The night was picture perfect. Calm ocean waves reflected the roundness of the full moon, which provided ample illumination to an otherwise dark evening. The sound of the water splashing on the sand added a beautiful layer to the oh-so familiar sounds of the night. And while the crickets, frogs, and other insects sang like a chorus, Skylar was busily humming sweet nothings over the sound of strumming on the guitar.
"You have a nice voice." Emily smiled as she put her head on Sky's shoulders.
"It's a nice evening." Sky replied.
Skylar was Emily's plus-one at the company's yearly excursion. She had wanted to bring Sky to the holiday parties, but he was out of town for work so she invited him to join their weekend beach bonding instead. This was a joy for Emily, but not everyone is happy.
"Hi, my name is Luis." Emily's office-admirer introduced himself to Skylar.
"Skylar. Nice to meet you." Sky acknowledged the curt handshake.
"Nice guitar playing, Skylar. I used to play back in college but now I'm too busy with work." Luis noticed Sky's strong grip.
"You can call me Sky, for short, Luis. I just started playing. I've found that it's a good way for me to release stress and bring out some of those creative juices out." Sky said nonchalantly.
"I agree. Music can really bring out inspiration. Well, I will leave you two lovebirds to enjoy this wonderful view of the ocean and get back to the bar." Luis left abruptly and headed back to the bar where the others are gathered.
As the music echoed in the night, a strange thing began to happen. Dark clouds appeared and covered the moonlight while a warm drizzle started to pour from the sky.
"I think we should head back to the cabana before the rain starts to pour hard." Sky felt a tinge of danger and wanted to get Emily to safety before he investigates.
"Okay. I will get my things." Emily followed Sky who was already picking up some of their stuff.
As soon as they got inside their accommodation, Sky's intuition intensified. "I will go out to the bar to check up on what's happening with the weather. Maybe the bartender has information."
"Okay, dear. I will take a shower and go to bed. I'm exhausted." Emily was tired from leading some of the day's activities. She did not notice the door closing behind Sky.
"Seems like the night is just starting for the crew." Sky thought to himself. "I better see what's happening along the shoreline."
After walking for a few minutes, Sky turned back and thought that it was a false alarm. He can see from afar that the people were enjoying themselves with the music playing in the wind.
Sky had not used his shadow-walking abilities for a while and was happy to walk like normal people do when, out of the blue, a Siokoy (male sea creature) appeared and charged towards him.
Sky immediately disappeared in the shadows catching the Siokoy off-guard.
Ugh!
One blow brought the Siokoy down causing it to retreat back to the ocean.
"What was that all about?" This was the first time Sky had encountered a Siokoy. He was now curious why it came up from it's home under the water and attack him.
After having a drink at the bar and chatting with the bartender, Sky discovered that there were a few Siokoy attacks that happened in the last few months. He was getting ready to go when...
"Hey, man. How's it going?" Luis was now visibly intoxicated.
"I'm good, man. Just chilling..." Skylar's sense of danger tingled a bit.
Luis swung at him but he was too drunk to hit his mark. His office mates held him back knowing that he's had too much alcohol for the night already.
"Sorry, man. He's had too much of that craft lambanog cocktail already." Jun apologized for his friend.
"No problem, man. I'm good. Thanks." Sky waved goodbye while walking towards their cabana. Emily was sound asleep and did not notice him coming in.
"Good morning, love." Emily was up early.
"Good morning." Sky did not get much sleep while thinking about the Siokoy attacks.
"How did your evening go? Sorry, I was dead tired last night." Emily apologized.
"I had a nice walk alone at the beach, had a bottle of light beer, then went to bed. Not much action." Skylar remarked.
"Well, we still have one more night here. I'm sure we can do something to turn around your boring weekend. Oh, I can already smell the coffee brewing. Shall we head on to the bar area at the beach for breakfast?" Emily was excited.
"Let's go." Skylar wanted to fill up so that he will have enough energy for his plan to get to the bottom of the Siokoy attacks.
The Filipino-themed breakfast was fantastic. Sky had tapsilog while Emily had kesong puti together with her pandesal and kapeng barako.
"We still have some work to finish up this morning but I think we'll be done by two o'clock." Emily remarked.
"No worries, love. I'll find something interesting to do while waiting. This place is full of activities for bored tourists like me." Sky was hoping for a reason to get away from the group.
"Okay, then. See you later, love." Emily went off to the training room.
"See you later." Sky went straight to the beach. He has a plan.
At a place further down the beach. Sky called on his old friend Santelmo (a fire creature who can communicate with water creatures and beings.) to help him with his predicament.
"Are you sure you want to do this, Sky?" Santi was hesitant to call up the Siokoy who attacked Skylar.
"I want to find out why they are attacking tourists, Santi. And this might be my only chance talk with them." Sky was sure that they meant no harm.
Following his friend's instructions, Santi hovered above the water for a few seconds, circled a few times counterclockwise, then clockwise. He stayed still for a longer period, then went back to the beach with his friend and waited.
After a few minutes.
"Nothing is happening, Sky." Santi is known to be impatient.
"Let's wait for it." Sky was confident that something will happen.
Moments later, a few concentric bubbles began to appear; then dozens. A few minutes more and hundreds of bubbles were already visible.
"Wow. I can't count them anymore." Santi was surprised.
One of the Siokoys came forward and talked to Sky. "I am Lakandanum. Why did you call us?" Lakandanum has the ability to talk to human beings telepathically.
"I am Skylar Alcantara. One of your people attacked me last night. I want to know why?" Sky explained his concern.
"Apung Suku attacked you because he was angry at humans for making his offspring sick." Pointing to Apung Suku who was showing his offspring who was sick from the plastic he ingested.
"I can see that you are not an ordinary human being. You can see us and understand what we are taking about. And you have a powerful friend. Can you help us?" Lakandanum understood the situation. He was also frustrated by the events and the negative effects on his people caused by the growing population in the area.
"I'm sorry for the illness of Apung Saku's offspring. I will see what I can do. My only request is to please refrain from attacking humans in the future and just call us if you have any concern. Santelmo will relay the message to me." Skylar was sincerely sorry and already had something in mind.
"As you wish, Skylar Alcantara..." The Siokoy army began to disappear as soon as Lakandanum said goodbye.
"Wow! That was a first." Santi exclaimed.
"Thanks for the help, my friend. I know what to do." Sky hurriedly went back to the resort.
"How was your day so far, love? Sorry, I'm still busy." Emily was apologetic.
"Nothing remarkable. I found a few shells and thought about cleaning up the beach." Sky was setting his plan into action.
"I love the idea, Sky. We were just talking about a team-building activity and this fits with what we had in mind." Emily was happy with the suggestion Sky made.
"Fantastic. Count me in." Sky volunteered to help out in the beach clean up. he knows that this isn't enough to clean the ocean but it's a good start.
Everything went smoothly for the coastal clean-up Emily had planned with her team. She was happy with what they had accomplished.
"That was a nice workout. The team bonded and we were able to gather 30 kilos of trash from the beach. It's terrible." Emily sounded really concerned.
"That much, huh! I hope we can do more next time." Sky's intuition tingled. He could see Luis approaching from the left side.
"Hey, Skylar! I'm sorry about last night, man. I didn't know what I was doing. That Lambanog cocktail got to my head." Luis was genuinely apologetic.
"No worries, man. All good in this corner of the world." Skylar high-fived Luis as he left the couple alone.
"The shadow walker kept his promise and did something about the problem, Apung Suku. Go and take care of your offspring." Lakandanum was watching invisibly from afar and was pleased with what he saw, for now.