Ace woke up before the sun.
Not because he wanted to, but because the world didnt wait for people like him.
The electric fan hummed weakly in the corner, pushing warm air around the small room. Outside, roosters crowed, tricycles already rattled down the street, and somewhere a neighbor's radio played an old love song too early in the morning.
Ace sat up on his mattress and rubbed his eyes. The ceiling, above Ace, had a crack that looked like a lightning bolt. Ace had stared at this crack many nights that he could draw it even when the room was dark. Ace knew this crack well because Ace had spent a lot of time looking at the ceiling.
Another day.
Ace picked up his phone.
5:12 a.m.
No notifications. No missed calls. Just the same cracked screen and low battery warning.
Ace stood, slipped on his faded school uniform, and quietly stepped out of the room. His mother was already awake in the kitchen, stirring rice in a pot. The smell of garlic and oil filled the air.
Ace said Ma in a morning voice
My mother told me to eat before I go.
I will be late again if I eat. Ace said this without turning around.
"Eat!" his mother commanded, her eyes flashing with irritation. "You aren't leaving for the academy on an empty stomach. You have to eat before you go, so that you have more energy. It's better late than dead.
Ace nodded. That is what Ace always did.
There wasn't much for breakfast. It was just rice and an egg, chopped into little pieces. It was a pathetic trick, a way to make his stomach believe there was more than there actually was. He also had a cup of cold water rather than a coffee. cause he never drinks hot drinks or coffee, Ace feels sick when he drinks hot beverages like coffee in the morning. Ace ate his breakfast quickly. Then he put his backpack over his shoulder and went outside. He had been using this backpack for a long time, and it was getting worn out. That's the morning routine of Ace every day, and the breakfast he just had was his first and last meal for Ace.
The street was alive.
Students are wearing their uniforms, vendors are shouting, and jeepneys are really crowded. Ace got on one of the jeepneys. Had to stand up outside the vehicle hanging, while holding onto a metal bar to have a free fare. The driver was playing pop music loudly. There was a lot of sweat, noise, and exhaust from the jeepney. This is the way things are. This is what life is like for Ace and the other students. The jeepneys are always crowded and noisy. The vendors are always shouting. It was a typical day for Ace as he headed to the academy, dressed in his school uniform.
At school, Ace was a regular kid; he did not stand out or anything. Ace just blended in with all the other students.
He sat at the back of the classroom. Ace listened when it was necessary. He wrote some notes when the teacher looked at him. His classmates talked about exams and gossip. They traded empty dreams of moving up to the Inner City, chasing a 'better life' that everyone knew was just a beautiful lie. Ace listened to what his classmates were saying. He rarely said anything himself. Ace was a guy who did not talk much.
Sometimes, he stared out the window instead.
He looked up at the clouds moving freely across the sky. The clouds just floated across the sky. He thought about life and freedom. Why did I not feel the same as the clouds? Life feels like it costs a lot of money to be free. He also thought about effort and reward. Sometimes he put in a lot of effort. He did not get a reward for the effort he put in. Freedom felt expensive to him. He wondered why the clouds could move freely across the sky, and life could not feel that way for him. Life and freedom, those were the two concepts that haunted his every thought.
Classes ended in the afternoon. When that happened, some people went home. Others hung out with friends. Ace did not do that. Ace went straight to work. There was no rest after the academy; Ace was expected at his job the moment his classes were over.
The convenience store where he worked was near the main road. He spent eight hours standing, putting things on shelves, smiling at the customers who came in, and counting out change for them. He got paid the minimum wage for doing this job. He did not say anything about it because complaining would not help him pay his bills. The convenience store job was what it was. He did what he had to do to get by.
By nightfall, his feet ached. He rolled his shoulders, but the stiffness in his back refused to ease. What bothered him most was his mind; it felt as though his thoughts were weighing him down even more than his body.
Walking home, Ace watched the streetlights blink and fail. They were tired, he realized. Even the light was giving up. People were in a hurry, cars were honking their horns, and people's lives were crossing paths, but they were not really connecting. Ace thought about how the lives of people, including his life, were all mixed up together, but nobody was really talking to each other. The streetlights just kept on flickering the people just kept on rushing. The cars just kept on honking, and Ace kept on walking home.
Why does it feel like we're all in a race? He thought, watching the blur of gray uniforms and hurried footsteps. No one knew where they were headed; they moved simply because the world demanded it. Everyone was running, but Ace couldn't help but wonder: what was the point of a race that had no finish line? They were sprinting toward a horizon that never got any closer, lost in a frantic rhythm with no destination in sight.
At home, he lay back down on his mattress. He stared at the cracked ceiling again, and he realized why I was dozing off while looking at the ceiling. Am I crazy? Ace wondered.
History books told them this was progress, that life was slowly getting better. Society echoed the same idea, treating struggle as normal and endurance as virtue. Grown-ups, parents, teachers, people who had already surrendered to routine, said this was simply what life was.
But deep down, Ace felt an ache in his chest. A quiet, heavy pull he couldn't explain.
It felt as though the world were a puzzle with a single missing piece, and somehow, his heart was the only thing aware of the absence. Everything functioned, everything moved forward, yet something essential was gone.
Something was wrong.
The world felt incomplete, like a truth had been removed and replaced with noise. The emptiness wasn't obvious, but it lingered in every routine, every command to obey, every promise that tomorrow would be better if he just endured today.
The thought lodged itself in his mind like a splinter, sharp, persistent, impossible to ignore. No matter how hard he focused on the gray rhythm of the city, the question always returned, clawing its way back to the surface of his thoughts.
Ace exhaled slowly and shook his head, as if he could physically push the thoughts away.
He was a graduating student. That had to mean something. Maybe all these questions, all this heaviness, would fade once life finally started. Maybe things would make sense when he landed a decent job, wore proper clothes, worked in an air-conditioned office, and earned a salary big enough to breathe without counting every peso.
That was the dream, at least.
A good company. A stable income. A future where his mother wouldn't have to worry so much. Where exhaustion meant progress, not survival.
Maybe this is just how things are before they get better, Ace told himself.
He chose to believe it because believing was easier than breaking. Easier than questioning a world that had already taught him how dangerous questions could be.
So he tucked the doubt away, folded it neatly like an unfinished assignment, and promised himself he would deal with it later. After graduation. After the job. After life finally gave him a reason to feel complete.
For now, hope was enough.
He reached for his phone and began to scroll. News clips. Short videos. Arguments in comment sections. The usual noise.
Then he stopped.
One post, he noticed, was from an unknown person with no name. Just a grainy image and a single line of text:
"The world you live in is incomplete."
Ace frowned.
He tapped the account, no profile photo. No history. No followers. The post had been uploaded minutes ago, and the comments section is disabled.
His thumb hovered over the screen.
Another post Ace saw with the same account says;
"If you've ever felt something was missing… you're not wrong."
Ace felt something wasn't right.
The fan suddenly went silent.
His phone screen flickered.
And for the first time, the question he'd been running from felt like it was staring back at him.