When I was a child, I craned my neck to the sky to watch the clouds. The shapes would never be the same every day. Not even an hour later, the expanse stretching to no ends was nigh unrecognizable. But people understood it likewise. They looked up and thought, I'm looking at the sky today, when they saw the vast aerial sea and the soft, untouchable sheets of condensed water. A different arrangement, but the same composition.

If I leveled my gaze towards the ground, could I say this was the same country?

My pen slammed into the crook of my pocket notebook, succumbing to the forceful clap around it when I brought the pages together. My cardigan, the same one from two nights ago, shifted back to reveal a breast pocket on my thinning pink blouse. It wasn't mine. One of the crew went missing last night, and none of us hoped she would be found. Her things were free real estate. Easier to throw over our heads than lug around in a suitcase—a weight we did not need when we have enough equipment to mind.

The faint stench of stale fabric conditioner ebbed, replaced by the steady veil of smoke, dust, and sweat. My forehead might be a disastrous war zone in itself; my hair, uncombed and unwashed for more than a week, might be worse. Zapote's humid air cycled in arid gusts between my nose and upper lip. The only relief to the noon's blaze was a PET bottle peppered with droplets, shedding condensation in a watery ring on the plastic table. With coolers as rare as refugee boats, we had to make do with temperate hydration.

But like the efforts to turn the tide of war, a little was better than none.

I clamped a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. The knots in my muscles should pack up. They were not needed, not in this day and age. I jabbed my fist on the crook of my neck, resting my heavy lids for the brief respite I afforded. A stray breeze blew through the tent, rattling the canopy's hanging flaps. The sound the canvas made as it slapped against its kind and the metal bars holding up our small fort became a welcome companion.

I reached out behind me, wincing as the motion stabbed more pain up my arm. Sleeping less, eating less, and working more ought to do me over faster than any of the real adults in my family. At least, they could get some shut eye during the night. If I closed my eyes for longer than five minutes out here, I might be in the afterlife by the time I open them again.

Mama used to beg me to stay out of the war, to throw everything I learned and focus on a profession that would not toy with the only essential thing I must keep. I was still a student, but with the campus blowing up the first day the invaders conquered NCR, the abyss of uncertainty was the only place left to go. Now, she does not look at me when I leave the house or when I come home every time I steal time from work. Sometimes, I do not know if she is glad I am alive.

If I stop arriving at our doorstep, I wonder—how would she feel? How would anyone feel when I was likely to become a tally mark in the list of casualties, a number added to the statistics, a small tick in the graphs, or a nameless face thrown to the headlines, meant to fade into the mural of unfortunate daily events?

I never knew the answer, especially my own, because a hand zipped past my periphery. Fingers with chipped manicure cranked the knob to the box radio sitting beside me. Ah, right. There had been static rasping in my ears the whole time.

"Care for some music?" Ma'am Mich said. She was a journalist fifteen years my senior, but the lines on her face or the sagging makeup on her skin doubled the assumption. Even across the tribulation we lived through last week, she has not lost the muted glint in her eye or the bounce in her voice. But for how long? Manong Larry, our cameraman operator and lightning technician, stopped cracking the barest green jokes since we saw the Victory Tower fall. Ma'am Mich must be slurping hope and positivity if she did not wish to change.

My eyes landed on the battered radio. Over the course of two weeks since the Palace announced the state of war, communication reverted back to analog. Out of all the advanced mass media and broadcasts we attained forty years past the new millennium's start, radio proved to be more everlasting.

I pursed my lips, the corner of my vision tracking Ma'am Mich as she settled on a backless stool across the table. "Not really a day for it," I answered, jerking my chin towards the radio choking out stable static. "We have to write the headlines for the evening news as well."

A snort. "And here I thought my generation's the work-obsessed one," she replied, crossing her arms over her chest. Her army green utility vest crunched against her long-sleeved blue blouse upon the motion. "Work's the last thing you should be thinking about at your age, you know?"

"And here I thought your generation refers to mine as workplace babies?" I tilted my head, a brief smile pulling my lips up. Ma'am Mich gave me a flat but harmless look. A gust of wind jutted out my nose. "Music's the last thing in my mind, really. The front lines have been quiet. It's the third day in a row. Think something's up?"

