Chapter 3: Whispers on the Wind

Chapter 3: Whispers on the Wind

The discovery of the seventh statue shattered the day. Marco, his face pale and slick with sweat, finally had something tangible to channel his energy into. He barked orders into his phone, demanding a forensics team from the provincial capital, cordoning off the clearing with bright yellow tape that looked garish and flimsy against the oppressive green of the cogon grass. He was a man trying to wrestle an eldritch nightmare into the neat, logical boxes of a standard operating procedure.

Anya watched him, a strange calm settling over her. While Marco saw a crime scene, a gruesome tableau created by a human monster, she saw a message. The scrap of rocket-ship blue fabric wasn’t just evidence; it was a signature. A taunt. The phantom scent of rust lingered in her memory, a foul promise of what had built this thing.

The forensics team arrived hours later, their city efficiency clashing with the slow, sweltering pace of the province. They photographed, they bagged, they measured. They treated the metal effigy with professional detachment, labeling it “Item A.” But their hushed tones and wide eyes betrayed their unease. It was, they all agreed, the strangest thing they had ever seen.

By late afternoon, they had found nothing. No footprints other than the children’s, no fingerprints on the rusted surfaces, no fibers that didn’t belong to Leo Santos. The clearing offered up no secrets. It was as if the seventh statue had simply willed itself into existence.

As the sun began its descent, casting long, distorted shadows that made the cogon grass look like the bars of a cage, the team packed up. “We’ll run analysis on the metal and the soil samples, Detective,” the lead technician told Marco. “But honestly? It’s just old junk. Rebar, pipes, scrap. Nothing to trace.”

“Keep me posted,” Marco said, his voice tight with frustration. He turned to Anya, who hadn't moved from the edge of the clearing for the better part of an hour. “Let’s go, Reyes. We’re done here for today. Staring at it won’t make it confess.”

But Anya felt an invisible tether linking her to the grotesque figure. It stood silhouetted against the dying sun, a jagged black shape that pulsed with a quiet malevolence. “You go ahead,” she said, her voice distant. “I want to review my notes at the house. I’ll follow in a bit.”

It was a lie, and she knew Marco could see it, but he was too drained to argue. “Don’t stay out here after dark, Anya. Please.” The way he used her first name was a plea, a friend’s worry cutting through the professional façade.

She nodded, waiting until the sound of his SUV faded down the dusty track before she stepped over the police tape. The clearing was silent now, save for the incessant whisper of the grass. The six innocent stick-figures seemed to cower in the presence of the seventh.

Drawn by a force she couldn't name, Anya approached the metal monstrosity. In the muted light of dusk, it looked even more menacing. She saw now what the forensics team, in their search for traceable evidence, had missed. They were looking for clues about a killer. Anya was looking for pieces of a life.

Her sharp eyes scanned the chaotic assembly of metal. There, wedged deep in a coil of baling wire, was a scuffed-up plastic bottle cap from a brand of soda popular with local kids. Further up, pressed into a gob of hardened mud and grime holding two pipes together, was a single, perfect glass marble, its colorful swirl a tiny jewel in the filth. Near the base, a small, green plastic toy soldier was half-melted onto a piece of sheet metal, its silent scream forever locked in place.

Each item was a fresh stab of grief. This wasn't just a trophy. It was an archive. A collection. The creature hadn't just taken Leo; it had absorbed the small, insignificant treasures that made up his world.

A profound, soul-deep coldness washed over her, a coldness that had nothing to do with the evening air. Her fingers trembled as she reached out, a single, morbid question compelling the action: what does this feel like?

Her fingertips brushed against the cold, pitted surface of the rebar spine. It felt like old, forgotten violence. Like a tetanus shot waiting to happen. It felt dead.

And then the wind picked up.

It sighed through the tall grass, making the sharp leaves rustle and hiss. But this was different. The sound seemed to coalesce, to funnel directly towards her. Carried on that sudden gust of wind was a sound that didn't belong.

A whisper.

“Tulungan mo ako…”

Help me.

The voice was faint, a child’s desperate plea lost in the static of the wind. Anya snatched her hand back, her heart leaping into her throat. She spun around, eyes wide, searching the impenetrable walls of grass. “Leo?” she called out, her voice cracking. “Leo, is that you?”

Only the sibilant whisper of the grass answered. Was I imagining it? The stress, the lack of sleep, the crushing weight of her own past…

She turned back to the statue, her breath misting in the cooling air. The wind rose again, stronger this time, carrying the voice with it, clearer now, more insistent.

“Tulungan mo ako… parang awa niyo na…”

Help me… I’m begging you…

It was a boy’s voice. It was Leo’s voice. A cry from beyond, a ghost in the machine. Tears pricked Anya’s eyes as she stared at the monstrous effigy that wore the last pieces of his life.

But then, something impossible happened. The whisper continued, but the voice began to change. It stretched, the pitch rising, the timbre becoming thinner, more frantic. It was like tuning an old radio, the station wavering before locking onto a new frequency. A frequency buried in the deepest, most terrified corner of Anya’s mind.

The voice was no longer Leo’s. It was the voice of a little girl.

“Tulungan mo ako!” The whisper was a shriek now, ripped from a child’s throat. “Joshua! Hawakan mo ang kamay ko! JOSHUA!”

Help me! Joshua! Take my hand! JOSHUA!

The world fell away. Anya was eight years old again, her fingers raw, slipping on the rough bark of a coconut tree. The scent of rust was thick in the air, a choking cloud. Below her, in the dark, a small hand reached up, and then was gone. The words she had screamed into the night, the useless, panicked plea she had never spoken aloud to another living soul, were now being played back to her from the heart of the rust and the rags.

This creature, this thing, didn't just remember the night it took her brother.

It remembered her.

Paralyzed by a horror so absolute it stole the air from her lungs, Anya could only stare at the statue. And as her own childhood scream echoed in the sudden, dead silence of the field, a low, groaning sound came from the figure.

Creeeeak.

It was the sound of old, rusted metal, shifting under an impossible weight. One of the pipe-arms, the one adorned with the scrap of a rocket-ship t-shirt, trembled. Then, slowly, with the agonizing scrape of rust on rust, it began to lift.