The air in Divine’s apartment carried a silence that felt alive, as if every corner held its breath waiting for something unseen to emerge. The pale curtains swayed with the faint Manila wind, carrying the scent of jeepney smoke and fried food from the street below. Yet within the room, everything was still. Divine sat curled on the edge of her bed, her knees drawn to her chest, staring at the envelope that had been slipped under her door earlier that morning.
It bore no name, only her initials written in Xavier’s unmistakable handwriting.
She knew before opening it that it was another letter. Each one seemed to appear without explanation, though she had stopped asking how he always knew where to find her. The first few had thrilled her with their strangeness. The following ones unsettled her. Now they terrified her. Still, her hands trembled as she slid a finger along the paper and unfolded it.
You are standing by the window right now, the letter began, watching the city breathe while trying to remember if the life you are living is truly yours. You tell yourself you are free, yet every choice you make echoes with the memory of chains. I wonder, Divine, are you writing me into existence, or am I writing you?
She felt her pulse quicken. He knew. He always knew. She had been by the window moments before picking up the envelope. She had been thinking exactly that: whether her steps were her own or guided by some invisible hand.
The sound of her phone vibrating on the table broke the spell. It was Stacy. Divine answered quickly, as if the voice of her friend could ground her back into reality.
“Hey, you sound like a ghost,” Stacy said. “Are you okay?”
Divine hesitated before answering. “He wrote again.”
A pause stretched across the line. “Xavier?”
“Yes. He knew what I was doing even before I opened the letter. It is like he is inside my head, Stacy. Or worse, like he is watching me.”
“Then stop reading them,” Stacy snapped, her tone firm. “You keep feeding whatever madness he wants you to believe. You are not a character in his book, you are not some haunted doll he can play with. You are real, and you get to choose.”
Divine bit her lip. “What if he is right? What if my life has already been written and I am just following the lines?”
Stacy sighed so hard it cracked with frustration. “That is the trauma talking. Maverick made you believe you were trapped, and now Xavier is doing the same with words instead of fists. He is clever, Divine, I will give him that. But clever does not mean destiny.”
Divine wanted to believe her. But when she closed her eyes, she saw passages from Xavier’s novels that mirrored her life with eerie accuracy. A scar described on a heroine’s wrist that matched hers. A brother who shadowed her every move, suffocating with protection. A lover who hurt her yet left her yearning for the very pain he inflicted. The stories were not only familiar, they were her life written with a chilling intimacy.
Later that evening, Stacy arrived at her apartment with a paper bag of takeout food and the stubborn energy of a friend unwilling to let her fall too deep. The smell of garlic rice and fried chicken filled the small space, masking the metallic scent of Divine’s fear.
“You need something grounding,” Stacy said as she laid the food on the table. “And nothing grounds a Filipino soul like carbs.”
Divine managed a small smile, though her appetite was absent. Stacy ate with exaggerated enjoyment, rolling her eyes with each bite until Divine laughed despite herself. For a moment, it was almost normal.
But normal never lasted.
When Stacy reached for another piece of chicken, her hand brushed against the envelope on the table. She froze, staring at it as if it were a venomous insect. “That is it, right? His letter?”
Divine nodded.
Stacy snatched it up before Divine could protest. Her eyes scanned the words quickly, her expression tightening. When she finished, she tossed it back onto the table like it was dirty.
“This is not romance. This is surveillance disguised as poetry. He is gaslighting you with ink. Do you not see?”
Divine looked down, shame coloring her cheeks. “Sometimes his words feel like he sees me in a way no one else ever has. Even you.”
Stacy’s jaw clenched. “That is the trick. Abusers study us, Divine. Maverick studied you through control. Xavier studies you through imagination. Both turn your soul into their stage. But I will not let him make you think you are his character.”
Divine’s eyes stung, though she did not know if it was anger or grief. “But what if I want to know where the story leads? What if I need to understand why he writes me?”
Stacy pushed away her plate. “Then ask yourself what happens when the story ends. Does he leave you whole, or does he consume you completely?”
The question hung heavy, unanswered.
That night, Divine dreamed again. She wandered through a library with endless corridors, each shelf filled with books bearing her name. She pulled one out at random and opened it, only to find her own memories written down, even the ones she had never told anyone. Maverick’s cruel words. Sid’s suffocating watchfulness. Her moments of weakness when she thought pain meant love. On the last page, Xavier’s handwriting appeared: You are mine because you were always written to be.
She woke drenched in sweat, her throat raw as if she had been screaming.
The next morning, she found Sid sitting in her living room. She had not given him a key, yet somehow he was there, as immovable as stone.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“I had a bad feeling,” Sid answered simply. “You look pale, like something is draining you. Tell me who. Tell me where.”
Divine shook her head. She could not bear to see Sid charge into Xavier’s world like a warrior blind to the battlefield. Sid meant well, but his protection always came with chains of its own.
“You cannot fix this,” she whispered.
His gaze hardened. “I can if you let me.”
But she knew letting him meant surrendering her freedom again, and she could not return to that cage.
After Sid left, Stacy called again. Her voice carried a nervous edge Divine had never heard before.
“I do not want to scare you,” Stacy began, “but I think Xavier is playing with more than just words. I checked his latest manuscript. He has a character with my name, Divine. She looks like me, talks like me. But she dies in the story, and it is not pretty.”
Divine’s chest tightened. “You are sure?”
“As sure as I am standing here. He is not just writing you, he is writing all of us. Which means he is watching more than just you.”
The world tilted around Divine, reality slipping like sand through her fingers. Was her life truly her own, or just another chapter Xavier penned for his amusement? Was Stacy right that it was trauma bending her perception, or had Xavier blurred the boundary so completely that the page and the flesh were one?
That night, Divine sat at her desk, staring at the blank screen of her laptop. She began to type not for her novel, but for herself.
I am real. My choices are mine. My story is not bound by his hand.
She repeated the words like a mantra, her fingers trembling. Yet with each line, she felt Xavier’s shadow looming. She could almost hear his voice whispering, Do you really believe that, Divine? Or is this exactly what I wrote for you to do tonight?
The war between realities raged within her, and she knew it was only beginning.
ns216.73.216.13da2
and then Add to home screen.