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THE DARKNESS BEHIND HIS EYES

He had lived in darkness for twelve years, and no one suspected the terrifying secret hidden inside his eyes.

Ricardo Villanueva, one of the most powerful technology tycoons in the Philippines, had tried everything.
Top ophthalmologists in Singapore and Switzerland, experimental treatments in Tokyo, even faith healers deep in Mindanao. Nothing worked.

His son Mateo, the heir to his vast empire, lived in complete blindness.

Every diagnosis was the same: unexplained, irreversible loss of sight.

Eventually, Ricardo accepted what he thought was fate—watching his child grow up surrounded by wealth, education, and comfort… yet locked in a world without light.

THE GIRL WHO WALKED IN UNINVITED

One afternoon, while Mateo played the piano in the garden of their mansion in Alabang, a small figure slipped past the gates.

She was barefoot, wearing worn-out clothes, her hair tied loosely with a string. Her eyes were large, alert—too sharp for a child who begged for coins near traffic lights.

Her name was Sofia.

The security guards rushed toward her, but Mateo lifted one hand.

“Let her stay,” he said quietly.

He couldn’t see her—but he felt her presence. Something about her disturbed the stillness of his world.

Sofia didn’t ask for money.

Instead, she stepped closer and said bluntly, with the honesty of a street child:

“Your eyes aren’t broken. Something is inside them, keeping you from seeing.”

Ricardo bristled with anger.

A beggar girl claiming to know more than the country’s best neurologists? Ridiculous.

But Mateo reached out, found her hand, and gently guided it to his face.

Sofia placed her fingers on his cheeks.

Then—without hesitation—she slid a fingernail beneath his eyelid.

“Get away from him!” Ricardo shouted.

Too late.

With one swift, horrifying motion, Sofia pulled something from Mateo’s eye.

It wasn’t a tear.
It wasn’t dirt.

It was alive.

Dark. Glossy. Moving.

Ricardo went pale.

THE THING THAT LIVED IN THE DARK

The object in Sofia’s palm was the size of a fingernail.
Its black shell shimmered like oil on water. It looked like a tick—but its shape was too precise, too unnatural.

It writhed.

Mateo couldn’t see it—but he felt something lift inside his head, like a lock snapping open.

“Security! Grab that girl!” Ricardo shouted.

Sofia calmly opened her palm.

The creature let out a thin, shrill sound—almost electronic.

Then it jumped.

Not toward Ricardo.

Toward the shadow beneath the piano.

“Don’t step on it,” Sofia warned sharply.
“If you crush it here, it’ll release spores.”

The guards froze.

The creature slid unnaturally fast, seeking darkness.

“What is that thing?” Ricardo whispered.

“A Nocturne,” Sofia replied.
“They live where light has been forcibly shut out.”

Mateo spoke, his voice tight.

“There’s another one,” he said.
“My other eye burns.”

Ricardo felt ice flood his chest.

THE NEST

Sofia knelt near the piano, staring at a small crack near the wall.

“There’s a nest,” she said quietly.
“That one was only a scout.”

Ricardo swallowed.
“Then what were they doing to my son?”

“They weren’t stealing his sight,” Sofia said.
“They were protecting something you didn’t want to see.”

Without hesitation, Mateo extended his hand.

“Remove the other one,” he said. “I trust you.”

This time, Ricardo didn’t stop her.

From Mateo’s other eye, Sofia pulled out a larger Nocturne—heavier, darker.

It lay still, obedient.

Suddenly, Sofia cried out—not in fear, but pain.

“They’re guarding something bigger,” she said.
“Something buried.”

From inside the wall came a sound—wet, multiplying.

Then the smell: metallic, rotten, like burnt wiring after a storm.

The lights in the garden went out.

Not from a power failure.

A massive shadow passed over the house.

The Nocturnes were home.

THE SECRET IN THE WALL

Ricardo ordered the wall torn down.

Behind it was a nest—dozens of Nocturnes, pulsing, feeding on the darkness created by Mateo’s blindness.

But at the center was something else.

A small wooden music box.

Ricardo recognized it instantly.

It had belonged to Mateo’s mother.

She had died twelve years earlier—in a car crash on EDSA, the same day Mateo went blind.

Inside the box was not a dancer, but a photograph.

Mateo at seven. Smiling beside his mother.

On the back, frantic handwriting:

“He saw everything. I had to hide this.
If Ricardo finds out, everything will fall apart.”

Mateo gasped.

“The accident…” he whispered.
“It wasn’t an accident.”

A man stepped from a hidden service passage—Daniel Cruz, a former engineer Ricardo had fired years ago.

Gun raised.

“The boy was never meant to remember,” he hissed.

Chaos followed.

Daniel confessed: corruption, threats, the chase that caused the crash.

Mateo had seen it all.

The Nocturnes weren’t a disease.

They were a mechanism—designed to bury trauma in darkness.

THE END OF THE NIGHT

Daniel was arrested.

Mateo’s vision returned slowly—light bleeding back into the world.

The first thing he saw was Sofia.

“Why did you help me?” he asked.

She shrugged.

“I had one too,” she said softly.
“Mine didn’t blind me. It taught me how to see darkness in others.”

She left before sunrise.

No money. No reward.

Only one request:

“Don’t hide from the truth again.”

Because the worst blindness isn’t losing sight.

It’s choosing not to see.

And that’s something no billionaire—
no matter how powerful—can ever buy.