Artificial Horizon - A César Fernando Basa x Reader story

LI - Landing

For the first month, everyone assumed that it might be in preparation for some training. The second month, everyone started deducing that he was chosen to be part of pilots to be trained for another type rating, or perhaps, he is using that incentive he received for agreeing to be part of the promotional shooting. Come third month and everyone is already asking if he had resigned or what, but his records remain to still be an employee that even the HR are saying that the man, despite not showing himself off, continue sending the same letters of absence for some reasons. Now, on the fourth month running, I can swear that he is close to receiving a notice that he is fired.

No one had seen him, nor even heard from him since then. Or so I think of...

I am descending the stairs after that exploit of the second floor when something—someone—suddenly catches my eye.

A man of familiar visage had been standing right on the exact same spot as I've looked on intently at the portrait of that fighter pilot hero under Villamor's command. He seems to be staring at it just as equally as I did so earlier; not to mention that as I look on from where I am, it is only his side profile that I can see. And for some reasons, that respective angle reminds me of someone at once.

Not just one person, but two.

I hurry on my steps, trying to catch the man at once. However, I may be daydreaming alone that when I make it downstairs, the said man is gone; but as I draw closer to the portraits by the entrance again, I can swear that it is not just one man that I recognize. That, at that respective profile, I seem to see both the man on the photograph and the missing one from four months ago.

Pero... imposible iyon, 'di ba? I ask myself. Na makita ko rin ang isang tao na paniguradong ayaw magpakita at ang isang tao na mula naman sa nakaraan?

I know that doppelgängers are possible; but not to the extent that I'll even know one, or even find one another staring each other at the face...

At the corner of my peripherals, I notice the man himself out of the museum, heading somewhere that my response had been immediate to run after him. I keep on only catching him in corners, unsure of what to call on to him to catch his attention. I am afraid that I have the wrong man all along, and so I keep chasing after him. It feels like this isn't the first time that I did—albeit physically—as it feels that I've been chasing after him for so long already. Until at the end of the long road, I lose sight of him for a second, that there is no chance that he had been a ghost to just disappear at once. Unless I continue trying to find him as a real person, and the only possible scenario is for him to take a sudden turn. To a place that I didn't expect anyone will suddenly pay visit of... especially if that said person isn't at all religious.

However, I have an inkling gut-feeling that I am after someone who've been quite pious, if not overtly in such a manner but had been a firm believer of the powers from above. And it feels like I am after someone who'll always have some religious item in his person, and be welcoming to the aspect of life and death. As if, I am running for someone who'll always wish to be inside a holy place due to some unfinished promise.

And so, even if losing the chance of ever finding him, if ever he didn't take this path, I dare take the risk of trying to enter the nearby chapel just right next to the very museum itself. I know at first glance that it is one due to its rather out of place structure out of the usual buildings around the area, and the stained glasses and cross featured at the façade. As if everything is heaven sent, the silhouette of the man I've been after for stands there in front of the altar.

His back is on me, and I suddenly have a strange sensation and understanding that this isn't the first time that I did see him in such a way. I seem to know him too well in such a way; that even if we're both lost in the crowd, I'll know that it is him just by that physique. The rather unkept dark hair by now despite how he usually will want to have it properly kept, the broad shoulders of a swimmer, the visible taut and lean muscles of his arms and strong back underneath the white dress shirt he had been wearing with the sleeves folded until his elbows, and the rather slim waist and long legs of his. I can go on to a very long list of knowing him fully even from just that silhouette; and even without finally facing him, I can detail everything of him. As if I have memorized every inch of his skin, and know the feeling of his touch, and that of his comforting smell, and the taste of him all.