Pain exploded in my cheek, the earthy scent of smoking debris assaulting my nose. Everything burned hot-white, including the noise tearing through my ears. I coughed, disturbing the dust around me. A force pulled me up, forcing me to stagger forward. A hulking silhouette bobbed from a short distance. It moved in a pattern I should have known, but my mind dragged my thoughts in slow, heavy trenches. What...

A quick tug jarred my world into submission. The pieces clicked into place. Light split into several directions, showing me a hyper-realistic image of the battlefield. What was I doing in the middle of it? I did not belong in history books or news articles.

"Run, God damn it!" The words were close to pleading. But...why? My gaze trained to the sky, to the countless suns and stars escaping their cages. Rotor blades roared across the expanse, metal wings soaring and punching through sheets of clouds. "Come on, Maian! Don't go into shock now."

I brought my head down to look at who was talking. Dark hair in dust-splattered strands framing his face and poking his eyes, square, silver-rimmed glasses reflecting every celestial glint, a familiar, kindly face too young to be out in the harsh reality. A white coat fluttered in the air when he tightened his grip on my wrist, a look of urgency arranging his features into a frown.

"Kian," was the only word that rasped out of my parched lips. What was he doing here?

The answer lay suspended in the hazy space between us as he pressed his lips together and pulled me along. We broke into a run, my shaking legs struggling to match his long strides. My utility jacket came undone at some point, but I could not remember why. Or how. Only Kian's back bobbing up and down my periphery told me it was not an ideal situation. How did he find me? And why? He was a doctor. What was he doing in a strike zone?

Another stringent whistle rippled in the air. The smoke from the previous one has not faded yet. The seconds stretched the more the whistle occupied every sense in my body. Where would it hit? From the ground, I could not know.

The ground shook, throwing my balance into shambles. Ringing returned in my ears, my hands pressing against them seconds too late. I smacked against Kian's back as he whirled, spread his legs, and caught both our weights. A thick plume of smoke curled from the skyscraper a few blocks ahead. It always smelled of rust and melted glass.

We shared short glances. As one, we scrambled towards what I knew as the residential complex. The towering condos outnumber the residents three to one, and with their rocketing rent and the back-to-back economic crises, no one dreamt of setting foot into those units. But in the face of streaking shots and faceless death, we did not have a choice.

Kian dragged me towards a basement parking lot, the flickering incandescent rods guiding our way past faded posts, peeling epoxy, and the smooth, concrete floor sloping down. No windows. Closer to being underground. Safe.

Our knees gave out, and we plopped behind the nearest pillar. I braced the cold stone, noting the muted yellow paint beneath my fingers. My nails were black, and soot lined the frayed hems of my cardigan's sleeves. Chest heaving, I pushed off Kian to give him a room to breathe. And breathe, we did. He sat inches away, elbows propped on knees brought close to his chest, head hung low as if hiding his face. His fingers trembled, but it might just be from his wheezing.

I was not any better.

As if hearing my thoughts, Kian's head snapped up. His dark brown eyes were darker in the basement parking's limited light, but I found them focused on me. He scooted towards me, a hand coming out of the pocket of his coat. My eyes traced the splotches of dirt and dried blood on it. I was not the only one who needed to do laundry.

"Excuse me," Kian said before flicking the switch on a keychain flashlight with a heavy click. Light drowned the shadows as if another bomb exploded on me. He moved the light away then back, checking for something. He put the flashlight away, the keys and safety whistle bunched with it clinking with the motion.

A soft brush of warmth spread on my fingers. When I looked down, I found our hands pressed together. Two fingers rested on my wrist. Pulse. He was taking my pulse. "Dizzy?" he asked, not taking his hands off mine.

"Wh...no," I rasped. It was a damned health checkup. Must not put any special meaning behind it. He did not abandon his post to figure out where I was. This was nothing but chance, like how we met at the flyover.

His eyes closed. In a gentle motion, he touched his forehead against mine. I should have frozen, should have pushed away with a slap, but warmth spread on my skin. Our breaths mixed in soft puffs, and for once, I did not mind. We were both covered in dust and grime, maybe even the sins of our people, and after what we have been through, I would take this familiarity, this...stability.

