Chapter 5. The Weight of the World: Humanity's Plight

The world didn't end with a sudden bang, but a protracted, agonizing disintegration that stretched over three long, brutal years. When the first tears in reality appeared on New Year's Day 2020, ushering in the Next Phase, global reactions were swift and desperate. Governments worldwide mobilized military forces, enacted long-dormant emergency protocols, and broadcast messages of reassurance that felt increasingly hollow with each passing hour. Conventional armies, tanks, and air power were thrown against the monstrous entities that poured from the Gates – a futile, tragic defense against an enemy that defied understanding and conventional arms.

In the Philippines, the response was equally fierce and ultimately, heart-breakingly, insufficient. The Armed Forces (AFP) and National Police (PNP) were immediately deployed, transforming familiar urban landscapes like those in Metro Manila and Calamba into war zones. Makeshift command centers were established in requisitioned buildings, while checkpoints and barricades of sandbags, civilian vehicles, and concrete debris were hastily erected on major thoroughfares near known Gate locations. Filipino soldiers and police officers fought with immense courage, using their standard-issue rifles and machine guns against creatures whose very forms seemed to mock traditional warfare. Early System users, raw and untrained, emerged from the chaos, their clunky interfaces and burgeoning abilities sometimes providing temporary, localized relief, fighting alongside the overwhelmed conventional forces. In those first weeks and months of 2020, a fragile, fervent hope persisted – the belief that this was a crisis, terrible as it was, that humanity could collectively push back against and contain.

But the monsters were relentless, and the System's game indifferent. Surges from the Gates became less predictable, more overwhelming. Creatures scaled buildings with unnerving ease, impervious to small-arms fire, or burrowed beneath hastily reinforced defenses. Swarms of smaller, faster entities overwhelmed barricades, their numbers impossible to counter. The sheer volume and variety of the threats rapidly exhausted vital resources. Ammunition, once plentiful, became a dwindling commodity counted in individual rounds. Fuel for vehicles evaporated, stranding essential transport and escape routes. Medical supplies vanished as hospitals, themselves targets, became processing centers for the dying before collapsing entirely. Cut off by impassable roads and monster-infested territories, military and police units became isolated islands of resistance, gradually picked apart. Organized retreats devolved into desperate sprints for survival, discipline fractured under unimaginable stress, and the thin blue and green lines that represented order were simply swallowed by the tide of claws, teeth, and alien System prompts. System users, relying solely on their newfound power, quickly learned that levels and skills meant little when surrounded by overwhelming numbers or facing threats designed to counter their specific abilities.

As the crisis deepened, the Philippine government sent increasingly desperate pleas for international assistance. Broadcasts crackled over what remained of the airwaves, begging allies for military support, medical aid, basic supplies, anything. But the calls were met mostly with silence or strained apologies – every nation was facing its own version of the abyss. The United States, a historical ally with a long, complicated relationship with the Philippines often marked by perceived interference in sovereign affairs, did eventually respond. Around mid-2020, roughly six months into the Next Phase, a contingent of US troops arrived. They were better equipped, disciplined, and brought advanced tactics, but they too found the scale of the conflict unsustainable. After four grueling months, they quietly withdrew. Their departure in late 2020 was a stark, public symbol of the failure of international solidarity in the face of the apocalypse. In a lesser-known, chilling postscript, the US government extended a secret offer to the Philippine President: safe evacuation to American soil. The President, in a moment that would become shrouded in rumor for those few who learned of it, declined. The US response, reportedly, was simply that the offer "remained open," a phrase heavy with the implication that their interest lay less in the fate of the nation and more in preserving key individuals, perhaps even valuing the 'resilience' and 'adaptability' honed by those forced to endure such a hell for potential future use on their own soil.

