Philippine Speculative Fiction Read Online Free

bloodshot and blue, the whole of him lying down in a stain of blood on the mud. I retract my spear from his side.
    Bang.
    There is that, and I quickly dodge the invisible blows from the other demon’s spear from hell. I hide behind the boulders again. I can smell the stench of the other demon’s anger,
his words seemingly curses to Magwayen. I gulp in fear as I hear him drawing nearer and nearer.
    I hear two strong plucks coming from a distance, then two dashes of breath. A strong muddy splash comes from behind the boulder where I am hiding. I look at my shivering ankles, wading in the
watery mud. I wait, but there is nothing more. There is no sound.
    Slowly, I peek out from where I am hiding, only to see the tranquil scene of dried-up river, bereft of the demon. It is face down instead in the mud, two arrows sprouting from the crevices of
its silver shell.
    “The gods watch over me,” I mutter to myself.
    And so it was. I see one of them now, a tall figure with a bow, emerging from the lush thicket.
The gods have come down from the mountains
, I think. This one is bronzed like an eagle.
His toes are like talons that clip over river stones. He looks radiant. The godly figure now lowers his bow and arrows, and draws nearer towards where Makahagad is.
    The god kneels at the side of the dead bearcat, and starts to weep.
This god seems to have known my binturong
, I think.
He grieves with tears of lead
. I fiercely hold back my
own anguish, unable to understand what I am seeing. But my tears give way, and I too soon cry.
Makahagad is gone.
    The man, the god, drops his bow in the mud and seems to have lost his strong stance. He crouches forward with the weight of loss, just as much as I.
    We both grieve.
    In our shared agony, I find that the god is nothing but an ordinary man. He is scarred in places, his hair is in tatters, his presence is shaken. He approaches me, still distressed but carried
it off with stoic composure. He clears his throat.
    “My village has lost an ally,” he says.
    “My village has lost family,” I tell him.
    Silence.
    The man looks me in the eye, his mouth tense. And then he speaks:
    “Do you know Magpanabang? My name is Maayuput.”

Victor Fernando R. Ocampo
     
Panopticon
     
    Victor Fernando R. Ocampo is a Singapore-based Filipino writer. His work has appeared in publications like
Apex Magazine, Expanded Horizons, Lakeside
Circus, Strange Horizons,
and the
World SF Blog,
as well in anthologies such as
Fish Eats Lion: New Singaporean Speculative Fiction
and
Philippine Speculative Fiction
(Volumes 6 and 9).
His story “Here Be Dragons” won first prize at the Romeo Forbes Children’s Literature competition in 2012. Visit his blog at
http://victorfernandorocampo.wordpress.com/ or follow him on Twitter @VictorOcampo.
    I WOKE UP in a dirty public toilet, white noise fogging my head. The stink of urine and cigarettes choked the dead air. A broken sink in front of me lay thick with organic
crust, ashes and ancient spittle. Overhead, an incandescent bulb flickered uncertainly.
    “Mr. Salazar?” a voice behind me asked. “Try not to move so much, you’re not complete yet.”
    I glanced up at the mirror and saw the reflection of a woman in a tight white jumper, slender and tall like a huntress. I knew immediately that something was wrong. Her face was familiar, too
familiar. It was a face that I had seen hundreds of times before, the 1970s screen siren Marrie Lee. She looked as if she’d stepped out from the movie
They Call Her Cleopatra
Wong
.
    I balled my hand into a fist. I knew she couldn’t possibly be real.
    “No need to fight Mr. Salazar. Your reaction is all the confirmation I need,” the strange woman replied. “Cigarette?”
    “Who are you?” I asked, gagging at the assault of cesspool smells. “Where am I?”
    “It’s me, Pai Kia,” the woman said, her voice dropping suddenly to a baritone. “Let me adjust my HI.”
    “H… HI?” I stammered, as her body morphed