It began with a number.
But not just any number. Aelion Rivera’s mind raced, fingers flicking over the touchpad of their laptop as they scrolled through the reams of data on the screen. Somewhere in the chaos of digits and variables, a single anomaly disrupted weeks of research. Hindi dapat 'to nangyayari. Aelion blinked rapidly, rubbing their eyes as if doing so would clear the numbers into sense.
“What the hell…” they muttered under their breath, scanning the data again. The result wasn’t possible—not with the equations they had followed, not with the theory they had been developing. It defied reason, even the laws of quantum mechanics they had spent their career studying.
And yet, there it was.
Their heartbeat quickened. Sa isang iglap, ang ilaw sa maliiy na apartment ay kumurap— ngunit parang isang segundo lamang, pero sapat na para mapansin nila. Their eyes darted to the overhead bulb as the soft hum of electricity thrummed in the background. Another anomaly? Maybe just a power surge. But the numbers on the screen remained unchanged.
Aelion stood abruptly, knocking the rolling chair back with a screech across the linoleum floor. Their body buzzed with unease. Every part of them vibrated—not with excitement, but something else, something heavier. A low, gnawing dread nestled just below their ribs. They had been running these simulations for days, and nothing like this had shown up before.
Their fingers drummed against the table as they paced across the apartment. There was something wrong—not just with the data, but with the atmosphere in the room. The air felt heavier. Mas mabigat na ngayon ang paligid, parang may iba kaming kasama at hindi nakikitang presensya. The numbers were wrong.
Grabbing their phone, Aelion dialed Professor Delaney, their advisor on quantum entanglement. The ringing stretched on before a groggy voice answered.
“Rivera? Do you have any idea what time it is?” Delaney’s voice was thick with sleep.
“It’s about the data,” Aelion replied, ignoring the professor’s irritation. “Something’s off. The simulation—it doesn’t make sense.”
“Simulations can glitch,” Delaney said, stifling a yawn. “Run it again in the morning.”
“I’ve run it five times, Professor. The same anomaly keeps showing up.”
Delaney’s voice sharpened. “Then check your variables. Adjust the parameters. There’s always a logical explanation, Rivera. There’s no such thing as random.”
Logical. Aelion stared at the numbers again, those impossibly perfect digits that defied explanation. It wasn’t random. But it wasn’t logical either. The call ended, leaving Aelion alone in the silence of the apartment. They took a deep breath and sat back down at the desk. The screen glowed with unsettling data, mocking them.
What if it wasn’t an error?
Their fingers hovered over the keyboard, ready to adjust the equations. But deep down, something told them it wouldn’t make a difference. They gazed out the half-open window, where the city lights of Davao flickered indifferently in the night. Outside, life moved on, unaware of the strange occurrences in Aelion’s world. But here, in the small, dimly lit apartment, Aelion felt as if they had glimpsed something beyond the reach of science—something lurking in the shadows.
"Anong gagawin mo kapag yung realidad ay hindi na umaayon sa inaasahan mong dapat mangyayari?"
The professor’s words echoed in their mind, a haunting reminder of the lecture they had attended just days ago. Reality wasn’t always what it seemed. Especially at the quantum level. Particles could exist in two places at once, entangled across vast distances, defying the speed of light.
Aelion’s fascination with the unknown had driven them for years. But this...this was different. This wasn’t theoretical. This felt real. Something science couldn’t explain.
The buzzing of their phone startled them. A text message from Naomi, a lab colleague, appeared on the screen.
Naomi: Still up? Lab results look okay?
Aelion frowned. Naomi’s casual tone clashed with the seriousness of the anomaly they had discovered. They quickly typed a reply.
Aelion: The data’s weird. We need to talk about it tomorrow.
No response.
Silence wrapped around the room again, amplifying the tension. Aelion shut the laptop and stood up, pacing the apartment. The wind rattled the windows, stronger than usual for this time of year. They approached the window, peering out into the city streets below.
Then, something moved. Sa gilid ng paningin nila, may kakaibang anino. They turned sharply, heart pounding, but saw nothing—just the faint rustle of leaves, the distant hum of traffic.
Ano bang nangyayari?
Aelion had always trusted logic. But tonight, there was no logic to hold onto. The anomaly, the strange atmosphere—it all pointed to something beyond scientific understanding. It felt as if the world had shifted slightly off-balance, just enough to unsettle but not enough to be obvious.
As they sat back down at the desk, the once-comforting equations now stared back like a puzzle they could no longer solve. The numbers had betrayed them, offering no answers.
And then, the light flickered again.
Aelion froze, their eyes darting to the corner of the room where the shadows seemed thicker than before. Parang gumagalaw yung dilim—subtle but unmistakable. They shook their head, dismissing it as a trick of the light. But deep down, they knew something wasn’t right.
The air grew colder. The hairs on the back of Aelion’s neck stood on end. Every creak of the floor, every shift in the shadows seemed magnified, as if the apartment itself was watching them.
"It’s nothing," they whispered to themselves, though the words felt empty. "Imagination mo lang 'yan."
But the unease clung to them like a shadow, refusing to be dismissed. As they stood at the window again, looking out at the flickering city lights, Aelion couldn’t shake the feeling that something was very, very wrong.
The equations danced before Aelion’s eyes, the symbols blurring together in a haze of fatigue. He blinked against the dim glow of his computer screen, trying to make sense of it all. Outside the window, the city lay beneath a blanket of shadow, the streets forming dark patterns under a sky lit by artificial light. Midnight had come and gone, but he couldn’t bring himself to shut the laptop. Not yet.
“Okay, focus, Ael,” he muttered to himself. “What am I missing here?”
