by Trixia Marie C. Policarpio

Image by Karola G on Pexels (All photos and videos on Pexels can be downloaded and used for free).

One. Two. Three months…They say the post-breakup slump is supposed to last three months, enough time to hide out, cry it out, and then come back glowing—especially if you were the one left behind. 

But here I am, nine months in, still feeling like I’m barely holding it together. Every small thing just drains me. Every time I catch myself in the bathroom mirror, I can’t help but notice how awful I look. My hair’s limp, falling flat around my face like it’s given up. My forehead’s too wide, and my skin—god, my skin—looks dull, like it’s lost any glow it ever had. Pimples dot my chin and cheeks, not to mention the deep, purple bags under my eyes. I try not to look, but I can’t help it—the worst part is the way my body feels like it’s sagging. It’s like I’m torturing myself by not moving on, yet I can’t seem to stop. My head knows what I should do, what I shouldn’t feel, but my head and heart just aren’t in sync.

Meeting up and hanging out with people feels like a nightmare now. Just the thought drains me, and I dread those “Are you okay?” looks or the well-meaning bashing of my ex that feels hollow, as if scripted for the person who was obviously dumped. My only refuge, aside from my bedroom, is the library. The strict librarian with her zero-tolerance for noise—even a whisper gets a shush—creates the perfect silence. It’s the one place where I know I won’t have to fend off forced conversations. 

Franz Austin V. De Mesa is a fiction writer with an unnatural appetite for horror, fantasy, and dystopian sci-fi stories. A certified anime and gaming enthusiast, he writes to explore the dark parts of humanity and indulge in his fascinations with the macabre, alternate timelines, and other what-if scenarios lurking in our world. For his undergraduate thesis, he wrote a collection of interactive short stories, which was awarded Best Thesis in Creative Writing. He is currently undertaking an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Santo Tomas. His story, IN(DE)CISION, was published in Philippine Genre Stories in May, 2023. 

by Franz Austin V. De Mesa

Illustration by Franz Austin V. De Mesa

51754. Goodbye To A World – Porter Robinson

It has been two hours and 27 minutes since the last airstrike rained down on Pasay City. Ten thousand rounds of high explosive covered Buendia to Baclaran in a blanket of pyromania, toppling all the houses out of their foundations, blistering buildings with holes and broken windows, showering the streets with sharp fractals and piles of debris. Stone, cement, fire, blood. Utter decimation. The sky, in its unchanging terminal illness, was clouded in smoke, the air so thick with ash that my larynx was clogged and I couldn’t push out a scream for help if I wanted to. 

The vehicles on EDSA had stopped for good, their dead batteries part of the world that vanished, the world before 2042 when things still made sense and the city still functioned in its slow, inefficient, nearly paralyzed way of operating, but at least still functioned, and all that people complained about were gas prices rising, or the jeepney fare going up a few pesos, or some slimy politician’s scandals—as if there was any hope for Philippine politics to change for the better—where all that people could talk about was gossip, or fitting in, or worrying about if this guy or that girl likes me, if I should quit, have a bigger salary, retire to the province, go to another country, or what I’d do if the world ended tomorrow, never actually thinking that the world would end tomorrow. 

Rochita C. Ruiz currently lives and works in The Netherlands as a creative artist, musician, and workshop facilitator. A graduate of the Clarion West Writers Workshop, Rochita was the recipient of the 2009 Octavia Butler Scholarship, and the first Filipino writer to attend Clarion West. She also attended the Milford Writer’s Workshop as a recipient of the Milford Writers BAME scholarship. 

Rochita’s fiction and non-fiction work have been published in a variety of online and print publications and she is currently in the process of creating a collection of her short fiction and non-fiction work. 

Rochita published “Song of the Body Cartographer” in Philippine Genre Stories in 2012, which was inspired by the painting “Creation of the Birds” by Remedios Varo.  Rochita returns in 2025 with “Hymn to Life” which she originally wrote in Dutch as Hymne van de Overlevers  for the science fiction anthology De Komeet edited by Martijn Lindeboom and Vamba Sherif, and published by Uitgeverij De Geus in February, 2023.

by Rochita C. Ruiz

Image from publicdomainpictures.net

. . .  strangers meet on a distant world,

. . . . . . .  are they still strangers? 

-Hebr Hesni, 10^th elder of the Tindugan Council-

It was early in the morning when Fyra saw the stranger for the first time. It was dark and cold, as mornings were on Avikande—made colder still because spring had yet to make its mark. 

The soft beeping of the sensors had woken Fyra from sleep and for a moment she’d felt panic grip her by the throat. She’d been dreaming of their final days on Sedulur, dreaming of that moment when Hebr Hesni pushed Dema into her arms and begged her to flee. 

She rose quietly and checked on Dema before she walked to the security panel.

She’d woken an hour before sunrise, which meant there was time enough to do her rounds before the others arose. Her limbs cracked and popped as she stretched to her full height. 

On the loop display, she could see someone standing at the edge of the southern field. The loop was an old model so the visual wasn’t clear but there was something about the one standing there that made her think of the Welah Asih. 

Agitation marched all along the markings on her back. She reminded herself that the Asu had no power here on Avikande. Reminded herself that they were safe and out of reach of those who had sent out the gatherers and harvested members of her commune. 

On the loop, she saw the stranger kneel at the edge of their field. Once, long ago, someone had come to their commune in Sedulur in the same way. 

“I want nothing more than to learn at the feet of the Hebr Danda,”that Welah Asih had said. 

The memory was a bitter one for it was Danda who had breathed life into Fyra. In the early days of the harvesting, Danda had gone to see that Welah Asih their self. They had never returned. 

Gone, Fyra thought. And with them, the most vital link to Fyra’s lineage was also gone. 

She shut the door on her grief. 

How trusting they’d been. Opening their borders, allowing strangers among them, believing in words of friendship, and letting down their guard. They’d learned the hard way, that friendship meant different things to different peoples. 

“What are you doing there?” She wanted to ask now. But she didn’t walk out the door. She wasn’t ready to confront the stranger. Not yet. Not now, when it was still dark.