over me, acting like he didn’t feel the teeth of the night gust gnawing into the cave walls. “You don’t have to give this to me – it’s quite cold so you should keep yourself clothed!” I swiftly looked away from his toned muscles and chiseled body.

He let out a carefree laugh, “You don’t have to act all cute, Isay. My ego won’t allow me to have a good ol’ friend shiver with the cold of the night.”

“But–“

“No but’s. If you won’t allow me that, then I might just go back to calling you Isadora. Plus, I can set up a small fire for us.”

“Fine…” I sighed in defeat. He said it was his male ego that prevents him from seeing me like that, but it was still weird that he still thought of me before his own well-being. I suppose it still coincides with the Andres that I knew from before. He hasn’t changed. He was still the kind-hearted boy I knew.

Andres brought out an expensive-looking rectangular metallic object with an ornate tribal pattern engraved on its faces. He flipped it open and slid his thumb down the wheel which enabled a tongue of fire to form. He lit twigs and carefully set them so the flames would spread better. Once he finished setting the fire, he sat next to me and rested his body against the wall.

The fancy lighter was still in his hand so I thought I could have a small chat with him about it, just to kill time. “Since when did you get into smoking?”

“I was on my first year in college then. No peer pressure or anything – I just wanted to try it. It became my sanctuary whenever I would be too stressed or what.”

“So you’re not gonna light one now?” I am unsure why I asked that one. I am certain that I wouldn’t be too happy if he smoked near me.

“Nope.” Andres said as he slid it back into his pocket. “You don’t like the smell, right? Plus, I actually recently quit smoking, so it’d be bad on my image if I can’t even keep away from what I vowed never to do again.”

“Then why the heck do you have one with you?” I asked. “You’re weird!”

“Well it’s not for me. My dad just asked me to pick it up for him. A friend of his makes these and his house was along the way so I picked it up.”

“I see–“ There was a loud shriek that shook the heavens and its sound vibrated into the cave. We quickly ran to the cave entrance and saw a humungous dragon-like snake jump up the sky, devouring the moon at the end. The heavens darkened with the loss of one moon. This marks our time limit. Can we make it in time, I wonder?

We went back inside and rested.

I woke up to the morning rays already creeping into the cave and almost blinding me. My eyes wandered and I noted that I was alone. I hurriedly stood up and quickly fixed my hair and clothes before going outside.

A spectacular view of the forest welcomed me, with the greens of the trees, flowers, and shrubs swaying to the melodies of the wind. Was this the same creepy woods where we walked last night? Or am I just dreaming?

I found a familiar figure a few meters ahead, I knew him to be Andres. He was walking towards me with a make-shift bottle of water and asked me for a drink. I was no fool to refuse.

“I saw a diwata by the creek.”

“A fairy, really?!” My eyes sparkled with excited. “What did she look like? Does her skin sparkle under the sun? Were there butterflies hovering about?”

He squinted his eyes at me. “Anyway, she didn’t even notice my existence but I kept on low-key pestering her so she finally gave in and answered my questions.”

Andres handed me an apple, which is probably going to be my breakfast.

“We should find their kingdom a few kilometres to the west.” He said before mumbling to himself, “Well the sun rose from this side earlier on, so west should be there…”

I didn’t mind him ignoring me earlier, I still wanted to ask, “So we’re really going to their kingdom? Wait, why are we going there? Are they gonna help us go back to our world?”

“The diwata will not refuse to aid us in getting home. However, they usually lay out challenges that we must surpass.”

I was already snacking on the apple when we started walking. Did we also overcome a trial when we were kids to get home? I could easily ask Andres, however, all of the nasty things I did and said to him hindered me from doing so.

It was not yet an hour since we began travelling again when the skies darkened, as if telling on a storm that is about to visit. It wasn’t too long before we got caught up with it, drenched with the sky’s tears. I was riddled by mixed emotions; it made me happy because we had a chance to take a shower, but it also made me annoyed because of the clothes made heavy with rainwater.

“Help! Help me!!!” A scream came out of nowhere.

Who is that? What happened?  I ran towards the voice instinctively, with Andres shouting behind me.