Year 2000 Soaked in silence and peace. Only the gusts of cold wind could be heard around in conjunction with the whistling of crickets in the middle of the night. Sharp and successive; a sound that created distinct and vivid patterns on each tree surrounding the paved road of the city. The sky has neither hint nor shade of wrath which is overshadowed by the calm breeze of the featureless night. For it was tranquil, there are no hysterical lights or the faintest sign of electricity on the road. Thus, supplementing the difficulty for anyone to advance because of the thick fog that lurks in the area. It was completely cold, but there was no sign of approaching rain. The thick fog and silence of the road were suddenly broken when a young man came out rushing in the middle of it. The sweat coursed like a fountain from his forehead to his neck, hands, legs—his whole body—it was sweating profusely. He quickly probed around with the weakest hope of finding another r

His eyes were wide open, hardly breathing, whole body had no strength left, and feeling as though his spirit temporarily departed from his body. He was like in a wide immensurable depth of an ocean, letting the water aimlessly drift his body elsewhere he wouldn’t want to know. That’s how he felt when the barangay officers brutally dropped him from the car they were riding in earlier. He could barely breathe as though his lungs reached their limit. His eyes were dimming, almost sightless. He was dizzy as well—perhaps because of the dosage of the drug the officer had injected into his neck back in the abandoned building. He was likely to lose consciousness and could vomit any time. The drug certainly sucked the remaining energy in his body almost nothing left. He had not the vigour to stand steadily anymore so even if the officers drag him anywhere they wanted, he couldn’t fight back. For all that he had difficulty seeing because of his blurred eyes, he struggled to ob