Wag - basically saying you don't want something or "no thank you"
Naks - something you say when someone flexes or when you want to jokingly praise them, like saying "nice" or "cool"
Po - something you add when speaking to people to show respect
hatid - to drop off a person at a place

"Ana, do you think it was real?"

My heart leaped in my chest at the memory and I put my bottle of Mountain Dew down. I knew exactly what he was talking about. "Yes. I think so. I mean, I'm sure it was. What about you?"

"It was definitely real. I'm not so sure about the lion heads, though."

I chuckled, glancing at him. "You're concerned about the lion heads and not about how all the remains disappeared?"

"No one says 'remains' anymore. There's an explanation for the disintegrating of the bones, I just don't know what. I'm still stuck on the heads."

Laurence probably expected me to say something else, but I said, "No one says 'disintegrated'" in retaliation.

"Some people do."

"Sige nga. Name them." ("Okay, then.")

"...Never mind."

The sun was setting now. Earlier I thought it was going to rain, but the clouds moved on and the sky cleared as if nothing had happened.

"Ana."

"Hm?"

"What if this goes on?"

Maybe I was playing dumb. "What goes on?"

"Fighting...those things."

I frowned. "I thought we promised to forget that."

"We promised Aerron." He shrugged.

"Pretty sure it was everyone, 'Rence."

"But Ana, we have to be prepared, you know? If something like that happens again and we don't have anything to like, defend ourselves, something might go wrong."

"I don't want to think about it."

"What if you have to?" He pressed. I grew uncomfortable and the silent apartments made it worse.

"I don't," I whined. "We don't have to."

"Ana, think about it. When it happens—"

"When? When it happens? What if it's just—just a one-time thing and never happens ever again? We'll be paranoid for the rest of our lives. Do you want that?"

"That's better than being careless!"

"It's not!"

"Why?"

I groaned. He always asked too many questions. I was frustrated with how slow the answers in my head were forming.

"Tell me why, Ana."

Finally I weaved my thoughts into words. "We're so young. Like, 12! I don't want to spend the rest of my life with paranoia. You won't be able to enjoy what's in front of you if you keep looking back."

"If. You keep saying if, meaning there's a chance."

I stayed silent.

"What even-what are you even scared of? What even is paranoia?"

"Lingering suspicion. You're taking this too fast!"

"And you're not taking it at all." He glared at me.

I stood up. "No, I'm not. And if you're gonna ruin all our adventures with that bullshit, I'm leaving. Don't even bother to hatid me."

"Fine."

"Fine!"

It was getting a little too dark and I had to get home fast. My feet didn't feel quite solid. I don't remember a time when I argued with RenRen like that. Most of it was usually just playful bickering, but this time it was serious and I got frightened at the thought of having to fight like that again.

I got angrier and more embarrassed as I stormed down the stairs leading to the parking lot of the apartments where he lived. On a normal day I would jump down from the wall to show that I could do what he could, too, but I was tired.

I hated that. I hated showing weakness in front of him and I hated myself for letting fear slip out on this day, about what happened at Circle Park, of all reasons.

Staring hard at the ground, I angrily picked up my bike, not caring at all if I might have overreacted or acted too harshly. I rode past the apartment gate without another word.

The next morning I woke up and did my usual routine, nearly forgetting what happened yesterday. As I stood outside my house's gate, I realized I had left all my trash at RenRen's house, the bottle and the food wrapper. I pressed my fingernails into my palms for that.

I passed the street where we met Philip and Aerron and I frowned.

"No, no, not today, dipshit," I told myself. "It's Elize's birthday today and you will not ruin it."

As usual, I arrived at school earlier than Elize. I did my usual tasks, taking out my books from my locker, saying hi to the janitor and avoiding teachers. Once Elize entered the hallway I flew straight at her.

"Happy birthday, 'Lize! Love you," I said. She hugged back, then said she had to put down her bag. As she did that, she looked timid and red-faced, which was not like her.

"An'yare sa'yo?" I asked. ("What happened to you?")

Elize traightened up, untying her jacket from her waist. "Sabay kaming dumating. Nagkasalubong kami sa gate." ("We arrived at the same time and bumped into each other at the gate.")

"Naks," I smirked, doing finger guns at her, knowing she was talking about Aerron. "Is it destiny?!"

She rolled her eyes. "Kasama niya si Philip." ("He was with Philip.")

"So?"

"Gusto mo pabatiin ko siya sa birthday mo?" ("Want me to tell him to greet you on your birthday too?")

"Wag!" I shook my head, grinning. our classmate Kyle stumbled through the doorway, dragging his beaten-up backpack behind him. He yelled something inappropriate to someone at the bottom of the stairs, which upset me. (No surprise. He was in the same school bus service as Philip and Aerron, and I've heard Aerron say a lot of...stuff when we pass him in the halls.) A first grader poked his head out their door and asked me what that meant. I patted his hair and told him to go back inside.

I tied back my hair, even if it was wet. I waited for Elize to finish taking her things out of her bag.

