///SOMEWHERE IN PARAISO, BEHIND A VEIL OF OCCULTATION

Yewon shook awake. Her eyes were closed, but she felt that she was in a sitting position. The chair where she sat in was high-backed and seemingly made of steel. Her backside hurt already. She didn’t remember falling asleep. All she remembered was… was being picked up by the neck by some rough hand, and Mattheo running to save her…

She opened her eyes. She found that her body was weak. She found that it took all her strength to get her eyes to a squint.

She was in a dimly lit room. A circular one, with pillars made of redwood. Painted? There are black wood statues of various beings. Larauan? Taotao? They sat in raised alcoves that surrounded where she sat. The air was dry and cool in here as if it had airconditioning.

She peeked down and found that she was sitting on a… wood chair. But why is it so hard?

There was no light, but braziers burning with technicolor flame illuminated the large circular room that she sat in.

There was no one around looking at her. There was no natural sunlight seeping in either. She tried to move, but she found that golden shackles wrapped around her wrists and ankles, chaining her to the chair. She couldn’t move. Even as her strength returned to her, she couldn’t move.

The doors opened. In walked a tall figure, shadowy, three times taller than her. It was like looking at a walking palm tree: bent, wooden, and thin. When it spoke, its voice croaked, like a crackling flame. “We have her, milord. The destined Empress.”

“Good,” said the one that walked with the palm tree creature. That man wore a complex barong Tagalog with a high collar and a black sarong that reached his ankles, wherein his feet were horse hooves. He wore black circle-framed sunglasses, covering his eyes. His head… was a horse’s head. He had a horse’s head, red fur, and a white mane. “Make sure she’s well-rested and give her only the best of divine fruit. Make sure she recovers as soon as possible. Feed her the liver of the Sawa that we killed as well. We must train her to become her destiny.”

“Understood, Prince. All will be accomplished.”

The horse-head being nodded. Is that… a tikbalang? No, no that’s impossible. Everything going on is impossible. What’s happening? “Things will calm down soon, and we have to make sure she will be ready for the storm afterward. Heaven will be upended. It is time we take back this world.”

Through squinted eyes--making her look like she was still sleeping--she saw the tikbalang point at her from across the room. “She, the Twilight Devil Queen of a Hundred Million Universes, Usurper of Thrones, will make God bleed.”

/// MONASTERY OF THE MOON, ON THE ISLAND OF SALAMUHA

“How did you get here?!” asked Esther as she and Angela as they both stood up, ignoring the protests of their body, and hugged Susanna. “Why do you look like you just came back from a battle wedding or something?”

“Oh my god this is insane,” Angela said, sobbing into Susanna’s shoulder. “Please tell us what’s happening, please explain!”

“Calm down, calm down,” said Susanna stroking their hair. “I’ll explain. First, we should get some merienda [an afternoon snack]. Then we can catch up over some food, alright?” She looked over at Brother Owl. The middle-aged man smiled a knowing smile.

The one who introduced himself as Brother Owl began to walk, but Jonathan looked up and asked: “Hey, you’re Brother Owl, right? Where are we? Can you answer that at least?”

Brother Owl paused, and then smiled. “Little Tiger, come and snack with us. I will try to make sense of things in a way you will be able to understand.

They all sat outside, in a simple circle circling a brown round coffee table. On the table were freshly cooked piles of banana cue: bananas deep-fried in caramelized brown sugar. There was tea and coffee for everyone to go about as well.

Brother Owl took a sip of tea before beginning. “Please, recoup your strength. It will be a while for you to digest this. However, be secure in the knowledge that as long as you are in the Monastery of the Moon, you will be safe from most dangers of Paraiso. If you wish, ask us any question.”

“I think it’ll be easier if we tell them a bit of backstory first, Brother Owl,” said Susanna. “Now… this might be hard to believe, but with the things I’m sure you’ve seen, it’s not going to be hard to not believe.”

“We’ve been to hell,” said Jonathan. “Literally. Now I just want to know what all of this is.” And he gestured at the open pastures that eventually fell off into a black sky. He gestured at the flying ships that soared on clouds. He gestured at the concert of strange creatures that were anything but human walking to and from the Monastery.

