Chapter Forty Eight: Delusions

Maria de Guzman was starting to experience the worst nightmares of her life. The nightmares are not just about simple monsters who devour and scare children from venturing into the uncertainty of darkness. Of course, it was more substantive than that. The nightmares are consistently in the form of gloominess but under the guise of the endless possibility of fantasies, contained in a seemingly innocent dream.

In this particular instance, the dreams are revolving around vampires and werewolves. They are physically scary and ruthless in the depiction of the scenes in the said dreams as processed by the mind's physiological function. But the bizarre thing about this distinct happening is that Maria wasn't scared of them at all.

Because of this, instead of being frightened, Maria became curious about these two creatures that has become the prominent features of her nightmares. The curiosity was there from the very beginning, and this curious behavior was starting to turn into an obsession. Although vampires and werewolves are slightly different, Maria is more familiar with common mythical creatures in Filipino folklore, like the Aswang and the Lobo.

However, the images portrayed in her nightmares (or dreams, a more politically correct term for being interesting) are somewhat similar to mythical creatures that are created for entertainment purposes, which, for her, is the complete understanding of gothic features of a story arc, like a plot twist to a film or the shocking ending to a story. For her innocent mind, the dreams are harmless, dismissed as mere fiction, just a product of someone's imagination.

She has no knowledge of anything about a Highway or a momentum of any sort that these creatures might possess through her dreams and fantasies. All she cares about, for now, is the calling of her curiosity.

And this is where the main problem becomes evident.

Father Christmas was on his way from mirror to mirror, trying to locate the intensity of the momentum of these creatures from children to children before the gifting season begins. The Mirrorites are there to support the "secret" operation of The Village's Mayoralty Commission, as they gather pertinent evidence in the wake of this journey, on the way to the Philippines and locate the child Maria, in the humble province of Nueva Ecija.

It is as if the wind blowing from the surrounding mountains of this province (mostly rice fields) is the prelude of what is yet to come, and the preparations are seem insufficient at this point. The way Maria was being lured into the opening of the portal will happen earlier than what was hoped for.

The Mayoralty Commission's operation to delay this event from happening is already running full speed, and the Christmas Corporation will meet the peril head-on if necessary under the prevailing circumstances.

Elves, Little Drummer Boys, and Mirrorites alike are all ready to take on responsibility.

Humanity must be saved from a future of false promises, and the fight for these noble causes starts now.

Father Christmas must race through time before the danger arrives and be able to get there beforehand.

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This Chapter is sponsored by Asics.