Poblacion, Makati City
11:37 AM
The dark night had swallowed all of Metro Manila, so the creatures of the shadows came out once again. The police were on high alert in every alley, especially in the pitch-black corners.
This included Makati City, one of the most famous cities in Metro Manila. Home to the city's biggest businessmen - including those who were not human. Back in the 1790s, the Aswang made a pact with the Jesuit priests and the Ayala family to prevent a bloody massacre in the city. A sacred agreement was forged to lock the city for the Uwak Clan and the Asong Gubat Clan.
In the present day, it had become a full-blown meat hub.
Before midnight, the streets had gone quiet. Only the cars on J.P. Rizal and Makati Avenue were making any noise in the night.
In one dark alley, a man in a blood-soaked gray longsleeve staggered toward the corner, clutching fresh flesh torn from his side. Blood dripped with every step he took, trailing into a silent side street.
"HELP!!!!"
Two loitering bystanders spotted the man. They immediately went on alert and approached him. He had lost so much blood that he collapsed on the ground and lost consciousness. His skin was so pale you could tell exactly how much blood he had lost.
A few hours later, they found his unconscious body in front of a construction site in Poblacion. The police responded quickly and tried to calm the crowd of onlookers at the scene.
"There's a report of an unconscious, blood-covered middle-aged man here at the intersection of Valdez St. and Makati Ave."
One officer shined a light into his eyes and pressed the lips to check the teeth. They used a flashlight to examine the exposed flesh. The inner meat was turning black, as if infected. They checked his vital signs, then pulled out the radio.
"Sir, he's still alive," he said into the radio."Take him to the hospital, and put your eyes on him." came the reply.
They loaded him into the ambulance and drove off. The police brought him to a small hospital while others investigated where he had come from.
They took the body to a clinic, placed it on a hospital bed, and wheeled it into a white room - the surgery room. Nurses entered and prepared the medical equipment, checking the man's vitals.
The police left the room, leaving the nurses to tend to the patient. They walked down the brightly lit hallway, the tiles gleaming under the lights. They entered a room with a black door.
During the surgery, the doctors noticed a dark discoloration spreading through the flesh where his arm had been torn away. The infection was strange, nothing like a normal medical case. It was as if it had originated from something infectious, something unnatural.
They also observed distinct marks embedded in the damaged tissue. Teeth marks-no, it's a bite mark. And if they truly were a bite mark, then one question lingered heavily in the operating room:
why was there an infection at all?
A few hours later, the surgery was finished.
Inside the room, the man woke up because of the light. He felt a chill and numbness on his left side. The bleeding had stopped - they had stitched the place where his left arm had been torn off - but the wound was still fresh. It just felt numb because of the anesthesia.
"Inspector, the patient is awake." The man was tense.
He could still feel the terror from earlier.
"Where am I?"
"You're at Poblacion Public Hospital. You're under police protection."
The man's expression softened slightly, but his hand still gripped the blanket tightly from fear.
You could see the trauma in his eyes, the nightmare he had just survived.
"I'm Inspector Elias Gavira. I'm a police officer from Sta. Cruz station. What is your name?"
Man: "My name is Nestor Buenavista, 47 years old. I'm not from Manila. I'm from the Nueva Ecija."
Inspector Gavira: "How did you end up here in Metro Manila?"
Nestor: "They kidnapped me."
Inspector Gavira: "Who's 'they'?"
Nestor: "Those monsters!!"
Nestor's hands began trembling again. Inspector Gavira adjusted his glasses, took a deep breath, and spoke calmly:
Inspector Gavira: "Calm down. Do you remember who attacked you?"
Nestor: "I saw a monster."
Nestor: "It wasn't human, and it wasn't an animal either. It could change into both human and animal form. And they're here among us, living with us."
Inspector Gavira: "Can you tell me how they kidnapped you?"
Nestor was still shaking, and Gavira's eyes were locked on him, so he tried to speak.
"Yes..."
"Last month, I received a job offer as a factory worker at a food processing plant here in Manila. They offered 1,500 pesos a day."
"My youngest daughter has stage 3 cancer and my other child is in college, so I had no choice but to sell the last piece of land I had in Nueva Ecija... my only remaining source of income."
Inspector Gavira listened intently to his story, focused on every word.
"On my first day of work here in Manila, they treated me so well. They gave us comfortable housing and free food. But after some time, everything suddenly turned."
