The survivors gathered.
Children with scraped knees.
Mothers with trembling hands.
Fathers with mud-covered dreams.
An elder stepped forward, holding a single seedling — a young narra tree.
"You do not need magic to heal the mountains," he said.
"You only need love.
And time."
He handed the seedling to Dencio, the logger.
"Be the one to begin."
With tears wetting the soil,
he planted it.
Then a child planted another.
And a mother.
And a fisherman.
And even Don Marcelo on his knees —
hands dirty for the first time.
Together they whispered:
**"Patawad.
Salamat.
Tutulong kami."**
Forgive us.
Thank you.
We will help.
The mountains did not answer in words.
Instead —
a breeze passed through the valley.
Soft.
Gentle.
Like a mother's hand on a frightened child.
But Far in the Sea… A Shadow Stirs
Deep in the Pacific, waters churned once more.
An ancient grudge awakened —
for storms remember everything.
Tag-Hangin's voice crawled over the waves:
"Hope… is fragile.
And I… always return."
For though humans promised to remember —
temptation would come again.
And when greed grows,
storms sharpen their teeth.
Then after only few months the sea did not announce itself with thunder.
That was how the elders knew something was wrong.
On the eastern edge of Luzon, where dawn usually broke with gentle gold and salt-sweet wind, there was only stillness. The ocean lay flat as glass, unmoving, unbreathing, as if the world itself had forgotten how to inhale. Fishing boats floated idle, their nets untouched. Birds that once screamed over the waves had vanished. Even the wind—old, restless companion of the islands—had gone silent.
Silence, the elders knew, was never mercy.
High above the land, the sky darkened—not in the usual way of gathering rain, but in layers, as though someone had folded the heavens upon themselves. Clouds stacked thick and bruised, gray upon black upon something deeper still, something that swallowed light rather than reflected it.
Sierra Madre felt it first.
Deep within her eastern forests, ancient roots trembled. Leaves that had endured centuries of storms curled inward, shuddering as if remembering pain. Rivers slowed unnaturally, their surfaces tightening like held breath. The birds fled inland, beating frantic wings against the air.
Sierra Madre opened her eyes.
They glowed—not with anger, but with sorrow.
"Not yet," she whispered, her voice traveling through bark and soil. "The land has not healed yet."
Far to the north, Cordillera stirred.
Lightning flickered along his peaks though no thunder followed. Stone groaned as pressure built beneath his spine. Snowmelt reversed its course, creeping upward like fear reclaiming memory. He stood straighter, bracing himself, though his scars—left by Sarim decades before—still burned when the wind shifted.
"This storm walks differently," Cordillera rumbled. "It is not blind fury."
Between them, in the valleys and folds of the land, Caraballo knelt.
His rivers whispered warnings. The earth beneath him vibrated with a low, sickening hum. Fault lines tightened like clenched fists. He pressed his palms into the ground, listening—not to water, not to soil, but to something deeper.
To intention.
"This one remembers us," Caraballo said quietly.
"And it remembers them."
When the storm finally moved, it did not rush.
It crept.
The first winds were slow, almost curious, brushing the coast like probing fingers. Palm trees swayed uncertainly, confused by the gentleness. Then came the rain—not heavy, not violent, but deliberate. Each drop fell with purpose, soaking deep into weakened soil, filling forgotten cracks, loosening old scars.
In a coastal village, an old woman stepped outside her home and looked east. Her knees trembled.
"This rain feels angry," she murmured.
Her grandson laughed nervously. "Lola, rain can't feel."
She did not answer. She only crossed herself and went back inside.
Out at sea, the clouds began to rotate.
Slowly at first—almost lazily—then faster, tighter, deeper. The wind gained weight. The rain sharpened. Waves rose not in chaos, but in formation, marching toward land like an army that had learned patience.
And then the voice came.
Not shouted.
Not screamed.
Spoken.
"I am Arawit," it said.
"I am the storm that watched you forget."
The name rolled through the air, carried on wind and water, echoing in valleys and bones alike. It was not a god's name. Not a spirit's.
