ALL Chapters & Episodes of The Curse of Luke Matthews by therensuuu

All Chapters of The Curse of Luke Matthews: Chapter 1 - Chapter 6

6 Chapters

//Sta. Mesa, Manila, 2019// He wakes up in a bed, in a hotel room. He’s just lying there, very still, holding his breath, as if trying to hold the passing of time; trying to keep time from moving any more forward. There is another boy beside him, asleep, seemingly unaware of his presence. ‘Does he remember’, he asked himself, ‘what happened last night?’ Trying to keep the memory of their night alive through his own will. Of course, he knows that it isn’t possible. He knows that ‘he’ will forget – like they always do, like they always have. ‘Is it my fault,’ he wondered, ‘is it my fault on why we keep repeating this life, not being successful of anything?’ He knows it isn’t his partner’s fault. He knows it isn’t his partners’ faults either. His head was aching. He seems to remember something:

Chapter 2

The Curse of Luke Matthews/therensuuu

July is such a tedious month. It’s the stitch between a hot morning and a rainy afternoon. You wake up feeling hot and sweaty, but you go to bed covering yourself with blankets due to the rainy cold. Soleil used to call these the restless days, when the red-hot deities began to stir, and the cold ones began to rest. When the dreamers are more prone to failed ideas, and the travelers will always get lost. Luke has always had the tendency to suffer from both. It makes sense since Luke was born on the 16th of July, right along the middle of the chaos, although it has been very long before he thought of celebrating his own birthday. For twenty-three years, he hated the marker of time. He was forever growing up, and forever growing old. It was an endless cycle. For centuries, his birthday was more or less any othe

Chapter 3

The Curse of Luke Matthews/therensuuu

//La Provincia de la Laguna de Bay, May, 1700// Lucas sits on a bench beside his father. His father, to him is strict, but composed, a quiet reader inside their house. In front of them were bags woven from dried Pandan leaves. Inside those bags were various vegetables and garlands made from Arabian Jasmine. The cart’s wheels rattle as the horse slowly pulls it along the path, away from Luke’s home. Away – 'away' – something about this word makes Luke feel a bit uneasy. Lucas is eight. He is a bright little boy. He is small and very agile; he has begged his mother’s ear off to be able to come with his father to the market in the city until his father finally said yes. They own a small amount of land where they plant various vegetables and half of that land is filled with Arabian Jasmine. Twice a year, his father makes a

Chapter 4

The Curse of Luke Matthews/therensuuu

/La Provincia de la Laguna de Bay, June, 1705/ It is a place of religious worship, Biñan. It is the first thing one would notice. There are religious figures at the center of the town. Divine stone figures crafted by their town’s ancestors and erected at the center of the town and has been worshipped for centuries. Lucas’ parents go there to give worship two to three times a week and give their offers to appease the deities – as prescribed by the elders of their town, who are also the descendants of the ancestors that erected these divine images. These would include a handful of flowers and vegetables from their harvest and a part of their tithing. Lucas is now thirteen, he’s trying to follow in his parents’ footsteps and so he does this too. But he prays like how his father gathers flowers, and how her mother licks her thumb to collect flakes of salt. It is more of a coerced habit to him more

Chapter 5

The Curse of Luke Matthews/therensuuu

/La Provincia de la Laguna de Bay, June, 1710/ Years seem to pass by so swiftly. Like a nighttime drive, arriving so soon just after you started stepping on the gas just moments ago. Lucas is now eighteen. The village-folk regards him as one of the mightiest villagers that they have. He is likened to the rare, but hardy Narra trees that the villagers are able to cut down from time to time. Whose woods are only meant to be turned into the finest lumber, having a bit of a red hue – like the red flush he always has on his cheeks – and having the timber not equivalent to any other type of wood. He’s the one in the spotlight now, before was Kai Parker – however, he’d prefer to rather not be in the spotlight, but to be a normal villager instead. He would rather be like Soleil – frail, thin, malnourished – a plant that has grown wild, undiscovered and has very little value for anyone. He would rather

Chapter 6

The Curse of Luke Matthews/therensuuu

/Sta. Mesa, Manila, 2019/ It’s not always so comfortable travelling the world through the years by oneself. Through the years, one is able to identify what they are able to live with or without – the small things, the joys that make life bearable. Not food, not a home, not the basic things that anyone needs, but something to keep your sanity. Something that brings you joy. Lucas always loved how his father weaves bags out of leaves, how is it possible to create different designs given that the colors of the leaves are unpredictable? How is he able to make the same pattern of Arabian Jasmine necklaces regardless of how open the flowers are? They always seem to look identical, yet he didn’t want to learn how his father does it – he didn’t want to learn the secrets of an artisan like him. However, Lucas has had more than 300 years to practice this c