The rain had been steady all afternoon, its sound filling the quiet corners of Divine Fontanales’ small apartment in Quezon City. Drops of water slid down the glass of her window, blurring the view of the buildings outside, as if the city itself was dissolving into something unreal. Divine sat curled on her old sofa with a book open on her lap, her fingers pressing lightly on the pages as though holding them down would keep her steady.
The title gleamed faintly in the low light. The Last Requiem by Xavier Isidro. She had waited weeks for its release. Xavier’s books had always fascinated her. They were unsettling and beautiful, filled with haunted characters who seemed both terrifying and familiar, as if drawn from the depths of memory. His prose was sharp, almost cruel, yet layered with tenderness that crept in at the most unexpected moments.
At first, she read with the eagerness of a devoted fan. She followed the story of a woman who found herself hunted by a mysterious figure, a man who knew her weaknesses too well. Divine turned the pages quickly, almost hungrily, until her breathing slowed. Something in the words pulled at her, a thread tugging from deep inside her chest.
She paused when she reached a scene where the villain cornered the heroine, speaking to her in a whisper that chilled her blood. The line on the page read: You are nothing without me. Remember that, because no one else will ever hold you the way I do.
Divine’s hands trembled. Her eyes scanned the sentence again and again. She knew those words. She had heard them before, not in the safe space of fiction but in the suffocating walls of her marriage. Maverick Landicho had spoken those very words to her on a night she would never forget. His voice, low and possessive, had sunk into her skin like a brand.
Her throat tightened. She closed the book but could not stop her mind from racing. Perhaps it was coincidence. Perhaps Xavier Isidro, like many writers, had borrowed phrases from the endless reservoir of human cruelty. And yet, when she forced herself to continue reading, she found more.
The villain bore a scar on his forearm, described as jagged and pale against the skin. Divine felt her heart hammer against her ribs. Maverick had the same scar, the one he earned in a drunken brawl years before he ever met her. It was not a common detail, not something a writer would simply invent without reason.
She kept reading, page after page, her body stiff with dread. Every description, every cruel gesture, every sinister smile—it was Maverick. It was all him. Even the cadence of his threats, even the way he gripped the heroine’s wrist too tightly, even the silence that followed his rage.
By the time Divine reached the final chapters, the book had slipped from being a story into becoming a mirror. She was not reading about a fictional woman anymore. She was reading about herself.
Her breath came shallow as she set the novel aside. The room was too quiet, too filled with the echo of words that had no right to exist outside her memory. She pressed her palms against her temples, as if to push back the flood of recollection. She thought of Maverick’s eyes, the way they had darkened whenever she defied him. She thought of nights when she had prayed for escape while pretending she was asleep.
Why did Xavier know these things?
Divine rose from the sofa and began pacing. Her bare feet moved across the cold tiles, her body restless. She told herself there must be an explanation. Maybe she had read too much into the similarities. Maybe trauma made everything look familiar. And yet deep down she knew it was more than that.
The book felt alive. It was not only a story. It was a message.
She picked it up again, staring at the author’s name on the cover. Xavier Isidro. He had always been elusive, rarely seen in interviews, never attending book signings in person. He was a man wrapped in mystery, and readers admired him all the more for it. To Divine, he had always seemed like an untouchable figure, an artist who created nightmares but remained safe behind his own curtain of secrecy.
Now she felt as though that curtain had been pulled back, and what lay behind was staring directly at her.
The sound of a key turning in the lock startled her. Divine’s brother, Sid Fontanales, entered with his usual heavy steps. He carried a bag of groceries and frowned when he saw her pale face and the book clutched tightly to her chest.
“You look like you have seen a ghost,” Sid said, placing the bag on the table. His voice was gentle, but it carried that protective edge she knew so well.
Divine forced a smile. “Just reading.”
Sid glanced at the book and scoffed. “Another one of those horror stories? You should read something lighter. You always scare yourself with things like that.”
“It is not horror,” she said quietly, her fingers tightening around the cover. “It is different.”
Sid studied her, concern etched into his features. He had always tried to guard her from anything that might reopen her wounds. Sometimes his protection felt like love. Other times it felt like a cage.
Divine wanted to tell him about the strange familiarity in Xavier’s words, but she stopped herself. Sid would not understand. He would only grow angry and insist that she throw the book away. He never trusted anyone who stirred the past, and in truth, she did not trust herself to explain without sounding fragile.
That night, long after Sid had gone to bed, Divine remained awake. The rain had ceased, leaving the air heavy with silence. She lit a small lamp by her writing desk and opened her journal. Her pen moved quickly, scribbling questions she could not silence.
How does Xavier know?9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡg60MvitNdr
Why does he write about Maverick?9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWjd9Y64qMg
Why does the heroine feel like me?
She stared at the words until they blurred. Her heart pounded with a mixture of fear and something more dangerous, something like curiosity.
If Xavier had written her life into his novels, then he was not just a stranger. He was someone who had been watching, perhaps even waiting. The thought terrified her, but it also drew her closer. She wanted to know how much he knew. She wanted to confront the man who had turned her nightmares into stories for the world to consume.
Closing her journal, Divine whispered into the darkness, “I need to find him.”
The words felt like a promise, one she could not take back.
In that moment, the city outside seemed to hold its breath. The shadows in the corners of her apartment thickened, as if they too were listening. Xavier Isidro, the man behind the ink, was no longer just an author to her. He was a familiar stranger, a figure whose presence she could feel even without ever meeting him.
And now, she would no longer rest until she uncovered why he had written her nightmares into being.
ns216.73.216.23da2
and then Add to home screen.