The Seventh Moon

1. In Danger

My life has been a total disaster. Everything that I believed as the truth, were actually lies. And all the lies I knew were actually real.

I have always thought there was something wrong with me. I mean, there is indeed something odd. I feel uncomfortable with almost everything else; like the feeling that I'm being watched at whenever I go, nightmares about monsters and uncanny figures, life-threatening situations. And to top it off, also a father that's always too busy to take care of me and would avoid, at all costs, any topic about my mother.

Things like that really happen a lot, and they're almost normal to me now.

  Just to tell you, everything I'd say would be really weird for you to perceive. I didn't really like being oriented into a world I never knew exist. I don't enjoy traveling into that world knowing that anytime, I'm just going to die because of some peculiar enemies. But those things changed me and my life became really overwhelmingly awesome starting on the day of my fourteenth birthday.

I'll acquaint myself to you as Chris Garcia. Thirteen years of uncertain existence; half-American and half-Filipino. Well, I have so much for those bloodlines. But let me tell you, you'll know what I mean and how I discovered who I truly am after my birthday.

Until a few months ago, I've been living with my father, my stepmom and half-sister. Our house was located in Orlando, Florida.

I knew nothing about my real mother since my dad never told me anything about her. We don't even have a picture of her, which made me ask my dad repeatedly about her, but of course, he would just shut the topic down.

I remember one time when I asked Dad who's my mother. He would look at me as if I just asked a very hard personal question. "Don't bring that up again, Chris," he'd say with his eyes turning away from me as fast as possible.

The truth is I'm not sure why Dad acted indifferently every time I ask him about Mom. I don't know if they had an argument before or something. Or if mom died after I was born and he was perhaps blaming me for everything. Considering that I am his son, I deserve to know at least a bit of information about her. Anything at all.

That's also the reason why I knew nothing about my mother. I don't know what happened to her, I don't know her name, or where she is. Well, except for one; I know she's a Filipino.

Well, my father is half-Filipino, which made me, like, a three-fourth Filipino now, I guess. Grandpa is pure American while Grandma is Filipino. Dad always wanted me to call my grandpa as lolo, and my grandma, lola. When he was young, he stayed and studied in Manila, Philippines, and grew up as a Filipino. Like me, he hasn't inherited anything from his father except for his nose, which makes him look more Filipino than American.

He's fluent in Tagalog, and so am I. I didn't actually learn the language because like I said, I lived in Florida since I was born and Dad never wanted me to go to Philippines. He taught me the language himself, or sometimes my Filipino nanny would. And I guess even before Dad met my mother, our family already had a long history with Filipinos.

I soon believed that my mom is a Filipino and even found some proofs. Dad kept some old stack of papers in the attic long ago, which I secretly stole and hid it in my room. It was all about the Philippine mythology and all those folklores, epics and some weird figures. I got interested with it so I kept it. It doesn't actually help me conclude that mom's a Filipino because of that, but Dad's obsession with Philippine myths seemed related with it.

Every night, I read them before I go to sleep. The book was, of course, made by my dad as a research for something I don't know. It's more like a journal. If there's one more thing I do whenever I read them is to cautiously make sure Dad won't find out about it or else he'll burn it instantly and ground me for weeks just because of touching his stuff without his permission. I can't let that happen.