With the formal structures of power disintegrating, "the fled" became an unstoppable tide. It wasn't an ordered evacuation but a panicked, every-family-for-itself flight from the collapsing urban centers. Politicians, wealthy families, and anyone with the means to leave simply vanished, seeking refuge in rumored, heavily fortified private enclaves or attempting perilous sea voyages. Police stations stood empty, municipal halls gaped open and looted, and silent communication towers stood as skeletal monuments to the abandoned populace. Roads, once lifelines, became clogged arteries of rusting vehicles and the bleached bones of those who tried to escape on foot, caught by the hunters that now ruled the highways. The once-bustling SLEX became a monument to this failed exodus, a long, silent graveyard of twisted metal and overgrown concrete.

Even the bastions of human compassion and duty crumbled. Doctors and nurses who had worked tirelessly in makeshift clinics, community leaders who organized neighborhood watches with hunting knives and rusty machetes, early System users who genuinely tried to use their power to protect others – they held out longer than most. They were the righteous, the dedicated, fueled by empathy or principle. But they faced daily horrors: tending to wounds that wouldn't heal, burying neighbors, watching their defenses fail against creatures of nightmare. Eventually, faced with a threat they couldn't fight, a wound they couldn't mend, or the undeniable, chilling presence of a monster whose Level or Skills guaranteed their demise, the primal fear of death broke them. Their desperate, often solitary flight in late 2023 and early 2024 marked the final, quiet end of organized human resistance and compassion in the ruined heart of the nation.

By early 2025, the world was a tapestry woven from decay, danger, and scattered, desperate survival. The System remained, its ethereal interface a constant, alien presence. It had watched the collapse with detached precision, tallying death as +EXP, marking Class advancements earned in moments of gruesome survival. Far from uniting humanity, System abilities often exacerbated the chaos; the strongest became predators, forming brutal gangs or claiming territory as warlords, ruling with the cold, efficient violence the System rewarded. These fortified enclaves, starkly different from the rare, hidden camps of truly cooperative survivors, became the new centers of human (or post-human) power, built on control and fear.

The environment itself mirrored the breakdown. Areas around major Gates were subtly but unnaturally altered, the air thick with a wrongness, or plant life around them growing in disturbing, vibrant contortions. The relentless Philippine climate and ecosystem began to reclaim the ruins – thick vines choked the skeletal remains of buildings and vehicles, roots cracked concrete pavements, turning urban areas into dangerous, overgrown labyrinths haunted by low-level monsters. Abandoned malls became infamous, multi-level hunting grounds for larger creatures, their decaying structures echoing with unnatural sounds. Churches, testaments to enduring faith, stood empty or desecrated, sometimes becoming desperate, temporary shelters, or in darker corners, sites of new, terrifying cults whispering twisted gospels of the System and the monsters, blending them with distorted folklore. Clean water was a constant struggle, often requiring dangerous treks or risky purification methods. Non-perishable food was a rare treasure, scavenged from dangerous places. Working electronics were relics, fuel almost mythological. The psychological toll of three years of relentless loss and terror was etched into the very being of the scattered survivors – a pervasive, silent despair that hung heavier in the humid air than the stench of decay, the true weight of a world broken beyond recognition, now living under the silent, indifferent judgment of an alien System.

This was the world the System had wrought. A tapestry of ruin and resilience, woven with threads of terror and faint, flickering hope. It was a world defined not by nations or governments, but by the glowing interfaces only the Awakened could see, the monstrous shapes that stalked the concrete ruins, and the stark, brutal fight for survival. It was, in short, the only world Dan and Bliss had known for the past three years.

Early 2025. Calamba, Laguna. The city was no longer a bustling southern extension of Metro Manila, but a skeleton draped in aggressive tropical green. Vines thick as a man's arm clawed up the sides of gutted buildings, roots cracking through pavement where jeepneys lay rusting on their sides, silent husks overtaken by the elements. The air, thick with the humid heat characteristic of Calabarzon, also carried the faint, unsettling smell of something other – a musk that spoke of things not of this Earth, things that lurked in the shadows.