It was a memory given form.
Sierra Madre felt her forests recoil.
Cordillera clenched his fists.
Caraballo closed his eyes.
Arawit was not born of imbalance alone.
He was born of neglect.
In the lowlands, people rushed to prepare.
Radios crackled with warnings. Sirens wailed. Mothers pulled children indoors. Fathers nailed boards across windows already weakened by time. Evacuation centers filled quickly—too quickly—overflowing with families clutching bags of clothes, photos, and hope.
But some stayed.
A man stood on the balcony of a concrete building overlooking a denuded hillside—once forest, now bare earth scarred by machinery. He lit a cigarette, hands shaking.
"They always exaggerate," he muttered.
Behind him, his wife whispered, "Please. Let's go."
He exhaled smoke toward the darkening sky.
"We built strong. Nothing can touch us now."
Farther inland, in a logging compound abandoned too late, rusted machines sat like skeletons. Rain began to pool beneath them, dark and oily. The soil beneath shifted, sighed, then cracked.
The land remembered the wounds.
Children in evacuation centers cried as the wind began to howl—not wild yet, but deep, like something breathing too close. Elders clasped prayer beads, murmuring old names long absent from daily life. Somewhere, a young boy pressed his ear to the ground and felt it trembling.
"Nanay," he whispered. "The earth is scared."
Sierra Madre stepped forward first.
She raised her arms—forests stretching skyward—and met the incoming winds. Trees bent low, branches cracking, leaves torn away like screams ripped from throats. She absorbed the storm's breath, slowing it, breaking its edges, sacrificing her own to protect the plains beyond.
"Pass through me," she said. "Not through them."
Arawit laughed—not loudly, but coldly.
"You are thinner than before."
The rain intensified. Water poured into her slopes, into lands weakened by roads and cuts. Mud shifted. Hills trembled. Sierra Madre groaned—not in fear, but in pain.
Cordillera answered.
He struck the ground with his heel, sending a shockwave through stone and valley. Rivers redirected. Floodwaters forced into ancient channels. His peaks drew lightning, grounding it into himself so villages would not burn.
Stone shattered.
Cordillera roared, lightning exploding from his shoulders.
"I am still here."
Caraballo moved last.
He spread his arms wide, binding what remained of their strength together. Rivers glowed faintly as he guided them away from homes. Earth rose in fragile barriers. He whispered healing into fractures that refused to close.
But Arawit pressed harder.
The storm split itself—winds crashing into Sierra Madre, floods slamming Cordillera, quakes tearing at Caraballo's core. It was strategy. Not rage.
"You taught me," Arawit said.
"Every scar made me wiser."
Then something new happen, a hillside gave way.
It happened suddenly—no warning cry, no time to run. Mud, trees, stone, and memory collapsed into the valley below, swallowing houses whole. A mother screamed as the ground vanished beneath her feet. A father dove forward, shoving his child onto higher ground as the earth took him instead.
Caraballo felt it like a blade.
"No—" he cried, sinking to one knee.
His glow dimmed.
Sierra Madre howled as another slope tore free. Cordillera staggered as a peak collapsed, sending debris roaring downward like thunder made flesh.
For the first time since their creation, the guardians felt something unfamiliar.
Fear.
Not for themselves.
For the people they could no longer fully protect.
Arawit swelled, towering, vast, endless.
"This is not punishment," the storm said.
"This is consequence."
And Still, They Stood
Bleeding stone.
Broken forests.
Shattered earth.
Yet the guardians did not retreat.
Sierra Madre rooted deeper, even as parts of her fell. Cordillera braced what remained of his spine. Caraballo poured the last of his strength into holding them together.
And through the chaos, through wind and water and ruin, human voices rose—not in screams, but in calls.
People helping strangers.
Hands pulling hands from mud.
Voices shouting warnings.
Children passed from arm to arm toward safety.
The land heard them.
The guardians felt it.
Arawit hesitated.
Just for a moment.
The storm had returned.
Stronger.
Smarter.
Bearing a name shaped by human forgetting.
But the fight was not yet over.