Chapter 2: There’s No Such A Family
992 Words
THIRD PERSON POV
Angeles City. May 1, 2026. 1:17 AM – 4:02 AM.
INT. NYX’S BEDROOM - NIGHT
The room is lit only by a LAPTOP. FAN SCREECHES. NYX, 18, types frantically. Search history on screen:
Revenar Philippines — No results
Revenar family tree — No results
Revenar + skeleton key + 3:03 AM — No results found
NYX
(to herself)
You don’t just not exist.
The internet didn’t know Revenar.
Nyx tried every combination. R-E-V-E-N-A-R. R-E-V-E-N-O-R. R-E-V-E-N-N-A-R. She added Philippines. She added Pampanga. She added family. Google offered her revenue, reverent, and a car dealership in Quezon City. The name didn’t exist. Not on f*******:. Not on Ancestry. Not on the PSA database she hacked into with a friend’s login.
It was 1:17 AM. The electric fan in her room had been dying for three years and tonight it chose to scream. Metal on metal, like a child dragging a knife down a chalkboard. Outside, the street was empty. Holy Week hangover. Even the stray dogs were quiet. Except one. Somewhere near the church, it howled once, sharp, then stopped. Like it had been told to.
She typed “Revenar” + “skeleton key” + “3:03 AM” into the search bar. The cursor blinked. Then blinked again. The page refreshed itself.
No results found.
Not Did you mean… Not Showing results for… Just No. Like the internet had slammed a door.
Her phone was face-down on the desk. The voter’s stub lay beside it. The ink had stopped bleeding, but REVENAR was still gone. Nyx Aurelia sat in a black halo. She touched it. Her finger came away clean. The ink was dry. The name was just… absent.
At 1:44 AM, she went deeper. She searched “3:03 AM deaths Philippines”. That gave her forums. Ghost stories. Oras ng demonyo, people called it. The devil’s hour. But one post wasn’t about ghosts. It was a scanned newspaper from 2008, posted by a local history blog in 2019. The blog was dead now. The image was still cached.
SunStar Pampanga, October 12, 2008.
DEL PILAR ORPHANAGE FIRE: 14 CHILDREN DEAD, 1 UNCLAIMED
Barangay Del Pilar, San Fernando – A midnight fire razed the St. Martha’s Home for Girls. Thirteen bodies were identified by next of kin. One child, estimated age 6, remains unclaimed. Cause: faulty wiring. Time of incident: approx. 3:03 AM.
Nyx read it once. Then again. The date matched the safety deposit box. October 10, 2008 was the last time Box 303 was opened, according to the rosary key she wasn’t supposed to have. The time matched the dog. The time matched the clocks in her dream. The age matched the photo she hadn’t found yet but could already see: a little girl in a white dress, standing too straight, with eyes that didn’t understand funerals.
She opened her DepEd portal. Her LRN was there. Her grades. Her Form 137. Records started at Grade 2, 2014, MacArthur Elementary. No Kinder. No nursery. No Form 138 before that. Her first ID picture loaded slowly. Age 7. Hair cut short, like a boy’s. School uniform too big. And the scar. A thin white line on her chin, already healed. Mateo said bike accident when she was six. She didn’t remember a bike. She didn’t remember falling. She didn’t remember six at all.
At 2:11 AM, she checked the PSA site again. Typed her name. REVENAR, NYX AURELIA.
No record found.
She typed DE LOS SANTOS, NYX AURELIA.
The page lagged. Then loaded.
Certificate of Death. Registry No. 2008-13-04512. DE LOS SANTOS, NYX AURELIA. Female. Age 6. Died: October 12, 2008. Barangay Del Pilar, City of San Fernando. Cause: Smoke inhalation. Informant: St. Martha’s Home for Girls.
Nyx stares. Touches her chin. The scar.
There was a scanned image. She clicked it.
The certificate was real. SECPA paper. Dry seal. But the signature on Mother was Lilia A. De Los Santos. And the signature was identical to the one on Nyx’s own affidavit of delayed registration from 2009. The one Mateo kept in a folder marked Important – Do Not Lose.
Lilia A. De Los Santos died in 1998. Car accident. That’s what Mateo said. That’s what the nonexistent obituary said.
Nyx closed the laptop. Her hands weren’t shaking. They were too still. Like they’d forgotten how.
Down the hall, Mateo’s door was closed. No light under it. But she could hear him. Not snoring. Not talking. Praying, maybe. But not in any language she knew. It wasn’t Latin. It wasn’t Kapampangan. It was low, rhythmic, and wrong. Like metal scraping bone. Like a rosary being dragged across teeth.
At 3:00 AM, her phone lit up.
Unknown number. No name. Just digits she didn’t recognize.
One text:
“Don’t look for them. They’re looking for you.”
She didn’t drop the phone. She set it down, screen up, like it was a spider.
At 3:03 AM exactly, the power died. The fan stopped screaming. The darkness was total.
And from the hall, Mateo’s praying stopped.
Then, very close, from under her bed or inside her pillow:
Tick.
Like a second hand.
Like the skeleton key had a heartbeat.
The POWER DIES.
Total darkness.
NYX
(whispers)
Dad?
Silence.
Then, from UNDER THE BED:
Tick. Tick. Tick.
INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT
Dark. Only the glow of NYX’S PHONE as she opens her door.
MATEO’S DOOR is closed. No light underneath. The CHANTING has stopped.
Nyx takes one step. The FLOORBOARD CREAKS.
MATEO (O.S.)
(from behind his door. Calm. Too calm.)
You should sleep, Nyx.
NYX
(freezes)
I was thirsty.
MATEO (O.S.)
There’s no water at 3:03.
Beat.
NYX
How did you—
A long pause. Then: the sound of a DEADBOLT SLIDING. From inside his room. Like he’s locking himself in.
Nyx backs into her room. LOCKS her door.
She puts the KEY in a sock. Shoves it in her drawer. Buries it under shirts.
But it still TICKS.
- Writer