Within this reclaimed ruin, in a structure that had somehow resisted complete collapse, lived Dan and Bliss. He was eighteen now, his frame leaner, harder than it had been at fifteen. His eyes, once bright with youthful optimism, held a permanent wariness, scanning constantly, assessing threats that weren't there a few years ago. Three years of waking up knowing the world outside was lethal had etched lines of tension around his mouth.

Bliss was eleven. She was still small for her age, her laughter a rarer, more precious sound. The innocence hadn't been entirely stolen, but it was guarded now, overlaid with a quiet resilience born of fear and loss. Her grip was surprisingly strong when she held his hand – something she did almost constantly when they were outside their small, fortified space. Their initial attempts to find safety further afield, like the month-long period of cautious travel and scavenging they undertook shortly after leaving the 7-Eleven in early 2022 – a time when Dan first tested his nascent System abilities against smaller threats and reached Level 4, while they learned to avoid hostile human groups – had eventually led them back to the relative familiarity of Calamba.

Their home was a section of what used to be a hardware supply store near the outskirts of town. It wasn't much – just a locked metal roll-up door fronting a space mostly cleared of rubble, with makeshift walls cobbled together from scavenged plywood and corrugated metal sheeting. It had the advantage of being relatively discreet and providing a solid, lockable barrier against many of the common low-level threats that roamed the streets, especially at night.

Survival was a constant, grinding effort. Food was an endless worry. Canned goods from looted stores were long gone or spoiled. They relied on scavenging foraged plants (Dan had learned which were safe through painful trial and error, guided occasionally by cryptic System hints), hunting small, mutated animals that were sometimes more disturbing than terrifying, and carefully rationing the meager supplies they managed to find in less-picked-over ruins. Clean water was a precious commodity, filtered painstakingly from collected rainwater or a nearby, potentially contaminated, stream.

Dan's System Class, Assassin, wasn't about stealthy kills in the shadows of a normal city anymore. It was about survival – moving unseen through ruins, recognizing weak points on monstrous hides, learning to deliver swift, decisive blows with scavenged or System-granted weapons. His Level had slowly climbed over the years, each kill a brutal necessity, each Stat point a small increment of hope.

Bliss's Class, Healer, felt almost cruelly ironic in this world of constant injury and death. But it had saved them more than once. Her ability to mend wounds, soothe pain, and even fight off some System-induced ailments was invaluable. It was a soft power in a hard world, a constant reminder of the life they were fighting to preserve.

They lived by a routine dictated by the System's unseen clock and the dangers outside. Days were for cautious scavenging, hunting, and reinforcing their shelter. Nights were for hiding, listening to the sounds of the ruin – the skittering of small monsters, the heavy thud of larger ones, sometimes the terrifying, unmistakable sounds of human conflict nearby. Every excursion outside their shelter was a risk assessment, every rustle in the undergrowth a potential threat.

Their bond, forged in unimaginable trauma, was the unbreakable core of their existence. Dan lived to protect Bliss, a vow whispered into the dark silence of that first horrible night. Bliss, in turn, relied on Dan with absolute trust, her presence the only thing that kept the crushing weight of grief and despair from completely consuming him. They were a tiny island of family in a sea of human and monstrous ruin.

They had survived three years. Three years of a world that had become a hunting ground. Three years since the sky tore open and the monsters poured in. Now, at eighteen and eleven, every new day was just another step into the uncertain, dangerous future the Aethelred System had forced upon them. Their journey, the real fight for something more than just hiding, was about to begin.

The sun was higher now, casting sharp shadows that could conceal movement. Dan led the way, his eyes constantly scanning the upper floors of buildings, the dense tangles of vines, the gaping, dark doorways of abandoned shops. Bliss stayed close behind, her footsteps quieter than his, her small hand occasionally reaching out to touch his back as a silent check.

They decided to try the block further down, towards the cluster of more solid-looking structures that hinted at former businesses or institutional buildings. This area felt different from the residential streets they usually scavenged – less personal ruin, more sterile, corporate decay. Broken glass crunched underfoot, a constant reminder of the fragility of the old world. Dust motes danced in the shafts of sunlight piercing through gaps in the urban canopy of vines and leaning walls.

