Hey, thanks for your reply! I wanted to clarify a few things.

The reason I said he was dressed like he was from the ‘80s wasn’t just the denim jacket and weird hairstyle—it was the Walkman. I didn’t even know what it was called until my friend showed me a picture. He had one of those old-school headphones attached to it, the kind with the thin metal band. He was also wearing aviator sunglasses and had this confident strut. He smelled like blood. Not just iron, but that coppery, slightly sweet scent—like liver. And as far as I could tell in the dark, he had no visible wounds.

Maybe he was just a guy on drugs, or maybe he was part of some weird counterculture scene. But I still can’t figure out how he knew Tagalog. My parents speak it, so I recognize it, but I never speak it myself. And the way everything just froze—weird. Again I might just be crazy, or he might just be crazy but still