Hell, even the Monastery was strange! Imagine three very longhouses on stone pillars, shaped like a U, with an immaculate garden in the middle. There were… students? They seemed like students, running to and fro, doing what seemed like chores and carrying books. Jonathan noted how there was no phone in sight, which was weird. Was there no internet or anything in this… whatever this place is?

“It is the Monastery of the Moon,” said Brother Owl. “A Monastery Built a little over a century ago. Here I find young men and women through divination that have had their Gahum ignited, and can change Heaven.”

“What?” Jonathan asked, leaning back. “That’s all… weird talk.”

“We can’t stay in a place like this!” said Esther, suddenly gripping her chair. “Yewon. Yewon’s been kidnapped!”

Susanna’s eyes widened. “Yewon? Why? What happened to her?” Angela noticed that Susanna looked different, despite having only last seen her over a year ago. Since she was her senior, she left to study abroad while her, Esther, and Yewon stayed behind. Their two other friends, Jenna and Gala, left with her.

“She was abducted!” Esther said. “Some wooden tall man with stretched legs and arms took her and brought her into a balete tree and we followed after her and then we awoke in a black-and-white place and--”

“Idalumnon,” said Brother Owl. Susanna turned to him, dismayed. “They were, for all intents and purposes, dead. But it wasn’t their time. Sidapa took them and sent them to me.”

“You spoke with him?”

Brother Owl nodded. “He sent them to me.” He turned to the four friends. “Yewon… She was the one kidnapped?”

Mattheo nodded, his body seemed to vibrate. As if he wanted to stand up. “She was stolen by these tree demon things that called her an Empress or something.”

Brother Owl’s eyes opened. “That… does not sound good.”

“Damn right it doesn’t!”

“Let’s not get hasty,” Susanna said, inhaling and pulling back her hair into a ponytail. “You guys just came back from a pretty bad experience. I mean, you basically were, for all intents and purposes, dead. Take it easy.”

Esther opened her mouth. “But, Susanna--”

“I know, I know,” said Susanna. “You can’t leave her alone. I can’t either, knowing what happened, but we have to take things slow. It’s a matter of life and death here. For now, let’s just get you rested first, okay?”

Jonathan nodded, inhaling and then exhaling. Presently, he massaged his arm. “It’s the most logical route, after all. Hey, Brother Owl, tell me why you call this Paraiso? You still haven’t fully explained things.”

“Right,” Brother Owl leaned back. He thought for a moment, before nodding. “To fully show you the truth, I must make sure you see what I see. I shall return in a few moments.” He stood up and left the premises.

“Ate Susanna,” began Angela. “When… did you get here, anyway? And why does it look like you’ve adjusted already to whatever… all of this is?”

“Yeah,” continued Esther. The noise of the monastery students running around only grew. “Did you die too? Did… did someone abduct Ate Jenna? Or Ate Gala?”

“It’s weird too,” added Jonathan. “Didn’t I just send you a message yesterday, Susanna?”

Susanna swallowed. “Gala, Jenna and I have been here for approximately 3 years.”

“3? How?”

“Time flows differently here, in broken heaven,” said Susanna. “A few years here might constitute a few hours back in our universe.”

“Wait,” Angela picked up on what Susanna had said. “Ate Jenna and Ate Gala are both here?” Esther’s eyes widened when she realized that too, and she looked around wildly in her seat.

Susanna nodded. “They’re currently out right now, doing a resource collection task for the Monastery. They’ve also been practicing.”

“What do you even do here?” Esther rubbed her eyes, frustrated. “Gah, it’s all so weird, what the fuck is happening?!”

“Brother Owl’s visualization will help you understand everything,” she said. “But for now, well, it’s going to be hard to return to the life we used to have. Paraiso… is the highest Layer of the Multiverse. Every other Multiverse comes from here, a shadow of this paradise. Back then, no other person could come up here to the seventh layer of the Multiverse, for this was the throne of God, Their heavenly garden. But it was ruined, destroyed, and God--also known as Impinito Dios, also known as BATALANG MAYKAPAL--was killed by Holy Trinity.”

Jonathan, who had no doubt adjusted a bit better, said, “As in, the Trinity from the Church?” Mattheo and Angela looked at each other. Angela had a confused and somewhat scared look painted on her face. Mattheo pressed his lips together.

