The clean sheets of the hotel bed felt alien against his skin. The silence of the air-conditioned room was a dead thing, a sterile vacuum that offered no comfort. The adrenaline from the chase and the kill had faded, leaving behind a strange and hollow hum. He had power, money, and safety, the trifecta he had prayed for in a thousand miserable, shivering nights. But lying here, he felt a new kind of emptiness, a void that a full stomach and a soft bed couldn't fill.
He was a god, but his temple was empty. His power felt pointless without a world to press it against. He craved… input. Sensation. He wanted to see how the little creatures lived, the ones who scurried about their lives ignorant of the new deity walking among them. He didn't want to watch from an overpass anymore. He wanted to be inside, to breathe their air, to stand in the heart of their fragile little realities.
He dressed and slipped out of the hotel, melting back into the humid Manila night. He walked for miles, leaving the tourist districts behind and letting his feet carry him into the labyrinthine streets of a working-class neighborhood. The houses were packed tight, thin walls of unpainted cinder blocks and corrugated tin roofs. The air was thick with the smell of charcoal, laundry detergent, and the faint sweetness of blooming sampaguita vines. This was the world he came from, the world that had chewed him up and spat him out.
He stopped before a small, two-story house that was little more than a box. A single yellow bulb burned over the doorway, illuminating a collection of worn-out slippers. Through the open, un-glassed windows covered only by thin curtains, he could hear the murmur of voices and the tinny sound of a television.
This was the place.
He didn't need a key. He walked to the side of the house, into the narrow, dark gap between it and the neighbor's wall. He found a small window leading to a bathroom. He looked at the simple hook-and-eye latch on the inside. He reached out with his mind, the feeling as natural as flexing a muscle now. The metal hook lifted, swung free of its eyelet, and the window slid open with a faint scrape.
He slipped through the opening, landing silently on the cool tile of the tiny bathroom. He was a phantom, an intruder made of shadow. He held his breath, listening. The family was in the main room, a combined living and dining space just beyond the door. He eased the door open a crack.
They were gathered around a low table on the floor, eating. The father, a lean man in a faded t-shirt, was spooning more rice onto a little boy's plate. The mother was laughing, her face warm in the glow of the television, as a young girl, maybe ten years old, recounted a story from school with dramatic hand gestures. The meal was simple—a platter of rice, a bowl of soupy vegetables, and a few pieces of fried fish, its salty aroma filling the small house.
There were no expensive things. The floor was bare concrete, the furniture was old plastic and worn wood. The television was a small, boxy CRT model from two decades ago. By any measure, they were poor. Their world was a cramped, noisy, hand-to-mouth existence.
But they were happy.
The realization struck Max with the force of a physical blow. It wasn't just an observation; it was an infection. The easy way the father rested his hand on his wife's knee. The way the little boy leaned against his sister, stealing a piece of fish from her plate and getting a playful swat in return. The shared smiles, the effortless intimacy, the uncomplicated warmth that filled the tiny, stuffy room. It was a language he had never been taught, a heat he had never felt.
And it made him sick.
A sour, burning bile rose in his throat. This was the thing he'd seen in the beautiful girl's eyes. This was the treasure the ugly man had possessed. It wasn't money or status. It was this… this disgusting, saccharine contentment.
He stood in the shadows of their home, an invisible poison. Their laughter was a grating noise that scraped at his nerves. Their affection was a gaudy spectacle, a performance put on to mock him. Why them? What had this tired-looking man or this plain woman or these loud children done to deserve this peace? They were just as trapped in the filth of the city as he had been. They were insects, same as him. Why did their anthill glow with warmth while his had been a cold, lonely pit?
The jealousy was no longer a hot spike of rage. It was a cold, creeping nausea. It was a profound, philosophical offense. He looked at the father playfully poking his son, and he felt a chilling desire to simply… stop his heart. He watched the mother smile, and he imagined her face twisting in terror. He had the power to shatter this fragile snow globe in an instant, to turn their warmth to ash.
The thought brought him no satisfaction. Only a deeper, more profound emptiness. Destroying it wouldn't give it to him. He was a god of force and motion, but this quiet, powerful thing in the walls of this house was a magic he couldn't touch, couldn't steal, couldn't understand.
And he hated them for it. He hated them with a purity that eclipsed all his previous rage. He hated them for having something he couldn't take.