BLACK lumps of burnt metal, leaves, branches, and flesh did not take up too much space but effectively blocked the road. Very few motorcycle parts and tree branches were still recognizable but not the bodies of the motorists and their passengers that met their terrible fate hours ago. The strong smell of gasoline, burnt metal, and corpse stenches the icy air. Thankfully, there were no houses along this road. In spite of being a part of the middle-class subdivision, no houses were built here because it was close to the cemented wall that stood between the subdivision and the main road outside.

It happened that several commuters and a driver in a tricycle found the devastating sight around five in the morning. Although the sun was invisible, it glowed behind the clouds and traced their outline on the vast, blue sky. The black lumps stood in the middle of the road and made it impossible for the tricycle to drive around it, so the vehicle had to turn back and take another road. As soon as it reached its drop-off point—the tricycle terminal close to the gate of the subdivision—the tricycle driver informed one of the TODA (Tricycle Operators and Drivers’ Association) officer about the black lumps. The officer gave the black lumps a look, and decided to call the police to investigate.

Two police cars arrived around six-thirty in the morning. Streaks of sunlight already streamed through the cracks of the clouds in the sky, aiding the police officers in order to have a better view at the crime scene. No one touched the black lumps that were already boxed inside a yellow police tape.

Police Inspector 1 Rolanda Gibb was one of the police officers present in the area—5’5 feet in height, brown-skinned, and hawk-eyed. Her bob-cut, straight black hair was tied into a sleek ponytail. She was shapeless, slim like a pole, but in spite of her lack in mass and muscle, Rolanda is quick with her mind and with her gun. Her rushed movements made it hard for people to even notice her unless she stayed in one place for at least, five minutes.

The moment they reached the crime scene, Rolanda breezed out of the police car. No one noticed her walk around to probe the black lumps in the middle of the road until she stopped in front of the farthest among the three black lumps. She squatted in front of the farthest lump. It resembled the shape of two people that got burnt but it was hard to tell when they got burnt on top of each other and the flames almost fused the corpses together like an alien hybrid. What gave away that the burnt lump composed of two human bodies were the shape of the heads, since the skull doesn’t burn down to lumps or ashes rightaway. There were few remaining hair strands on them, melted by the tips and stood on their ends while lightly waving in the air. Rolanda observed that there was no obvious struggle from these corpses when they were being burnt. Their burnt bodies remained in one place, the only thing that scattered from the black lumps were flakes and ashes. She could not help the assumption that the victims died first before they were burnt.

“I don’t think they were intentionally burnt or burned alive,” her Certified Police Investigator Gerald Nuñez murmured as he squatted by her side, following her line of sight before he looked up. “Look up.”

Rolanda looked up and saw the branches of the trees that loomed over them, over the road. Their black burnt ends contrasted the blue sky vividly.

“An explosion happened,” Rolanda assumed.

“Yes,” the investigator nodded and glanced back at the black lump in front of them. “The motorcycles must have collided. One hit the gas tank of the other. An explosion happened as soon as the motorists were flung off their motorcycles due to the impact of hitting each other. While they were unconscious, the explosion caused a fire that burnt their bodies.”

Rolanda squint her eyes. She was dubious of Gerald’s assessment because he made it too quickly when they were barely fifteen minutes within the crime scene. Hypocritical of her because her mind was quick to conclusion, but hey, she has second-thoughts about her own assessments too. She doesn’t word them out unless she was certain or asked to say it.

“This lump is a few feet away from the bigger ones. There’s another lump on the far left side of the road, almost the size of this one—” Rolanda observed.

Gerald finished the sentence for her. “—which we can safely assume as burnt human bodies, while the bigger lumps were burnt motorcycles. It was pretty obvious because some of the motorcycle parts are still recognizable.”

“What you said about the motorists being thrown off their vehicles does make sense. That’s why their corpses were a few feet away from the motorcycles.”

“Yes.”

“But, if their motorcycles collided, aren’t they supposed to be opposite each other and not positioned side by side?”

Gerald stood up and turned to look at the bigger black lumps a few feet away from where they stood. “They seem to have fallen side by side. Or maybe, that’s their position because the motorists were driving side by side when one of them lost control, swerved to their left, hit the gas tank of the other motorcycle, and the rest is history.”

Rolanda remained in her position as she looked up at the investigator with doubtful eyes. She watched him shove his hands inside the pocket of his brown leather jacket that was open in the middle to show his blue button-down uniform paired with a pair of black pants. His brushed-up hair was black, but shows hints of graying on the strands close to his forehead. Gerald and Rolanda’s ages had an eleven-year gap, but she understood how the senior officer’s mind works. His decade-long experience in the police department made him overconfident with his ability so he just talks without giving it a second-thought; but because of that, Rolanda learned to not rely too much on Gerald’s verdict on things. But his assessment about this incident was flawless. She could not find a loophole from his theory about the cause of death of these unidentifiable motorists.

