The first sign that something was wrong came as a silence. Marisse Gonzales had never been silent before. In the literary world she was a presence impossible to ignore, sharp tongued and beautifully poised, a woman who carried herself like she was forever onstage. She had no patience for shadows or hesitation. Her life was built on momentum, a series of deals and whispers that kept Xavier’s career moving forward. Yet one afternoon, the messages that normally flooded Divine’s phone from various circles all asked the same question. Have you seen Marisse. Did you hear from her.
Divine sat by her window that night staring at the city lights below. The streets of Manila pulsed with restless energy but within her apartment there was an uncanny stillness. She remembered the way Marisse had looked at her the last time they met. It had been at Xavier’s study where Divine had felt both honored and suffocated. Marisse had entered without knocking, her hair tied tightly, her eyes like blades that never softened. She had told Divine that not every muse should be touched and not every writer deserved to be trusted. Divine remembered the weight of those words now.
When news broke that Marisse had missed two important meetings with publishers, speculation turned sharp. Some whispered she had fled abroad after a heated argument. Others hinted at an accident on some dark road outside the city. No one seemed to have facts, only fears. Divine’s heart began to pound with a truth she could not speak. The rumors sounded less like coincidence and more like a chapter unfolding.
One night she found herself rereading one of Xavier’s unpublished drafts he had let her glimpse. In the margins of the pages a character stood out. A woman described with elegance, polished exterior, and an unrelenting devotion to the male protagonist. The story had ended with her disappearance, a vanishing that was described not as death but as sacrifice, as if the act itself had been necessary to preserve a greater narrative. Divine stared at the page so long her eyes watered. It felt too precise, too cruelly aligned with the present moment.
She confronted Xavier in the dim light of his study again. Candle flames threw their shadows across the walls stacked with manuscripts. He sat with a calmness that unsettled her, his hands folded on the table as if waiting for her accusation. She asked him directly about Marisse. Where is she. What happened. He only tilted his head, his lips curving in the faintest smile.
Stories have lives of their own, he told her. Sometimes characters step too far into the light and the story corrects itself.
That answer chilled her. She pressed further, but he leaned back and spoke as if the matter was not of concern. Marisse always believed she owned pieces of me that were never hers to claim. If she has gone silent perhaps she realized silence is the truest loyalty.
Divine’s stomach twisted. Was he confessing without confessing. Was he weaving truth into metaphor so that she could never separate fact from fiction. Her pulse raced and her hands shook but she forced herself to stand tall. Xavier’s eyes followed her every motion, and for a moment she felt as though he was already writing her fear into his next chapter.
When she left his house that evening, the air outside was thick with humidity. The streets smelled of rain that had not yet fallen. She could not shake the image of Marisse walking out of existence, swallowed by the same shadows that Xavier seemed to command.
Back in her own apartment, Stacy arrived unannounced, tossing her bag on the couch and giving Divine a searching look. Stacy had heard the rumors too and she was furious. She accused Xavier of manipulation, of pulling Divine deeper into a narrative that was no longer hers. Divine tried to defend herself, insisting she was only trying to understand, but Stacy cut her off. Understanding a man like him will not save you, she said. It will consume you.
Divine wanted to argue but instead tears burned her eyes. She confessed the detail about Xavier’s draft, the character that mirrored Marisse. Stacy went pale, then angry again. She slammed her hand on the table. You see. This is not inspiration. This is obsession turned to control. He is writing the world around you as if you are nothing more than ink.
The argument left Divine shaken. That night she dreamed again, this time of Marisse standing in an endless hallway lined with bookshelves. Marisse’s face was both serene and sorrowful. She whispered to Divine that sacrifices must be made for stories to live. Divine woke up gasping, clutching her chest as if she had been the one erased.
Days stretched on with no word from Marisse. The media picked up on her absence but treated it as another glamorous scandal. Some claimed she had checked herself into a private retreat. Others painted her as a woman tired of the industry who finally chose freedom. Yet Divine could not believe these fabrications. She felt the truth clawing at the edges of her sanity.
Sid noticed her distraction. He confronted her over dinner, his voice heavy with suspicion. He accused Xavier of leading her into madness. Sid demanded she cut ties before she too vanished like Marisse. His words pressed on Divine’s chest like weights, but instead of relief they suffocated her. Sid’s protectiveness had always felt like a cage, and now it echoed the very control she feared from Xavier. She told him she needed to think, but Sid’s glare followed her long after the meal ended.
Later that week Divine received a letter. Not by email, not by message, but an envelope slid under her door. Inside was a single page in Xavier’s handwriting. It read: Marisse chose her ending. Every story requires silence to echo. You must decide if your silence will come as surrender or as transformation.
Her hands trembled so violently she dropped the letter. She wanted to scream but no sound came out. The walls of her apartment felt alive with whispers. She pressed her palms against her temples and told herself over and over that she was still real, that her life was her own.
Stacy insisted they go to the police but Divine hesitated. What proof did she have. A character on a page, a missing woman, a cryptic letter. Xavier could spin it as metaphor, as art, as coincidence. Would anyone believe her or would they call her unstable.
Nights grew colder. The city buzzed on, indifferent to the vanishing of one woman. Divine began to notice men watching her on the street, or perhaps she only imagined it. Every reflection in a window felt like an accusation. Every sound at her door felt like a warning. She could not decide if Xavier was orchestrating her descent or if trauma had finally fractured her grip on reality.
Then came the whisper of sacrifice again. She heard it in her dreams. She heard it in the silence between words. She even thought she heard it in Sid’s voice when he warned her once more about Xavier. The line between warning and threat blurred until she no longer knew whom to fear more.
By the end of the month, the industry had moved on. Marisse’s name faded from headlines. Other stories rose, other scandals, other books to publish. But Divine could not move on. The ghost of Marisse lingered in every quiet corner. She became less a woman and more a question, a void that demanded to be filled.
Divine sat once again in her small apartment staring at the blank page before her. She tried to write but every sentence twisted back to Marisse. Where had she gone. Was she alive. Was she written away by the man who claimed to know her soul. Divine’s pen hovered uselessly, unable to draw the line between fiction and truth.
In that paralysis she realized the trap had already sprung. She was living in Xavier’s story whether she admitted it or not. The only question left was whether she would remain a character or seize the pen herself.
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and then Add to home screen.