Susanna shrugged, uncommitted. “Maybe, but not exactly. There are a lot of parallels. Ah, here comes Brother Owl.”

“Here. Brahm, if you would?”

In walked a slightly heavyset man, with dark hair. Jonathan could see the crawling tattoos by the base of his neck. He set down a tray with four steaming teacups. Brother Owl nodded at him and thanked him.

“Drink these. It will give you the information you need without overwhelming you. Just enough for you to understand where you are. Open your mind: it is going to be hard to accept if you still think you are not living in truth.”

The four of them looked at it, worriedly. Susanna prodded them: “Go on, do it, it might give you a perspective as to what’s happening with Yewon.”

They sighed. Mattheo picked up the teacup first and sipped it. The other three waited as he sipped, to see his reaction.

“It won’t work unless you all sip from it at the same time,” said Brother Owl, sitting down before them.

“Fine.” Esther picked up the teacup, and so did the others, and they all slipped.

None of them remembered when or how, but the four of them now drifted across the uncreated void. Somewhere within their ears, Brother Owl’s voice resonated: “The four of you went through a reconfigured Balete: a usually one-way gate to the heaven of all Multiverses. All of you are now in Paraiso. The highest layer of the Multiverse. It has many different names: Heaven, Kalangitan, Empyrean, Throne, the Sky.”

Something coalesced into view. A great sphere. With seven layers. In the middle was a layer of galaxies and stars and planets. “The middle layer is the Midworld. That is where all the Universes lie. It is the fourth layer of the Multiverse.” Above the Midworld is a gate, blocked and protected by a legion of bird-humans that wielded weapons of light. “Above it is the fifth layer, the Sky, where individual heavens for each universe gather up the trillions of souls gone every second.”

Even above that is a land of pure color, psychedelic colors crashing into one another. “The Sixth Layer above that is the Above. It is the Astral Sea of Stars and Collective Thought that shamans, mediums, spiritists, magicians, and much more enter to speak with the various spirits and gods that manifest in the various universes. It is from the Above where universes are formed, from the Dust of God and the Dreams of the Diwata.

“And above that…” The four of them saw the highest layer: looking like a beautiful glass plate made of spinning stars and galaxies, shattered and now floating upon that formless Astral Sea. “Is the Seventh Layer, once forbidden and once only the abode of God, but now breached, cracked, broken, shattered. This is where we are now: Paraiso, the divine heaven. All souls, all saints, all of being and living leads back to here, to Paraiso. Now anyone can enter into Paraiso, provided they have calibrated Spirit Roads.”

“How did this happen, you might be asking? Let us make the story brief, for no doubt if you will hear the full story, it will take seven million hours of sitting, and seventeen billion hours of talking.

“Thus saith the wise: in the beginning was only a single piece of light.”

The view changed. There they found themselves floating in pure nothingness. Or was it pure darkness?

“Then, the Lonely Soul, the piece of light in the middle, expanded, splitting existence and non-existence, creating separation.” And the light expanded, in a visualization not different from the Big Bang. “The lonely soul separated light from dark, Black from White, creating Sky and Sea. The Lonely Soul was alone no longer, as the Black and White had souls of their own. The Black Sea Soul was known as Tubigan, and the White Sky Soul was known as Languit, and they ruled in infinite kingdoms for a minuscule amount of time. They hated each other and loved each other, so for eons they fought and made love, and in their fighting, they smashed the sky and sea against each other until they created the infinite Sansinukob, a many-layered multiverse which they could call their creation.”

“The Lonely Soul returned then, the only God, who was known as the Infinite Lord Creator, for from him emanated the first Souls, but in Their tongue, he is called BATALANG MAYKAPAL. The Infinite Lord Creator, now having a face and a Queen, the Immaculate Flower of Heaven, known as Bulaklak ng Paraiso, then joined with the other two Souls and created the Souls of the Universe.

“Languit and Tubigan made love and birthed an infinite number of spirits, each one made to live within every universe, each one with a certain purpose. This first type of Soul had a multicolored Soul, and they were known as Spirits.” They saw the alien spirits, the fey beings, that walked, invisible, on earth.