The silence here was heavy, broken only by their own movements and the distant, non-threatening hum of the System. It was the kind of silence that felt watchful. Dan held his bolo ready, his grip tight.

They approached what looked like the entrance to a small, multi-story office building. The glass doors were shattered, the lobby a chaotic mess of splintered furniture and scattered paper. It had clearly been looted, the obvious valuables gone long ago. But sometimes, things were overlooked.

They moved cautiously through the ground floor, checking behind reception counters and in shallow storage closets. Nothing but trash and decay. The air was stale, carrying a faint, chemical scent.

They decided to check the upper floors, the concrete stairs creaking ominously under their weight. The higher floors were often less picked over, but also riskier – harder to escape if cornered. On the third floor, they found a row of small offices, their doors kicked in. Inside was a scene of ransacked futility – filing cabinets overturned, desks emptied.

In the last office at the end of the hall, the door was ajar but not fully open, blocked by debris. Dan pushed it further with his shoulder. Inside, the room was smaller, perhaps a manager's office. A heavy desk lay on its side, and a section of the ceiling had collapsed, but oddly, a small corner near the wall seemed relatively untouched by the initial destruction or subsequent looting.

He moved towards it, Bliss waiting anxiously in the doorway. There, half-hidden under a fallen piece of plasterboard, was a metal cabinet, smaller than a filing cabinet, maybe a personal safe or storage box. It wasn't large, but it was solid. And unlike the ransacked state of everything else, it seemed undisturbed.

A flicker of that dangerous emotion – hope – resurfaced. He knelt, examining the cabinet. It had a simple combination lock, rusted solid. A keyhole beside it. No key. And it was too heavy to easily pry open with just the bolo.

Just as he was about to give up, his fingers brushed against something taped underneath the cabinet, hidden from view. A small, sealed plastic bag. Inside was a single, tarnished metal key.

His breath hitched. This was it. An overlooked secret.

He carefully inserted the key into the lock. It turned with a groan of ancient metal. The small drawer in the cabinet clicked open.

Inside, it wasn't full of gold or weapons. It contained a few bundled documents, sealed in plastic, remarkably preserved. A small, zippered pouch. And nestled beneath it all, a flat, dark rectangle.

He picked up the rectangle. It was a phone. An old-world smartphone, one of the bulky models from before 2020. It felt impossibly heavy in his hand, a relic from a dead civilization. Most phones were useless, their networks gone, their batteries dead and corroded. But this one...

He pressed the power button. Nothing. Dead. His shoulders slumped, the surge of hope receding into familiar disappointment.

Then, his fingers brushed against the zippered pouch. He opened it. Inside were a few old identification cards, photos… and a small, portable power bank. An old one, but unused, still in its packaging.

He stared at it, then back at the phone. Could it? He fumbled with the cables in the pouch – a standard charging cable was there. He plugged the phone into the power bank.

A small LED on the power bank lit up. Then, the phone screen flickered. An old brand logo appeared, followed by a loading circle. It was working. Improbably, miraculously, it was powering on.

Bliss, sensing the change, came closer, her eyes wide. "Kuya?"

He couldn't speak, his gaze fixed on the screen. It loaded the old operating system. No signal, of course. But the internal storage… it was accessible. A wave of anxiety washed over him. What was on it? Who did it belong to?

He swiped the screen, bypassing the lock screen (it was a simple swipe, no password). He saw the familiar grid of icons. Old apps, frozen in time. He navigated to the photo gallery.

Mama. Papa. Bliss, a tiny child, clinging to Mama's leg. Himself, gangly and awkward at fifteen, standing beside Papa. Photos from birthdays, holidays, simple moments from a world that felt a million years away. His throat tightened.

Then, he saw a folder. "Important." He opened it. Inside were more files. Documents. Spreadsheets. Naming conventions from the old world – .docx, .pdf. He opened the first document he saw, his hands trembling.

