Chapter 1 – The Burned Mark

Tagaytay City, Philippines

Midnight.

Elian Reyes didn't believe in ghosts or demons.

He believed in aching feet after double shifts, in bus rides that smelled like rain and sweat, and in the way fog rolled over the hills of Tagaytay like smoke too lazy to rise. He believed in quiet things. Familiar things. Real things.

Until the night his hand burned with light.

It started as a sting — a sudden, precise pain at the back of his left hand. He had just locked the café for the night, the street empty, his breath fogging in the cold. Maybe a bug bite, he thought. Maybe a cramp.

Then came the heat.

White-hot and searing, as if something sacred and ancient had awakened beneath his skin. He staggered back, hand clutching his wrist, his knees buckling onto the pavement.

He bit back a scream.

From within the pain, a mark emerged.

Twelve radiant points arranged in a circle — glowing in shifting gold light, etched into the back of his hand. Not a wound. Not a tattoo. A sigil.

Alive.

The light pulsed once.

And the world unraveled.

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He ran. All the way home.

But something was wrong. Not outside — inside the city itself. Or maybe inside him.

The shadows twisted too long. The streetlights flickered too low. Every corner seemed to breathe.

When he reached his apartment, he slammed the door shut and locked it. Twice. Thrice.

And then he looked outside.

And saw it.

Something on the rooftop across the street — tall and gaunt, with limbs that twitched like broken branches. Its face was smeared fog, empty-eyed and still.

Another crouched on the telephone pole, head tilted sideways.

And in the alley below, one slithered, smooth and boneless, past a stray cat that hissed at nothing.

They weren't ghosts.

They weren't dreams.

And no one else seemed to see them.

A couple walked past the alley, giggling. The thing brushed their shoulders, and neither flinched.

Elian's world had changed.

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He didn't sleep that night.

Or the next.

Or the one after.

He stopped answering texts. Missed class. Dodged calls from his cousin. Laughed through clenched teeth when asked if he was okay.

But always, the mark remained.

Glowing faintly on the back of his hand.

And always — they watched.

In reflections.

In fog.

In silence.

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Sometimes, when the wind died and the city went still, he heard it:

A voice from within the sigil.

Not loud. Not cruel.

Just present.

Calling his name.

Elian.

And for the first time in his life…

he believed.