“Bulaklak ng Langit raised her hand and wished protection and service. And thus came from her heart seven infinitely powerful spirits, who were then given form through Baptism, and so now inhabit formless flame. These first seven spirits were called the Panganay na Alagad and were given seven names. And from the sparks of the formless flame came the brothers of the Panganay, the Servants. Thus the Servants burned with holy might, formless but with shape, idealistic but real." They saw the burning bodies of these beings, angels of stone and blood.

“And then, BATALANG MAYKAPAL, using Their face to shape it, created the Mortals, those that would populate every multiverse, as a way to experience the infinite goodness and badness of all of creation, a way for BATALANG MAYKAPAL to experience Theirself, and to never be alone again. The Mortals were all those made in the face of BATALA, and so they all share the same humanoid features, even though they have a different animal that they are based on within every univese. While the human might be shaped from the yolk of primates, garuda are shaped from the yoke of eagles, even as their Deity Galura burns with compassion for them.

While the Servants preserved, and the Spirits created, the Mortals destroyed through experiencing, for what is an experience without having experienced it?

“With that done, they blinked, and eight infinities passed. They saw that the Multiverse was rising, trying to destroy the gates of Heaven, thanks to their advancedness. To counteract this, as BATALANG MAYKAPAL realized they needed spiritual guidance, he emanated the Holy Trinity: weaker than the first four Souls, but powerful enough to conquer the Multiverse.” And they saw three vaguely human-shaped beings, each with weapons of mass destruction, to enact violence and hatred.

“The three did so, in the devastating Trinity Conquest, but three-fourths of the way to it, they learned much from the Universes they conquered, and thus they thought it unfair that only BATALANG MAYKAPAL be the resident of the seventh layer of Paraiso.

“And so, in an act of divine rebellion, they stormed heaven, shattered Paradise, and killed God. It was their first act, their ultimate achievement, and mistake, and the three became the Masters of the Multiverse. And thus why you see what happened here. Thus why heaven is broken.”

And then they saw that shattered layer once again, floating on the Astral Sea of Collective Thought.

When they were pulled out, Susanna was already standing, cradling Esther and Angela, ready if ever their bodies failed their minds. But when they returned from the trance, they simply shook their head. “Whoa.”

Jonathan blinked. Mattheo opened his eyes. “For some reason… I get it. How?”

“The tea you drank is a Spiritual Stimulant. Everything I showed you will be recognized and accepted easily since your Souls know the truth.”

“Damn,” Jonathan leaned back. “What have we gotten ourselves into?”

Mattheo rose to his feet. “Whatever. What’s important is that we get to Yewon. Can you show us where she is?”

Brother Owl shook his head. “Unfortunately, that is something I do not know. However, I am sure that she is kept somewhere within Paraiso.”

“Then I’m going to get her,” said Mattheo. “When can we leave?”

Susanna scowled at him. “Not so fast. We can’t afford to go out and run around looking for her. Paraiso is too dangerous. All the devils are here. Here.”

“We must train you, first,” said Brother Owl. “It’s--”

“Brother!” From afar, a voice interjected. They all turned, finding Brahm running towards them. “Someone is battering down the veil!”

“Brother! Help!” And running after Brahm were two women, who looked all too familiar, albeit strangely different. One was taller than the other, wearing carabao hide mail and leather pants. Beside her was a shorter girl, hair in a bouncing bob, eyes large, and skin pure white… with two little horns sprouting from her brow. Her eyes glowed bright pink.

Susanna turned around. “Gala? Jenna?”

Esther and Angela rose to their feet, eyes wide, mouth agape.

Brother Owl stepped forward. “Who is battering down the veil?”

“It’s one of the Panginoon, sir!” yelled Jenna when they finally got in close.

“What is a Panginoon doing here?!”

Gala spoke up then, gasping: “I’m not sure, sir. He chased us back here to the Monastery, asking us where the ‘Devil Emperor’ was!”

Brother Owl scowled. He nodded at Brahm: “Lead me to them.”

Jenna inhaled as Brother Owl walked with Brahm towards the gate of the Monastery. She had a round shield strapped on her left arm and a curved ginunting (a Filipino blade that curves forward) in the other. There was some blood on her porcelain face. “Oh, hi Esther, Angela. Nice of you to finally join us.”