"There was a big drinking party for the workers and our bosses. They gave us company-provided liquor. I felt intense dizziness and passed out."
"I woke up in an old prison cell. There were many of us - children, elderly, women, everyone. The cell was big, but the building was old. There were many guards, all stationed at every corner, each holding a bolo."
"Three men entered the cell, all dressed in black. I saw them drag a mother and child beside me. Then something hard hit the back of my neck."
"I felt dizzy. They tied me up and dragged me out. They brought us to a market where..."
Inspector: "What kind of market?"
Nestor: "...where humans were butchered like animals... and sold to the monsters who are pretending to be people."
"I saw children being chopped up like whole chickens. I saw people hung like pig carcasses. I heard the screams of children with every swing of the butcher knife, they are living flesh being cut into pieces to become meat..."
"...to feed these cannibals, the monsters that live in this city."
Inspector Gavira: "Can you describe what they looked like?"
Nestor: "They had sharp tongues - as sharp as a knife. They also have black eyes and sharp teeth."
Inspector Gavira: "Some cases like this are spreading all over the country, but the government still covers them up. It's been happening for a long time. It's just not talked about much in the news because they're watching."
At the police station, the commander summoned one of the officers who had brought the man to the hospital.
Inside the cold office waited a muscular man in a blue high-ranking police uniform, his name is Police Sergeant Manuel Madrangga.
Sgt. Madrangga had been a policeman in Makati since 1998. In all his years of service, he had seen and encountered many things in every corner of the city - including its shadows.
"How's the man doing?" the Sergeant asked.
Police: "Surgery's done. The inspector already went to interview the victim."
Sgt. Madrangga: "Have you identified what kind of creature bit off his arm?"
Police: "Based on the bite marks, it was a huge dog-like creature. I don't know if it was an Aswang or a Werewolf."
Sgt. Madrangga: "Werewolf? There are no wolves in the Philippines!"
Police: "Recently the hunters caught an American serial killer tourist known as a Werewolf who killed about 10 sex workers in Ermita. He's locked up now underneath New Bilibid Prison."
Sgt. Madrangga: "Then it must have been a Sigbin that attacked him. Did you find any signs of vampirism in his blood cells?"
Police: "Negative, sir. He's pure human."
Sgt. Madrangga: "Tell Unit 3 to clean up all the evidence from the crime scene."
Police: "Yes, sir."
The sergeant's phone rang - an unknown number.
"Wait!!!"
The room went silent as he listened to the man on the other end. His lips slowly curved into a malicious smirk. When he hung up, he spoke:
Sgt. Madrangga: "I just spoke to the Alpha of the Askal Gang. He escaped from the farm, but we don't need to bring him back anymore. Tell the 4th Unit that they can enjoy that meatbag."
The policeman licked his lips, already imagining the taste of old flesh.
"Understood, sergeant. We'll take care of him."
The policeman called Inspector Gavira. While Gavira stood by the window in the room, he answered:
"You can eat him now."
And with that, the call ended.
Inspector Gavira: "The monster you're describing is an Aswang. They originated from the Visayas, but they've spread all over the Philippines - especially here in Manila. And they're even more dangerous than vampires."
He turned to face Nestor, but his eyes had changed - now pitch black.
"Because they crave raw flesh."
Nestor recoiled in terror, goosebumps rising, gripping the bedsheet as he backed away.
Inspector Gavira: "Is this the kind of monster you saw, old man?"
Nestor: "HELP!!!!"
Inspector: "No one can hear you. You're in our den."
Three policemen entered the room. Their forms had changed - long tongues, black eyes. They are monsters in police uniforms.
Nestor: "Please... no..." he sobbed.
Inspector Gavira: "You can eat him now."
They closed in on the old man and began tearing into his body - arms, knees, everywhere. With each bite, they ripped away tough, stringy meat.
They savored it like slightly wet roasted pork.
Nestor: "GOD, HELP ME!!!"
Blood splattered the walls. They pulled out his entrails, slurping his intestines like noodles. He looked like a giraffe being devoured by lions while screaming like a soul in hell.
Not far away, they heard gunshots and an explosion outside the room. Everyone froze except Inspector Gavira.
"Here is the hunter."
The door burst open. Everyone stared.
"That fucking outsider!!"
A man stepped through the door, his whole body wrapped in tape, a grenade in his mouth secured with duct tape.
"MMMPHHH MPHH!!!!! (the hunter is here!!)"
