The wind howled.
Concrete rushed upward. Streetlights blurred like comets. Gravity roared, seconds from claiming his life.
But then—
Time cracked.
Jomarie Estadilla's eyes flew open—burning gold.
He was no longer falling.
He was floating. Suspended in a pocket of light. Around him: flickering visions like shattered memories.
Lapu-Lapu's fiery glare.
Maira's wordless grin.
The screams of war.
Blood on coral.
Fire dancing on iron.
Drums pounding through time.
Baba Datu's fading breath.
And then—
THUMP.
He landed.
On both feet.
Not in the past.
Not on soil.
Not on ancient rock.
But on the rooftop.
The same rooftop.
The same concrete building.
The same polluted Manila skyline.
It was 11:59 PM.
No time had passed.
His chest heaved. His breath hitched. He staggered to the edge and looked down.
The world was still broken. Still gray. Still moving.
He looked at his hands. His janitor uniform was torn. His knuckles were bloodied. His shoes—still scuffed from the days he swept halls invisible to the world.
But behind his shirt—
He could feel it.
He ran inside. Past the rooftop door. Into the janitor's washroom. The lights buzzed overhead.
He tore off his top.
And there, across his back—
The Burda ng Katapangan.
Glowing faintly. Lines etched like fire-kissed scars.
Still warm. Still pulsing.
Real.
Permanent.
Alive.
---
A Changed Man
He returned home.
Same house. Same cramped space. Same cracked walls and broken tiles. Same photo of his father taped above the altar.
But he was not the same.
When he walked through the door, his mother stirred from her sleep. Her cough rattled in the silence. His siblings barely looked up.
Then Jomarie knelt by her, arms wrapping around her small shoulders.
She blinked, confused. "Bakit, anak?"
He didn't answer right away.
He just held her tighter.
Then, in a voice no longer uncertain:
> "Wala, 'Nay.
Gusto ko lang pong sabihin…
may dahilan pa po ako para mabuhay."
She smiled, though she didn't understand.
She didn't need to.
Because the boy who once wanted to disappear—
was now the man who had returned.
---
The Days After
Everything changed.
Not magically. Not instantly. But intentionally.
He went back to work—not because he had to, but because he wanted to endure.
He helped the old security guard who used to insult him.
He stopped arguing over pay.
He avoided petty fights.
He studied in secret—reading books by flickering candlelight, applying to night school.
His body remembered the training.
His reflexes, sharper.
His senses, deeper.
His steps, lighter.
When he passed mirrors, he sometimes saw a glimpse of someone else.
A warrior. A leader. A chosen flame.
And at night, when all was quiet,
he could still hear Baba Datu:
> "The fire will follow you…
even across time."
---
The Spark in the City
One ordinary evening, under flickering streetlamps—
Jomarie was walking home.
Tired. Quiet. Peaceful.
Until he saw it.
A child.
Running after a toy.
Into the street.
A jeepney, approaching too fast.
Time slowed.
His flame surged.
Before he could think, he moved.
Faster than he should have.
Faster than gravity.
Faster than fear.
He dove, scooping the child and rolling out of harm's way. The jeepney screeched past.
People screamed.
Crowds gathered.
And for a moment—just a blink—
Jomarie saw in the child's wide eyes…
A reflection of another time.
Maira's silhouette behind him.
Lapu-Lapu's voice.
Rodrigo's scream.
War drums in the distance.
A war not yet over.
A flame not yet done burning.
---
The Rooftop Again
That night, he returned to the rooftop.
He sat at the edge—legs dangling.
But this time, not in despair.
He looked out at Manila—dirty, bright, chaotic, alive.
He smiled.
Because now, he wasn't just alive.
He was chosen.
---
Epilogue: "The Ember Sleeps, But Never Dies…"
In a dusty archive in Spain, a forgotten room holds artifacts sealed by time.
An archaeologist, young and curious, brushes ash off a burnt manuscript.
On its last surviving page—a drawing.
A warrior unlike any European knight.
Fire tattoos across his back.
A blade unlike any forged in the West.
Eyes of gold.
Below the drawing, a line in old Castilian:
> "El Niño del Fuego.
He came from the skies.
He bled like man,
but fought like gods."
The lights flicker.
The air shifts.
A small flame curls at the corner of the page—
and vanishes.
---
Season 2 is calling.