ACKNOW LEDGMENTS To the contributors, for being the mysterious forces that guided our hands to every movement. Alone, we are only specks of dust in this great dark universe, but through the crumbs of light you shed, one stroke painted a masterpiece, one word wrote a grand adventure, and one man became a whole island. To the Kapawers, for rowing the boat towards the end of the river crossing no matter how stagnant or how beastly the tides had been. You braved through the storms, hand in hand as we neared the water’s edge. And through each embraced shoulder, it had made every disaster split to reveal the way to paradise. As hope is called to all that are washed by sea, may we drift to new dirt roads, leave only mud behind, and the footprints to trace back home. For without all of you, there would’ve been no warm shelter built to keep us away from the storm. To Ms. Rhiznan Faith D. Fernandez, for being the seer of our novice passions. We wouldn’t have survived all the catastrophies that weighed us down and turned every hurdle into something brighter had it not been for your hand on our shoulders. We thank you for guiding our shots in the dark to land outside perilous thunders but on destinations where it mattered. To Kyle Bryan T. Palparan and Oona Maria Aquilina C. Oquindo, for being the sign post for every crossroad, unraveling new directions where this collected scrambling might go. I admired how you came to the call as soon as the need arose and you remained vigilant through the disasters. Through your talents, passion, and inquisitiveness, the bleakness of the sky and the steepness of cliffs were made clearer towards a utopia I didn’t know could even exist. To Ana Dominique G. Manabat for defying all known conventions of slumber and tearing each stroke of brush a dimension of mysticism. You’ve brought more than color into something incomprehensible but a glimpse of reason. Every translation of your art made little words or big to a reality that I only saw in my dreams. The world might be an unending tragedy filled with questions but you’re certainly one of those mysterious hooded figures in black that tells us how to make sense of things outside our mortality. To the creatives, for welling the endless vial of “the uncertain” with your brilliant minds. As any parchment had once been dark, you’ve patiently filled each corner of the paper with your passion and magic. Truly each page of light torn from your heart will scratch its mark into the veins of these collected remnants and paint us one footprint closer to the answer of our greatest questions. To friends and family, for bearing our cross in this rocky march. For as the great unknowable has cradled us into your arms, it is as known that you have loved and molded us into what we are today. And for this, you are a part of this creation more than the catastrophes that had sundered through each of our hardships. To Sabrina Ysabelle C. Ledesma, for clearing the dust off the sandstorms and pulling me out to somewhere I can see the stars. I treasure how you taught not only me but the entire literary team how to navigate the constellations, that we can chart a path on our own through the wilderness and out of a path of ruin. But you not only did so with passion, but with patience and regard for things that mattered—us. You told us how there are mysteries as vast as the universe and each unexpected catastrophe they bring happens to the best of us. Now, we can easily chain these apocalypses into something that can enlighten us. And to be the bearer of these artifacts you’ve left—I am grateful.
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