The problem felt like a word stuck on the tip of his tongue. Somewhere in this mess of quantum mechanics was an anomaly—something his professors brushed off as just a calculation error. But Aelion knew better. “There’s something here,” he whispered, his heart racing. “Like, it doesn’t add up.”
Sighing, he leaned back in the chair, rattling his knuckles as he eyed the chaos that his desk had descended into: papers everywhere, notes scribbled on the margins, and diagrams of vectors and gravitational waves. His research had become alive and had invaded every waking moment of his existence and even his dreams. "This is getting out of hand," he groaned. "Why can't I just let it go, you know?
Suddenly, a faint ringing in his ears broke through his thoughts. At first, he assumed it was just another consequence of too much caffeine and too little sleep. But the sound grew sharper, more insistent, like static feedback. “What the heck is that?” he wondered, looking around for a device that wasn’t there.
He took a deep breath. “Wait a second…” He hadn’t noticed before, but the lab—usually buzzing with the hum of machines—had gone completely silent. The eerie stillness felt thick, almost suffocating. He pushed back from his desk, shaking his head to clear it. “Come on, Aelion, get it together.”
“What the hell is happening?” he mumbled, trying to shake off the unease. He reached out to touch his computer, but the moment his fingers brushed the keyboard, a jolt of static crackled through him. The screen flickered, dimmed, and then went black. “Whoa!” he exclaimed, pulling back as if burned, his heart racing.
Staring at the dark screen, he saw his reflection, twisted and distorted. “Something feels off,” he murmured, feeling the air grow heavier around him. The static buzzed louder, echoing in his bones. He rose slowly, turning to look behind him.
Nothing. Just empty space. Yet, Aelion could feel it—something was different, as if the very room had shifted, subtly yet unmistakably.
“Okay, this isn’t the first time something weird has happened,” he thought, his fists clenching. There had been little things—a book left open to a page he hadn’t read, diagrams on the whiteboard changing shapes. “Maybe I’m just stressed,” he tried to convince himself. “Or maybe I’m losing it, like for real?”
Suddenly, the ringing in his ears grew louder, reaching a peak that made him wince. “Ugh, make it stop!” he groaned, grabbing his temples as the room seemed to twist around him. And then, just as suddenly, it all stopped. Silence returned, but not the usual quiet of the lab. This was deeper, like the world had paused for a moment.
Aelion exhaled sharply, forcing himself to relax. He glanced around, heart still pounding, but everything seemed normal. “What’s wrong with me?” he thought, the feeling of being watched crawling along his spine like a shadow. He moved back to his desk cautiously. “I just need to figure this out. There has to be an explanation.”
Aelion Rivera had always felt different. Where others saw clear answers, he saw possibilities. Growing up as an only child with parents more focused on their medical careers than on him, he often found comfort in the predictable laws of physics. “Numbers don’t lie,” he said to himself. “Unlike people. Ugh.”
But as he delved deeper into quantum mechanics, he realized that even the most basic laws of the universe weren’t as stable as they seemed. Now, standing in the dim lab, Aelion could feel something slipping—a crack forming in the reality he thought he understood.
At twenty-three, he was the youngest in his class, an academic prodigy who had zoomed ahead of his peers. His professors praised him, but Aelion didn’t find much comfort in their compliments. “I’m not looking for a gold star,” he thought. “I just want answers to questions most people won’t even consider, like... hello?”
His reflection on the dark screen stared back at him, hollow-eyed and pale. Dark circles etched under his eyes were proof of countless nights spent studying. “My blood type is A negative,” he thought bitterly. “Just my luck. Not only am I rare, but I’m also prone to anxiety. Super great, right?”
His skin had a natural olive tone, but it had paled from too many late nights spent indoors. Messy brown hair always seemed to defy any attempt at order—another sign of his sleepless nights. He lived alone in a small, unremarkable apartment near the university. It was close enough for an easy commute but far enough to keep distractions at bay.
Yet even in his solitude, Aelion often felt as though he wasn’t alone. Like now, in the lab. The sensation of being watched returned, making his stomach twist uneasily.
The lab was supposed to be a sanctuary, a clean, orderly space filled with the hum of machines and the soft glow of screens. But tonight, it felt different. The usual metallic scent, which normally comforted him, now carried a faint trace of something earthy and damp, like decay.
A shiver ran down his spine. “What is going on?” he thought, eyes darting to the far corner of the room, where shadows seemed to pool unnaturally. He swallowed hard, forcing himself to look away. “It’s just a trick of the light. Chill, Ael.”
The building was old, a remnant from the 1950s when the university expanded. It was filled with forgotten rooms and long-abandoned corridors. He had often wondered what secrets the walls might hold, but until now, that curiosity had only been a passing thought.
Now, it felt like those very walls were watching him.
Over the next few days, Aelion’s research hit a wall. His calculations seemed perfect, yet the anomaly remained, quietly taunting him. “Why won’t this work?” he grumbled. He had tried asking his mentors for help, but they just looked at him like he was crazy. “You’re chasing ghosts, Aelion,” one of them had said, giving him a pat on the back that felt more like a dismissal.
“Maybe I am,” he thought, frustration bubbling up. “But if that’s true, why can’t I shake the feeling that this anomaly is real? Like it’s something... solid? Parang, hello?”
That night, as Aelion locked the lab door behind him, he caught a glimpse of something—a flicker of movement at the edge of his vision. He turned sharply, heart racing. Nothing. Just an empty corridor stretching into darkness.
But the unease clung to him like a second skin, growing heavier with each step as he made his way out of the building. Something was wrong. He could feel it in the air. But there was no scientific explanation for it.
And that was the most unsettling part of all.