Ma'am Mich shrugged. "Isn't that our job?" she asked. She was not looking for an answer though. "To know?"

"Not sure." I scratched the side of my face. My nail came up streaked with dust holing up in my pores. "Should we go there? Just to check? The Talaba base has been in order. I can spare a few hours in Parañaque."

She tucked a curl of dyed amber hair behind her ear. The black roots reached her chin now. When we first met in the field, they were only at her temples. "Bold of you to assume the front lines were still in Parañaque," she said. "If I learned anything from this entire rodeo, it's that things change in a minute; sometimes, in a blink. Or shorter. You never really know what to expect."

The static whizzed before emitting a series of urgent and random clicks. A breathy voice rippled out of the speakers. This is Captain Mahinay of the Parañaque Base. All civilians within the 20-kilometer radius must evacuate in four minutes. I repeat. All civilians within the 20-kilometer radius must evacuate. Four minutes. I repeat. To all civilians—

My stool thumped in a lifeless thud by my feet when I rose faster than I was used to. Four minutes? Beyond the tent, the broadcasting crew scrambled. An intern rushed past me, hefting an antenna rod over his shoulder. He sprinted towards Manong Larry who loaded the van with crates and insulated bags of supplies. Ma'am Mich sprung from her perch and started collapsing the tent. I stopped in the middle of the makeshift station and craned my neck up. The sky was blue. It was almost an insult.

I turned to the other interns lugging the amps towards the other van. My gaze fell on the open suitcases most of them brought in fear of having nothing to wear should a televised broadcast be requested by the company. I clenched my jaw and trudged towards them. My fingers curled around the hem of an abandoned utility vest. Whoever it belonged to, they should have an extra lying around. Or it was mine when I discarded it earlier due to the afternoon heat. I strapped on the near-plastic apparel, snatching my ID from the back of a director's chair. With deft fingers, I collapsed the chair too.

The radio joined us when we packed into the two vans loaned by the company. The static sputtered again, a familiar voice rasping out. This is Captain Mahinay of the Parañaque Base. All civilians within the 30-kilometer radius must evacuate in ten minutes. I repeat. All civilians within the 30-kilometer radius—

"Punyeta." Manong Larry cursed from the driver's seat, yanking the wheel as he steered the van across the bumpy road littered with rubble and cooled shrapnel. "Twenty earlier. Now, thirty? Can't they make up their minds?"

My rear dug against the van's musty seat. The peeling leather clung to the charged threads of my cardigan, the frayed ends reaching out in a desperation I never understood. The front lines must be having it tough if they were increasing the evacuation radius. Worst case scenario? The base had already fallen, and the invaders were gunning for the next—Talaba. Any and every town standing on their way would be trampled on.

I leaned as far as the motion sickness curling at the base of my stomach afforded me. My nails dug into the seat in front of me, which happened to be Ma'am Mich's. "Can you drop me at Longos?" I said. "I just need to check on my family."

Knowing them, the world could be ending, and leaving would be the last thing on their minds. With the clutter we brought from Mandaluyong, it would be another fight to get them to move. Manong Larry glanced at the rearview mirror, his mouth opening to affirm my request. A loud boom drowned him out. A sheet of gray and orange washed over the van's windows.

"Anak ng puta!" Manong Larry cursed again—the only proof he was alive. My shoulder slammed against the van's window when he jolted the wheel, forcing the car into a sharp turn. Even through the sealed atmosphere of the van, the smell of smoke, ash, and bodies haunted us. The screams, the veil of panic hanging heavily on the atmosphere—we could not feel them, but they existed.

Ma'am Mich whipped out her phone, fingers tapping on the cracked glass screen. A message to the company, to the military spokesperson—anyone who could tell us what in God's name was occuring. An air strike leagues away from the hotspots was not a far-fetched possibility. Like the arrival of an unexpected news, there would be a time to stare at a wall in confusion and a time to start taking action.

An exasperated tongue-click accentuated Manong Larry's blatant ranting. "Stupid keyboard!" Ma'am Mich screamed, jabbing her thumb at the backspace button. When the sky turned red behind us, would typos still matter? "Larry, drive better!"

"I'm trying, woman!" answered our head technician. "Unless you want a flat tire in the middle of a hellhole, you'll stick with this."