Another kid come out of the grade 1 classroom again, but this time with friends holding paper fortune tellers. I put down the middle finger I held up to one of my classmates.

"Is it someone's birthday today?" Alex asked. She was my English teacher's daughter and had the same round face and caramel hair. The smile she wore had two missing teeth.

"Yeah, it's Ate Elize's birthday."

"Ohh, okay! How old is she?"

Elize appeared behind me, "I'm 7 years old."

They all stared at her, then grinned. "You're joking!"

"Of course," she replied, hugging me from behind.

"Hey, I'm the one who's supposed to do that," I complained.

"Why?"

"It's your birthday!"

"Don't care." She hugged me tighter and I yelped, laughing.

"Oh my God, I'm gonna die on my friend's birthday."

"No, no dying," She laughed, releasing me.

I took my hand out of my pocket and saw the 20 peso bill that I had left yesterday. I knew I had forgotten something. "Oh, damn. It's here."

"Hm?"

"I'll buy you C2 later, okay?"

"No, it's okay."

I looked at her. "Elize." Then the morning bell rang, signaling for all the students to go back inside their classrooms. We went to our seats, grinning.

Our class adviser strode in with his folder, laptop, and pencil case like always. He had a playful smile that all high school and grade 6 students knew too well.

"Diba birthday mo ngayon, Elize? Siguradong may babati sa'yo." He gave her the Look and Elize glanced at me for help. I bit back a laugh, shrugging. I knew exactly what he meant. ("Isn't it your birthday today, Elize? I'm sure someone will greet you.")

Elize's mom brought food at lunch. We were allowed to eat in the classroom on birthdays, so we did. She didn't have any fancy cake or food, though, just a half cheese and half pepperoni pizza for everyone (because we had Muslim classmates) and black and pink cupcakes to represent her favorite girl group. I was picking the fondant off of mine when our adviser gave us a paper plate with half a dozen cupcakes and told us to bring some to the high school teachers.

Obviously we went to the grade 7's classroom last. Their teacher didn't see us in the window, so we had to knock, which made it worse.

"Um, hi po," I greeted quietly. It was always much colder in their classroom.

As the teacher asked Elize what the occasion was and greeted her, I glanced at the back of the room and found Aerron and Philip messing around. A dirty, frayed notebook was close to falling off their desk. Instead of chairs with desks attached to them already, the high school classrooms had desks and separate chairs.

The notebook slipped away as someone kicked their table and Philip caught it, laughing. Were they even shaken at all?

Okay, I didn't talk about this earlier, so here. On the way home from Circle Park, we met them again.

Philip laughed and RenRen frowned. "You!" they said at the same time. Aerron and I pulled them back.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

Aerron put his bike on its stand. "We're here to bury a corpse."

RenRen rolled his eyes. "We all know you live here."

I nudged him. "Ang sungit mo naman." ("You're so snappy.")

"Yeah, but we're not joking on the first one."

I blinked. "What?"

"Yes." Philip answered. We stared at him. "Speaking of what happened earlier, one of the dogs looked like the one I would always play with when I was younger."

Aerron sighed. "You can borrow my bolo, Ana."

"Don't fucking call me that! And why?"

He nodded to the side of the street where it was soil instead of cement. A wall was between it and another house. "To dig a hole." He threw the bolo at me, still in its case, and I nearly dropped it out of embarrassment in front of Philip. It wasn't even dirty except for a tiny smudge of maroon.

The soil wasn't even that deep, as expected. It wouldn't cover my fingers if I stuck my hand in it. I don't even know why I agreed to do the digging if I didn't know what I would bury, but I did it anyway.

I muttered, "God, I swear, if we find Ricky here..."

"Who's Ricky?"

"Yeah, Ana, who's that?"

"Her boyfriend."

I put the bolo down and looked up at Aerron. "What the fuck, Aerron?"

RenRen was laughing behind me. "Pfft—the way you said that—"

"He was my guinea pig that died and was buried here," I said, scowling. "At least, that's what they told me. Now what am I gonna bury?"

"You can have your towel back." Aerron threw a small stained cloth at me.

"The what now? HOY, TANGINA—" I stumbled back. A handful of white flakes flew out of the towel as the wind carried them away.

"What was that?! A fucking magic trick?!"

"Please come with me to Hogwarts," I whispered to RenRen.

"You nerd."

"We knew it would happen! Well, not how it would happen, but..." Philip picked up the towel. Honestly, I cringed at that because it had Aerron's dried blood and sweat and all, but back to the subject. "The bones earlier disappeared, so it should have happened to these, too."

"What were those, anyway?" RenRen asked.

"...Bones."

As much as I wanted to stay, I wanted to get home too. After all, my house was just 15 seconds away. I was scared that my parents' cars would pull into the street and they'd come home to me not being there. My phone could vibrate in my bag any second and I'd come home past curfew. "Keep...keep the towel. See you sometime. Ingat." ("Take care.")