Power is a stage.
And today, Ralph Del Mar is the performance.
The Senate hearing room smells of disinfectant and arrogance. A dozen cameras blink red from the corners, their lenses cold and patient. On the long mahogany table, microphones gleam like polished weapons. Reporters lean forward, eyes glinting, waiting for the next slip of a tongue to feed the morning news cycle.
Ralph sits straight, back stiff, face unreadable. The lights above him are merciless, white, sterile, interrogating. Across the table, Senator Damian Villaflor adjusts his tie with the ease of a man who knows he owns the stage. His smile is almost kind. Almost.
"Congressman Del Mar," Damian begins, voice smooth as oil. "Your former aide, Miss Sarah Cruz, she was known to have access to confidential briefings, was she not?"
Ralph's throat tightens. "She handled communications, Senator. She had clearance appropriate for her position."
Damian leans forward. "And yet confidential reports somehow made their way to the press. Would you call that a coincidence… or complicity?"
A murmur ripples through the room. The press eats it alive.
Ralph folds his hands, keeping his expression calm. "Coincidence implies carelessness. Complicity implies intent. I believe in due process before either judgment."
Laughter, polite but venomous, flickers through the hall. Damian tilts his head, pretending to admire the reply. But Ralph sees the faint smirk in the corner of his mouth, the predator's tell.
They're not here to seek truth.
They're here to discredit him, to erase Sarah, and to remind the country that reformers don't survive long in the lion's den.
The hearing drags on for hours. Questions about "protocol breaches," "confidential leaks," and "staff misconduct" swirl like smoke around him. Ralph answers each one with surgical calm, but he can feel the noose tightening, one question at a time.
Then comes the dagger.
"Did you cover for her, Congressman?" Damian asks, pausing just long enough for every camera to zoom in. "Did you, out of… personal loyalty, protect her from investigation?"
The words hang like poison.
Every flash of the cameras feels like gunfire.
Ralph's heartbeat hammers. He remembers Sarah's last day in the office, her trembling hands as she typed her resignation, the way her eyes refused to meet his. He had wanted to tell her to stay, to fight beside him. But she had whispered only: "They're already watching us."
Now, under the white lights, that warning feels prophetic.
"I did what any responsible public servant would do," Ralph says evenly. "I protected the integrity of my office, not an individual."
"Ah," Damian nods slowly. "But sometimes… the integrity of a man and the integrity of his office are not the same thing."
The gallery laughs. The hearing ends. But the game, the real game, is only beginning.
Outside the chamber, Ralph walks through the marbled hallway, each step echoing against the high ceilings. Cameras still follow, hungry for another quote, another reaction. He gives none. His silence is his only weapon left.
A young reporter calls out, "Congressman, do you still believe in good governance after today?"
He stops. Turns slightly. "Belief isn't the problem," he says quietly. "It's what people do with it once they have power."
Then he walks away.
By the time he reaches his office, the afternoon has soured into a gray drizzle. His staffers pretend to work, eyes flicking nervously to the television screens replaying his interrogation on loop. His name scrolls in red ticker lines beneath the network logos: DEL MAR UNDER FIRE. CRUZ STILL MISSING.
He shuts the door.
Silence. Finally.
On his desk lies an old book, The Ethics of Leadership. Sarah once gave it to him, her handwriting still on the first page: "For when ideals get lonely."
He almost smiles.
The phone buzzes. A private line.
"Ralph," a hushed voice says. It's Congressman Reyes, one of the few reformists left. "We need to meet, off the record."
Ralph hesitates. "Where?"
"The old lounge, basement level. Now."
Down in the forgotten corners of the Senate, where dust and echoes live, three figures wait, Reyes, a policy analyst from the minority bloc, and a whistleblower with trembling hands.
Reyes leans close. "Word is, the Villaflors have been moving funds offshore, shell companies, dummy NGOs, contracts signed through backdoor deals. We traced some links to the leaks you were accused of."
Ralph's pulse quickens. "You're saying Sarah might have found the evidence?"
The analyst nods. "We think she copied the files before disappearing. If she did, she's holding the detonator to the entire Villaflor machinery."
Ralph's stomach turns cold. "And they know?"
"Of course they know," Reyes says grimly. "Why do you think they're dragging you through the mud? They want to break you before she surfaces. Make her look like a bitter ex-aide and you, a fallen reformist. When she speaks, no one will believe her."
The words sink like lead.
Ralph looks at his reflection in the cracked mirror across the room, he looks older, harder. The kind of man politics reshapes like stone under pressure.
"What would you do," he asks quietly, "if you still believed in good governance… but the system itself didn't believe in good men anymore?"
Reyes shrugs. "Then you stop playing nice. You start surviving."
That night, Ralph stays in his office long after the lights in the building die. Manila's skyline glows faintly through the rain. The city never sleeps, it just schemes in softer tones.
He opens his laptop and types a message he never plans to send.
Sarah,
If you still have the files, don't bring them here.
They're not after the truth. They're after whoever can tell it.
Stay safe. I'll keep them looking at me.
– R.
He hovers over the send button. Then closes the window.
Some messages are meant to remain unsent, whispered into the universe, not the cloud.
He leans back, staring at the ceiling. The fluorescent light hums like an electric confession. Somewhere above, the nation debates, tweets, and judges. Down here, conscience becomes a liability.
He remembers something Sarah once said during a campaign rally, "The higher you climb, the thinner the air gets. And people mistake suffocation for success."
He finally understands.
Near midnight, a soft knock.
It's his aide, trembling slightly. "Sir… this just came in. A courier dropped it at the gate."
A brown envelope. No name, no seal.
Ralph opens it carefully. Inside, a photo, grainy, shot from a distance. Senator Damian Villaflor shaking hands with a foreign lobbyist from a defense corporation. The timestamp: last week.
On the back, written in delicate, familiar script:
"Not all shadows are meant to hide. Some are gathering light."
Ralph's breath catches. Sarah.
The envelope also contains a memory card. He slips it into his laptop. Files load, blurred, encrypted, but real. Proof. The kind of proof that could collapse an empire or start a war.
Then, a flicker on his phone. An anonymous message:
"You're being watched. Don't go home tonight."
He looks out the window. Across the street, under the halo of a lamppost, a figure stands, still, unrecognizable in the rain.
For a second, he thinks it's her. But the figure turns, vanishes between cars.
The phone buzzes again, a live feed notification. Someone has tapped into his office camera. His own face stares back at him from his monitor.
For the first time, Ralph feels it, not fear, but awakening.
The real battle has begun, and it's no longer about image or office. It's about reclaiming truth from those who weaponize it.
He switches off the lights.
The rain outside grows harder, each drop a bullet against glass.
He takes one last look at the photo, at Sarah's handwriting, and whispers, "Then let's gather light."
As he steps out into the parking lot, the wind smells of gunmetal and wet asphalt. The city is hushed, yet alive, the kind of silence that only happens before something breaks.
He walks toward his car, his footsteps echoing under the amber lamps. Somewhere, a motorbike engine roars, fading fast into the dark.
Ralph looks up at the towering Senate building behind him, its mirrored glass glistening with rain. In its reflection, he sees a faint silhouette… a woman's figure, watching.
He blinks. She's gone.
But the shadow remains.
He slips the envelope inside his coat, tightening it close to his chest. The rain hides his smile, quiet, resolute, dangerous.
For the first time in weeks, he feels it again, that small spark of purpose that even fear can't kill.
***
The Senate lights flicker in the distance, their reflections trembling on the wet pavement, like truth, struggling to stay visible in a city that thrives on darkness.