The camp erupted like a battlefield.
Soldiers shoved the prophet's followers with rifle butts, trying to clear a path to the trucks. The prophet's people pushed back, chanting louder, their voices rolling like thunder. Families screamed, children wailed, belongings were trampled into the mud. It felt less like an evacuation and more like the breaking of a dam.
Ulysses held the boy tight, weaving them through the chaos. His mind burned with one thought: Choose. Now.
Ahead, a soldier spotted him again. "You!" he shouted, voice ragged. "Get the child on board before it's too late!"
At the same moment, the prophet's voice boomed from atop the crumbling wall:
"Ulysses Gonzalez! Do not walk into the jaws of beasts! You have been called to witness the truth, not to be chained by lies!"
The boy froze, looking between the truck and the prophet, his small hands trembling in Ulysses's grip. "Kuya," he whispered, "what if he's right? What if God really chose you?"
The words struck harder than any gunshot. Ulysses's heart pounded, his throat dry. He wanted to scream I don't know! but the boy's eyes searched his face with desperate faith, and he couldn't bring himself to break it.
A soldier pushed closer, rifle raised. "Now! Or both of you stay behind!"
The prophet pointed, his voice like fire:
> "Stand firm, Ulysses! Lift up your head! the Son of Man is near!"
For one terrible, breathless moment, Ulysses felt the world narrow into two paths: steel and rations with the soldiers, or fire and prophecy with the prophet. Both dangerous. Both uncertain.
And then the boy tugged his sleeve, whispering something so small Ulysses almost didn't hear:
"Kuya… where is God in all of this?"
The question stopped him cold. It wasn't about soldiers or prophets. It wasn't about hunger or bullets. It was about the silence above...the heavens that burned red but gave no answers.
Ulysses knelt, pressing his forehead to the boy's. "I don't know," he said, voice raw. "But I promise you this, we'll find out together."
Gunfire split the air, scattering the crowd. Soldiers dragged families toward the trucks. The prophet's followers encircled their leader, defiant even as tear gas hissed across the park.
Ulysses clutched the boy and pulled him away, not toward the trucks, not toward the prophet, but sideways, into the broken streets beyond the camp. He didn't know if it was escape or exile. All he knew was that he couldn't give the boy to soldiers or prophets.
They slipped through the chaos, vanishing into Manila's ruins as the camp behind them drowned in screams, prayers, and the echo of the prophet's voice.
The red moon glared above, indifferent.
And for the first time, Ulysses wasn't sure if he was fleeing from destiny or running straight into it.
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End of Chapter 24