My hands curled against his, squeezing harder than I did when I held on to my mother. Together, alone in a vast basement parking lot, we shut our eyes to the rest of the world. When the ground shook again, signaling another strike landing, I reached out and tucked myself against him. My face found the crook of his neck, and I felt an arm snake around me, holding me close. Our knees touched, and we hunkered next to each other like children in a game of hide-and-seek.

Another strike. The pillars danced in oscillating quivers. Debris hissed as they broke away from the ceiling. A whimper escaped my lips without my permission. My heart has not really slowed down since the raid started. Where were the ground units now? Had they finished ravaging our land and claiming it their own?

Time felt shorter with us holding on to each other despite being strangers. But the seconds...they lasted forever whenever the whistles blew. I counted the numbers between each strike. The interval lengthened with every iteration. Soon, the gap widened to a degree that I forgot why I was resting my weight against a man in a parking lot and why he held me as if I was someone he could not lose.

Heat crept to my cheeks as the triviality of being human came back full force. "I-I'm sorry about that," I said, waving my hands and scrambling away from him. "I don't know what came over me."

Kian chuckled—a sound too foreign for our situation, but a welcome one. "It's fine. I practically did the same." He rested his head against the pillar, a small smile painting his lips. "I just..." He sighed, closing his eyes. "I don't want to see another one."

We did not need to clarify what he referred to. "I don't either," I answered, earning a side glance from him. My voice sounded foreign to my ears, and after the battering they received today, it was expected. "I don't want to start."

Because once it did, it would not stop. Death was a madman loose on the streets, taking whoever it wanted on a journey with it. Silence jutted between us, thickening into a hazy cloud with every passing second. Outside, the world was as still as it could be. Maybe the military held the line, or maybe we would not be in the same country when we emerged from this parking lot. Better yet, maybe none of that mattered.

"What were you doing there?" I ventured after the quiet transcended my threshold, jerking my chin at him. "Thank you for saving me."

Kian crossed his legs to face me fully. His head remained nestled against the pillar. It gave him the aura of a languid boy who coasted through life by being chill. His glasses, splotched with white carbon marks, ash, and hair-thin cracks, lay skewed on the bridge of his nose. "It's what I do," he answered. His voice was a soft whisper as if he listened for an invisible whistle or explosion. "It's the least I can, anyway."

I folded my hands. Without a pillar to lean on, I kept my back straight. Rigid. If I dreamed of having something to rest my weight against, I might have to move meters away...or sit so close to him that our shoulders would touch. "You are doing enough," I replied, clearing my throat. "More than, actually."

"Sometimes, it doesn't feel like it," came the small response. My eyes snapped from my folded legs and trousers coated with a fine layer of dust. At some point in the scuffle, the hems snapped at the sides. I found Kian brushing his hair off his face. The strands stuck up as if the wind blew it back. "I treated a civilian today. Had a helmet-sized shrapnel on his leg. We couldn't save it in the end. I..."

A heavy breath shook as it escaped his lips. "A pregnant lady dropped by the clinic, begging for nutrition supplements. We couldn't give her anything since logistics are a problem." His chest heaved like how it did when we dove into the parking lot. "The other day, I had to perform an emergency surgery in the open field. The patient survived, but the risk of infection has never been so high—"

My hand laid on top of his. Even against the concrete, I felt how hard he clenched it. "Are they alive?"

Our gazes locked. Kian pursed his lips before giving me a silent nod. A brief breath left my mouth. "Then you did what you could," I continued. What the hell was I saying? Who was I to tell a stranger how to live his life? But I could not stop. Not when he was getting lost before me. I did not want to be the reason for anyone's demise. "Those people might even be thanking you for saving their lives. Or even hearing them out."

"When I hear them screaming or see them writhing in pain, I freeze," Kian said. "I knew what I had to do and what needed to happen so they could feel better, but when I arrived, it's just..." He imitated an explosion by his temple by unfurling his fingers. "I can't do it."

"You knew where to take me, though," I pointed out. "That counts for something, right?"

Kian blinked, as if he had not realized it until now. Then, he shrugged. "You aren't lying on a stretcher after being bashed in the head with debris," he said. "If I could do something to prevent that sight, I would. So...here we are."