He exploded into pieces. Chunks of flesh and organs flew everywhere. Smoke filled the room. Then came the sound of footsteps and the click of a gun being reloaded.
The aswangs panicked. Two of them transformed into dog-like creatures -into a Sigbin.
They lunged at the silhouette in the smoke with inhuman speed, trying to bite its shoulder but before they could, their skulls exploded. Brain fragments splattered across the ceiling.
Silhouette: "Didn't your clan leader tell you that Americans are good with guns?"
Inspector Gavira: "We have clients from America who told us about a veteran who became a reckless vampire hunter in New York. And now he's going to Philippines."
Gavira's arms transformed into wings lined with razor-sharp feathers, ready to strike. His eyes gleamed like a hawk about to swoop down on prey. He revealed his true form - not as a human but as a Wakwak.
Inspector Gavira: "And I believe them, because I've heard about foreign intruders joining the Blood War in Manila."
The figure stepped out of the smoke. It was Giordano - a vampire hunter from the CIA. He leveled two pistols at the Wakwak.
Giordano: "That's right. Because I also believe the urban legend that some of the police in Makati likes to eat human meat."
Outside the hospital, many civilians were pouring out of the building. Several trucks from the Krusada Force had also arrived at the scene, and a few police ambulances were blaring their sirens into the night.
The SWAT team assisted the civilians inside by helping them evacuate while chaos unfolded on the third floor.
Giordano aimed both of his pistols at Wakwak.
"Just tell me where the priest is and you can get out of this birdcage."
Gavira showed no reaction. Instead, he deliberately displayed his razor-sharp feathers.
Giordano: "Unless you want to play a little hunting game? Where you're the prey and I'm the hunter. How about it?"
Inspector Gavira: "I'm not a member of the Tangkay. You won't get anything from catching a stray bird."
Giordano: "I was told that the Krusada have some kind of agreement protecting the presence of Aswang here in Makati City. Don't worry-I'll break that law."
Gavira released his razor-sharp feathers-sharp enough to slice through almost anything.
Wakwaks have a special attack technique involving their extremely sharp wings, especially the use of their deadly feather projectiles.
At this very moment, the monsters faced each other. A creature thirsty for blood and one thirsty for flesh. The battle between The Hunter of New York and The Crow of Makati.
"Crow of Makati, the urban legend about a cop who loves eating the flesh of corpses in the morgue. Don't worry, you'll end up eating your own flesh."
Giordano raised both arms to shield his face. The feathers struck various parts of his body-piercing his arms, shoulders, and other areas.
"Don't underestimate a former World War I veteran."
Suddenly the Wakwak dodged, grabbed him, and carried him out of the room. He stabbed Giordano with his sharp wing and lifted him slightly higher, preparing to slice him in half-but before he could complete the motion, Giordano bit down hard on his neck, forcing him to let go.
"Putangina! This one's a vampire!"
A shout came from behind him.
"Squad Six!! Attack!!"
In the hallway, Krusada SWAT forces opened fire to distract the Wakwak.
"Impossible! How-?"
In a fit of rage, the creature unleashed a barrage of razor-sharp feathers that pierced the heads of the officers, scattering chunks of brain across the floor.
Giordano wiped the blood from his mouth.
"Aswang blood tastes disgusting!"
He pulled out a grenade, removed the pin, and threw it at Gavira.
"Hasta la vista, baby."
Then he leaped out the window.
The grenade detonated, incinerating half the hallway and leaving no identifiable remains of the bodies. Giordano landed on the roof of one of the trucks as debris rained down from the shattered third-floor window.
He grabbed his radio and spoke:
"Command, this is The Hunter. Hospital raid complete. Target eliminated."
"Be advised: the unit is down. Repeating, the unit is down."
"Cause of casualties appears non-conventional. I am the only survivor."
He climbed down from the truck. Medics approached him, but he waved them off.
"Don't worry. I have a fast healing factor."
More ambulances arrived as thick smoke continued billowing from the third floor. Giordano lit a cigarette and took a drag while standing there.
"That was a good fight."
From a nearby building, Gavira stood atop an electric post, watching the police response below. His upper body was bare after the explosion-only his jeans remained.
Half his body was burned, especially his wings, but the monstrous nature of his form still endured.
"Worthy opponent."
He spat blood from his mouth.
From a distance, both of them spoke at the same moment:
"For two creatures thirsty for blood."