It was either Gerald was right or they have just encountered a perfect crime.

“Thanks for the assistance, police officer,” Gerald said as soon as he fished out his cell phone from his jacket’s pocket. He immediately made a call and heard some of the things he said while walking away. “This is Gerald. There’s nothing to investigate here. It’s just a motorcycle accident—”

Rolanda stood up and caught up with Gerald as he kept on walking. He did not notice her at first, so he kept on talking. “—and these officers are just going to identify these poor things so that their families will be informed about what happened.”

Gerald glanced at her direction and was shocked to see her walking beside him.

“I’ll be heading back there. Bye.” He put down his phone and lifted an eyebrow. “What is it, police officer?”

“The bodies haven’t been autopsied yet,” she replied. “How sure are you that there is no foul play in this incident?”

“I have already assessed it, police officer. Me. A certified police investigator. There’s no foul play here, so there’s no need for your police station to send us a request letter for the investigation division just to investigate another case of reckless drivers having a motorcycle accident.”

Rolanda sighed and nodded. “I don’t know, sir, but you’ve assessed this incident too quickly. What if we’re not seeing something here? What if the bodies and motorcycles were intentionally burnt to hide the fact that they were shot by bullets or something.”

“And what brings you to the conclusion that a gun is involved here?”

The police officer shrugged. In her mind, she was going to stutter, so she took in a deep breath before she answered. “Because the burnt corpses that we just checked are positioned a bit too far from where the explosion happened. They were supposed to have the time to . . . crawl or run away from the motorcycles and save themselves.”

“Haven’t I mentioned it to you that the victims probably lost consciousness after they flew off their silly bikes? Unconscious people can’t run.”

“That lump has two people on top of one another. Based on the angle of the burnt motorcycles, it seemed quite impossible for two people to fly off and land on the same spot, specifically, on top of one another.”

Gerald grinned at her. “Unless, they were hugging when they flew off until they landed on the ground.”

“Sir, get serious,” Rolanda gritted seriously.

The older man chuckled. “Kid, leave the investigations to the investigator. I already made my assessment which is my job, so go on and do your job. Make your reports, get the bodies autopsied, and inform their families about this incident. Also, get this area cleaned as early as you can. They’re blocking the road and you wouldn’t want the police force to be blamed once again for the inconvenience of the regular people.”

***

BLOOM slouched on her bed, her back resting on the wall beside the door of the room she was sharing with Renz. She held her cell phone against her bent up knees and finished watching a short video uploaded on a social media website. Then, she looked at Renz who stood with her back on her.

Renz was in front of the study table, packing her backpack. It was already Friday and by ten in the morning she has to leave the boarding house for school.

“Have you seen this video, Renz? There’s this burnt lumps of motorcycle and people on the subdivision near your school.”

“I can’t check my phone right now, Bloom. I’m in a hurry.”

“Slept late again?” Bloom cocked her head to the side and smiled while scanning Renz.

It was wash day at Renz’ college, so instead of her uniform, she was wearing a pair of vibrant blue jeans and a white, short-sleeved blouse with pink little roses printed on it. She rolled up the ends of her jeans, showing off her white, high cut sneakers. Her wavy, black hair was still damp from the shower, and she put her hair down even if it would wet the back of her shirt.

“Obviously, I just got a free, front-seat ticket to a horrible frog’s concert last night.”

Bloom scrolled down the screen of her smart phone, grinning. “Just use your earphones.”

“You know I can’t sleep when I hear things, Renz.” She was starting to get annoyed. Why does she have to keep reminding her roommate about this? “I wonder how you can even manage to sleep in this hell.”

“When you’re too sleepy, nothing else can stop you from sleeping. Not even noise.”

‘What she said is quite true,’ said a voice in Renz’ head.

She paused from zipping her backpack close. For a moment, she seized to hear Bloom’s voice. Her focus centered on the new voice that just spoke to her. Then, she remembered what happened yesterday morning. At first, Renz was certain that the giant underwater snake and the three spirits were just images from her dream. But she was starting to doubt it when she was wide awake and the underwater snake was able to use telepathy to communicate with her.

When the voice did not speak again, Renz finished closing her backpack.

‘I have been under the deepest depths of the sea for thousands of years. I occasionally hear the shrieking of ships’ horns or the wailing of storms, but they did not make me open my eyes.’

‘Shut it. I’m busy,’ Renz replied to the voice.

‘Don’t worry. I won’t talk too much. I’ll save every word I want to say for later . . . for the day that we personally meet.’

Her eyes widened. ‘P-Personally? What do you mean?’

How could Renz meet a giant underwater snake in person? Will it crawl on land? Will it pull her down deep into the ocean?

She blinked her eyes. ‘What if this is just my imagination? I am lacking sleep these days so . . .’

‘That’s why we have to meet. You have to tell me where I can meet you.’