I hummed. "You didn't answer my question though."

"What question?"

My butt scratched against the floor when I scooted closer. He did not flinch nor lean away when I got closer. "What were you doing in Longos?" I echoed before adding, "It's a long way from Talaba."

Realization dawned in his eyes. "Oh, that question." His soles screeched against the carpet of fallen debris as he drew his legs up. "We were the backup requested for the Parañaque base. It's not looking good there."

"And then, what? You saw me?" I asked.

Kian chuckled again. It was an odd habit to develop in the middle of our circumstance. "As the only civilian out in the streets in the middle of a wide airstrike, you stuck out like a sore thumb." He scratched the back of his neck. "And I don't say that lightly. Sore thumbs do stick out."

A laugh clawed out of my throat. I caught his eye, and we both burst out giggling. Everything about this moment screamed doom and destruction, so how could we sit at a dim spot somewhere like this? Even Manong Larry's best jokes could not leave me in this state. For whatever reason, Kian's presence made it as if the world did not suck out there and that it was fine to laugh about it. A beam of light in the midst of a storm, contradictory but somehow perfect. He was the sunshine at dawn, and I was the rain at midnight.

"How about you?" I heard Kian sniff as he fought to contain his laughter. He coughed into his fist to regain some of his composure. "What were you doing out?"

Every shred of amusement seeped out of my system. The blast purged the memories for a brief time, but now, they surged back in a torrent. The evacuation notice, my family hiding under the table, my father...

"Something urgent," I said. "I work in the media. Of course, I had to be there."

Not a lie, but not the entire truth either. Even if I told him the real reason, he was not on rescue operations until he had to. I should not bring the room down with my problems, not when Kian did the legwork of pulling it up.

"Are you sleeping well now?" I asked instead.

If Kian thought the sudden diversion was strange, he did not press. Perhaps, he knew how people felt when they were forced to talk about something they rather not. Then again, my question was not the least intrusive, so maybe he would not answer it either. That way, we could continue fielding each other with prompts we did not want to pursue.

Kian shook his head. "Variable at best," he said. "The nightmares make it hard, but I did steal some hours at the center before lunch."

The dim lighting emphasized the dark circles under his eyes or how his eyelids threatened to squeeze shut if he did not actively wrench them open. I should have seen it earlier from how his shoulders slumped or how he had to rest his head against the pillar to keep it from lolling off. The near silence of the city did not seem to help either.

"You know," I said, rolling my shoulder before sidling close to the pillar. My muscles killed me. "Talking about them could help."

He cocked his eyebrows. "Really? I didn't know that, doctor."

I poked his side, making him flinch. Did everyone have a tickle spot there? "I'm not kidding, genius," I said. "I have to pay you back somehow for saving me."

"So you offer a different kind of salvation?" Kian prodded. Any trace of laughter or teasing was absent from his tone.

Salvation. An enormous word in both spelling and meaning. Perhaps, he was right—we save people in various ways. I smiled at him, giving him a quick shrug. "If you'll have me," I said. "You could be the inspiration for my next poem."

"You write them?" Kian asked.

"Used to," I said before pivoting. "Still am. I mean, trying to."

He looked ahead, towards the basement's exit. "And you think my nightmares will make good poems?"

"Forget about the poems, then. I just want you to get stuff outta your chest." I frowned. "It ain't much, but I can help you too."

"And I'll take you up on that," he answered, his inflection back to teasing. "I'm just messing with ya."

When I did not comment further, he blew a breath and slumped lower against the pillar. The nightmares started when he was called to service as a reservist. He spent his days in whatever medical ward the higher-ups threw him into, and each day was a wildly different story. A weight settled on my shoulder when he was halfway recounting a woman with singed hair and shrapnel stuck to her cheek. We did not get to the end as his words were replaced by soft puffs of air, and he sagged against me.

I raised my hand and ran my fingers down the tangled strands of hair tickling my neck. They were still soft underneath my touch. He did not stir. Maybe he would not remember any of this when he woke up, but surely, I helped him. It was not about poems or nightmares. He needed rest, and maybe—just maybe—it was my turn to hold him like how he held me.