Dead Reckoning - A Gregorio del Pilar x Reader story

XII - Adronitis

n. frustration with how long it takes to get to know someone—spending the first few weeks chatting in their psychological entryway, with each subsequent conversation like entering a different anteroom, each a little closer to the center of the house—wishing instead that you could start there and work your way out, exchanging your deepest secrets first, before easing into casualness, until you've built up enough mystery over the years to ask them where they're from, and what they do for a living.

* * *

To be honest, Vicente Enriquez stripped down his clothes, leaving himself on his shorts alone. Surprisingly, he has an inner shirt with him that he had also lended to me, in exchange of my blouse and saya. He also handed me his pants that is a little loose but will do as I keep a hold of it by the waist, and they've instructed me to tuck my hair underneath a straw hat.

It so happens that everyone plans to enter Paombong on plain sight. And that the very raiding as per Goyo's words will be conducted on Sunday. It was Friday when I've arrived, and someone told me that day's date, making me blushed a little and all again remember that the year that this happened was about a hundred years from the day I was truly born.

Anyway, I've entered Paombong in Enteng's clothes along with him and Goyo—Enteng wearing my clothes, while Goyo was just as casual him, except for his top uniform and the clothes he has had been converted to some stack of fabric as some sort of a deliveryman. No one spat an eye at us, and we headed straight to where everyone was told to gather.

I've been eagerly waiting for another women, so happens that I was the only one that had been pulled in whatever plan the men has. And when I've tried to ask Isidro about what was going on, he was immediately ordered by Goyo to do something else.

I hadn't seen a trace of him after that.

After all, the only ones who've stayed on this so-called safe house had been me and a selected other men that I don't know. Well, except for Goyo, who seems to keep his eyes focus on my actions as he orders me here and there as well, while still wearing this rather too large clothes that Vicente originally owns.

He considers me as the only person able to move in and out of the house without even being suspicious, because, according to him, "Walang kaagaw-agaw ng atensyon sa iyo, Pendejo. Pwera na lamang sa pagiging pendejo mo." And he laughs. As if it is a laughing matter.

Ito ba talaga ang silbi ko sa larong ito? Maging alila nitong loko na ito?

Oh! I mustn't forget that he is also the man behind this plan of raiding Paombong. The person that made me land in the clothes of a man I barely knew except for a story told by Isidro to me, who is also starting to be suspicious for me if he is really here to help me or send vague messages at me on how I am to finish and succeed in this game.

Saturday evening, I almost can't feel my entire arms and legs from the straight hours of running and heading to this place and the next as per Goyo's orders. I end up like some runner, which I had only seen from the movies as a boy's work during the medieval times. This is some like abuse, or is all of this part of the game's mechanism? Whatever.

I end up heading straight to the vacant bed due to my exhaustion. I didn't even eat something from the dinner that I even helped to make. The moment that my body feels the bed and my head onto the pillow, I almost wish to start drifting to sleep, when suddenly, the door opens without any notice, and Goyo walks in before closing it behind him. I eye him. "Alam mo na mali na pumasok sa kwarto ng babae ng walang pahintulot, ano? Kala ko pa naman ay napakagalang ng mga lalaki sa panahon na ito?"

Goyo leans by the door itself as he laughs, interested. He is holding something neatly folded, and I don't care to find out what it is. Especially whatever he has could mean trouble. He says with a slight shake of his head, "Alam mo, kung magpapaka-babae ka lang, madaming manliligaw sa iyo."