Gabe didn't sleep.
Not really. Not since the whispers had begun. Every time he closed his eyes, the same pressure returned, the same flashes of images he didn't understand. The road. The gunshot. The man falling. And the blurry face of the woman—always watching, always just out of reach.
He paced his tiny apartment, pulling at his hair, trying to reason with himself.
It's stress. Exhaustion. A hallucination.
He repeated it like a mantra.
By noon, his stomach growled, and he realized he hadn't eaten. Reaching for instant noodles, he noticed his phone buzzing again.
No notification. No alert. Just the screen lighting up, and a single phrase appearing:
"She's closer than you think."
Gabe froze. His thumb hovered over the phone. He hadn't typed anything.
He looked around the room. Empty. Quiet.
For the rest of the day, the messages continued. Not constant. Not every hour. But always when he was alone, always in his head:
"You're being watched.""Don't trust what you remember.""The choice is yours."
And always… the subtle hint of her.
A shadow that lingered in his peripheral vision. A flicker on the street below. A voice in a crowd that sounded like hers—but when he turned, no one was there.
By evening, Gabe's anxiety became a dull, steady ache. He sat by his window, staring at the city lights, trying to convince himself it was all coincidence.
Then he heard it again. The whisper.
"Do not let it happen."
This time, it came with a memory-like flash—he was younger, in the academy, during formation. A hand brushing past his shoulder. Someone whispering encouragement. A warmth he hadn't felt in years.
And again, just the outline of her face. someone he had known. Someone from the past.
Hours passed. The night dragged on endlessly, filled with the whispers gnawing at him from every direction. He hadn't moved from the spot against the wall. His chest tightened, his hands trembled, and he felt as if the air itself had grown heavier.
By the time the first rays of sunlight filtered through his cracked window, the whispers had become nearly incessant, pressing against him from every angle, overwhelming every thought.
Gabe's head spun. His body tensed to its breaking point.
Then—a sound.
Cluck. Cluck. Cluck.
A sharp, staccato noise outside his window.
Gabe jumped. Heart hammering. He spun toward the source.
A few chickens wandered the rooftop of the neighboring building, pecking and squawking as if nothing extraordinary had happened.
The mundane sound hit him like a shock. For a fraction of a second, he forgot the visions, the whispers, the pressure in his skull. But the relief was fleeting. The balete's warning, and the blurry shadow of the woman, were still there, lingering just out of reach, persistent as ever.
Gabe sank to the floor, pressing his back to the wall, trembling.
He didn't know who she was. He didn't know what would happen if he ignored her.
All he knew was:
The balete was speaking.
And the blurry woman was a part of it.