I opened my mouth to placate the wide-eyed interns slotted beside Ma'am Mitch. A sharp blast blared behind us, followed by a steady hiss of glass cracking. My heart sank to my guts when I looked back to see a smoking bullet hole in the rear window. What the—

"Ground units? Really?" Manong Larry grunted, the sound of him flooring the gas pedal thrumming beneath our feet. My hands gripped whatever groove I could when the speed pushed me backwards. He was gunning it. "Maian, hey! Are you sure you want to go on foot in Longos?"

My throat was arid, and my saliva had long dried up, but I answered, "I'll be okay," I said. "I don't want to derail the van and the equipment. We'll meet in Talaba."

He did not put up more of a fight. It was a quick exchange when he pulled over at the entrance of the barangay I stashed my family in. A dingy suburban neighborhood the invaders would not settle on conquering loomed before me. Flighty steps scratched against crumbling asphalt as I picked my way towards a low-lying house with a screen door marred with seven holes. I pulled it open, willing my family to not be there, for them to have picked up their laces and left without me. The last news I have from Ma'am Mich was that the ground cavalry pushed through the Parañaque base and marched towards Zapote. The air strikes acted as their support, giving them the ego boost they needed. It was only a matter of time before the war reached us here.

"Ma!" My voice reverberated across the low room, perfect for our average height. "Where are you?"

"Keep your voice down!" A violent hiss rang from the kitchen. I crossed the living room and burst past the unguarded arch towards the connecting room. Huddled under the dining table was my mother and lola. "They might hear us."

A sob shot up my throat. "Ma, this isn't an earthquake." I pushed the frizzy strands of hair off my face before throwing my hands in the air. "We should leave. They're coming. Staying at home won't do us good when the strikes come. Don't argue about this, please!"

Mama waved her hand in the air in a swift, dismissive gesture. "What about your father, ha?" she reasoned. "He's out there, trying the fool's quest. We need to wait for him. He will always come home."

"Say that again," I said, getting on my knees to bring myself to their level. "Where's Papa?"

My mother's gaze burned with anger and worry. "Oh, he's off looking for the damned boats!" she said, slapping the floorboards. Lola reached out and wrapped an arm around Mama's shoulders. "We don't want to go to Indonesia. Countless times we talked about this, but the damned man just won't listen. Hay, he's out there."

I shot up, whirling towards the direction of the door. My mother's hand flailed past the table's edge. "What do you think you're doing, ikaw bata ka?" she chided in her usual sniping tone whenever I was about to do something stupid. "Come back here! He said he'd be back. Don't add to the things we must mind. You might miss each other!"

The door grew closer. "Maian!" My mother's voice rang in my ears as I trudged past the narrow ante. "Get back here! Isa! Dalawa!"

The lock clicked behind me when I slammed the door shut. Rattled breaths shook my shoulders and poked small, stabbing pain into my chest. I leveled my gaze towards the empty street. My father was out there. Mama and Lola did not know what the world outside looked like. It was chaos. Destruction.

It was death.

No time for tears. I tossed my weight forward, legs busting into a frantic run. How long has it been? Even if people were able to get away in ten minutes, where would they go? Where would we go?

My chest heaved when I cleared the neighborhood, bursting into the main road. Electricity posts towered over me, the nesting cables adding to the cluttered thoughts in my mind. High-rise condos littered the lowest skyline, each one waiting to receive the bombs in their embrace. Even their shadow quivered with every distant eruption throwing smoke and shrapnel in the air like confetti.

Heaven was blue, but a layer of gray painted over it in lumpy masses. Not good. I tore through the roads, putting my hands at either side of my mouth. "Victor Dizon!" I called, saying my father's name aloud in case he was nearby. "Pa!"

The highway bled before me, empty save for a chance motorist pushing their vehicle to the limit in an attempt to go from one doom to another. I whipped out my phone, hand digging deep into the pockets of my slacks. My finger punched my dad's number, and it rang. And rang. And rang. Against my ear, it did nothing but ring. "Shit," I hissed, bringing my phone down again. Redial. Call. "Come on, pick up."

A click. Hope blossomed.

But at the wrong time.

Loud whistling zipped across the morbid celestial painting overhead. A striking crash streaked in the air. Light drowned the sun in a brief but blazing flare. Shadows crumbled and sped for me. Something heavy slammed into my shoulder.

I hit the ground.