"Project Safehaven - Contingency Plan - Calabarzon Area - Dec 2021"

His parents' names were at the top. The text that followed was dense, confusing. Locations. Rendezvous points. ...Phase 1: Initial System Event... Phase 2: Extended Environmental Collapse... designated safe zones... supplies cache... contact protocols... It was a plan. A survival plan they had made before the Gates even opened.

He scrolled down, his eyes blurring. ...Primary Location: Barangay San Juan, Antipolo... Alternate: Baras evacuation point... Contact: Elena Cruz (Antipolo)...

Antipolo. Baras. Tita Elena. Mama's sister. They had a plan. A destination. A contact.

It was fragmented, incomplete, full of references he didn't understand. But it was real. A purpose, suddenly clearer and more urgent than just scavenging for the next meal. A chance, however small, to find family. To find answers. To find the safe haven their parents had envisioned.

He looked at Bliss, her face a mask of fearful hope as she watched him.

"Bunso," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "Antipolo. Tita Elena." He pointed to the words on the screen. "Mama and Papa... they planned for this. They were going to Antipolo. And Tita Elena might be there."

The weight of the world hadn't lifted, but a new, heavy possibility had settled onto his shoulders. Survival wasn't just enduring anymore. It was a direction.

Bliss stared at the cracked screen, her eyes tracing the pixelated images of their parents, then the highlighted text. A slow, tremulous breath escaped her. "Tita Elena?" The name was a fragile echo of a time when Christmases were loud and safe, and worry wasn't a constant companion. Tears welled in her eyes, silent tracks through the dust on her cheeks. She didn't often cry anymore, not like she had in the first few months. This was different – a mix of grief for the past and a terrifying, unexpected flicker of hope for the future.

Dan carefully closed the document on the tablet, though the image of the plan and the name 'Antipolo' felt burned into his mind. He looked from the device to Bliss, then back out the broken office window at the ruined city stretching towards the hazy horizon – the direction where Antipolo lay.

Staying here, hiding, scavenging, fighting Crawlers for meager EXP and hoping for canned goods, felt suddenly insignificant. Pointless. Their parents hadn't just died; they had tried to plan. They had looked ahead, towards a possible future, towards family.

"We... we have to go," Dan said, the words feeling both impossible and undeniably true. "To Antipolo."

Bliss looked at him, her small face streaked with tears, but her gaze steady. She didn't ask how. She didn't ask if Tita Elena would even be there, or if the plan was still viable after three years of apocalypse. She just nodded, a quiet, absolute trust in her big brother that both humbled and terrified him. "Okay, Kuya."

He gathered the tablet, the small power bank, and the sealed documents, tucking them carefully into his backpack, wrapping them in a spare piece of cloth for protection. These weren't just items; they were anchors to a lost world and a potential lifeline in this new one.

They left the ruined office, the discovered cabinet drawer left slightly ajar, an almost invisible mark in a city full of devastation. As they moved back through the skeletal school building, then onto the street, the ruined environment seemed sharper, the dangers more pronounced. Every shadow wasn't just a hiding place for monsters; it was an obstacle between them and a destination. Every distant sound wasn't just a threat; it was a reminder of the world they had to traverse.

The simple goal of finding food was temporarily eclipsed by this monumental, terrifying new objective. Their routine of quiet survival had been shattered by a ghost from the past, pointing them towards an uncertain future.

Returning to their hardware store shelter, the familiar metal door felt less like a secure refuge and more like a temporary waypoint. They had food for maybe two days. Water was okay. Their meager supplies felt inadequate for a journey of this scale.

That night, the sounds of the ruined city seemed louder, the System's presence more oppressive. Dan sat awake, bolo in hand, the weight of the tablet heavy in his backpack. He looked at Bliss sleeping, her breathing soft and even. He thought of their parents, their foresight, their hope. He thought of Tita Elena, a face he barely remembered. He thought of the hundreds of kilometers of danger between them and Antipolo.

They had survived three years by hiding and reacting. Now, they had a direction. A mission. And the true test of their survival was about to begin.