‘Why would I want to meetup with a giant snake? Don’t you dare show up on land, either! That’ll be a catastrophe to the level of national emergency!’ Renz carried her backpack and faced Bloom. “I’m going.”

Bloom slightly jolted, she seemed pretty shocked to be caught by Renz looking at her. Renz was in a hurry so she did not put too much thought into catching Bloom staring at her. She walked to the door and left immediately.

During class, Renz was waiting anxiously to be called for recitation. Well, she was hoping to be called, to somehow redeem herself for being unable to recite properly the last time she was called by the professor. She could feel her body growing stiff, chills climbing along her spine then sliding all over her arms’ skin that gave her goose flesh, and all of that in vain, because the bell rang and she wasn’t even called to recite.

As soon as the professor left the room, most of her classmates already left their seats. Some of them just wanted to go home already, while the others have other classes to attend to. Renz rubbed her arms, trying to soothe her from the anxiety that won’t go away from some reason. While rubbing her goose fleshed arms, she stole a glance around the room and caught a pair of eyes staring back at her. The intense gaze made her feel so self-conscious, she immediately picked up her Criminal Procedure (The Bar Lecture Series) book, picked up her backpack, and left her seat. It wasn’t long before she felt a presence taking up big strides to catch up with her.

“Hey. Hey,” called a young lad in blue jeans and green, collared shirt with its short sleeves hugging his small biceps. He has this thick, black curly hair with a length that reached the top of his ears like a Labrador dog’s floppy ears. His lips were thin and too wide, he looked like he was smiling even when he wasn’t. His brown eyes were brown and round under his long, lashes.

“What is it?” she answered uninterestedly, trying to balance carrying a backpack with one shoulder and hugging a book to her check with the other.

“How’s the lecture today?”

“Why are you asking me that? Didn’t you listen to the teacher?”

He finally smiled, shyly. “As a matter of fact, I tried, but it’s just so hard to hear him talk. The beating of my heart had been really deafening when I saw you.”

Renz rolled her eyes. “I am not buying that. You see me every day in class, so how come you only felt that way just today.”

“True, because it’s not a love at first sight. It’s only today when my heart decided that . . . I like you,” he smirked playfully. When she did not reciprocate or reacted to his bold confession, he spoke more casually. “On a serious note, I asked how the lecture is for you because you might forget the lessons again.”

She glared at him. “Forget the lessons again? Is this because I couldn’t recite properly the other day?”

Her classmate let go of the strap of his blue cross-body, waist bag and raised his hands, as if in surrender. “Ho! Easy! Forgetting happens! It’s okay! It’s normal!”

“It’s not normal when I spent an overnight to memorize everything,” she muttered and returned her eyes to the front to watch where she was going.

“That’s the thing, you stayed up all night. Sure, studying is important to gain knowledge, but you won’t be able to retain what you gained in your brain if you lack sleep.” He was babbling too fast, trying to keep her interested because she was already rushing her steps. “Look. I’m Will Mariano. Can we be study buddies?”

Renz stopped walking and took deep breaths before glancing at her classmate. “No.” ‘Study buddies, my ass. After that silly confession, he probably actually want to be f*ck buddies.’

“I know a quiet place. We can concentrate better there when we review and you can take a few naps there if you want,” he negotiated.

Renz paused a bit. She wondered how Will came up with that suggestion. A quiet place to study? A place where she can also sleep too? It was as if, he knew her dilemma at the boarding house.

“No,” she answered anyway, then stuffed her book in the backpack and put on her earphones. His offer was tempting but why would she immediately come to a place with a stranger, to add, a male stranger. Sure, they were classmates, but this was the first and only time that they have talked. How sure was she that this Will Mariano was not planning to do something that could harm her?

Will probably said something more, but Renz couldn’t hear them anymore. As soon as a song on her playlist played, Renz managed to completely ignore her classmate. When she got to the school gate, she turned and did not see Will around. How he quickly gave up on her bothered her at first, but she thought that it was actually a nice thing when a person doesn’t force you to the point of harassment just to make another person agree on something.

Inside a jeepney on her way home, Renz grew anxious again. She was worrying about the noisy neighbors, as usual. And as usual also, she was hoping to get to the boarding house on time for her to able to steal at least an hour of afternoon nap. That afternoon nap would compensate for staying up all night until three in the morning, battling the videoke concerts of her neighbors while reading her law book and taking down notes.

‘So, when are we going to meetup?’ said that voice again.

‘Stop the telepathy. I am not interested with your mission to swallow the moon!’ Renz gritted before looking out the window of the jeepney.

‘We have to meet already. As soon as possible. Much better, right now. I’ve been walking in circles here on land and the noise here is getting on my nerves.’

Her eyes widened. ‘You’re already . . . here?’

From the tone of its voice, Renz could already imagine a sinister smile on the underwater snake’s lips, the glint of its fangs showing as it replied, ‘Yes. I’m already here.’