The days that followed were heavy, like clouds bloated with unshed tears.
The elders tried their hardest-
visiting every home,
holding circles of stories,
offering wisdom like seeds.
But while some youths listened with polite silence,
others rolled their eyes.
Others whispered behind the elders' backs.
Others slipped away to the visitors' camp, hungry for new promises.
The guardians watched this slow unraveling with aching hearts.
Sierra Madre's forests grew quieter.
Cordillera's winds became restless, unsettled.
Caraballo's rivers trembled with uncertainty.
The world was changing-
and not for the better.
---
One morning, just as the first golden light embraced Sierra Madre's slopes, a sharp metallic sound echoed through the forest.
CHANK!
CHANK!
CHANK!
A sound the mountains had heard before-
but never in such numbers.
Never with such hunger.
Dayang and several young natives-now wearing pieces of metal the visitors had given them-marched toward the heart of the forest carrying iron axes.
Behind them came the visitors themselves.
Their leader, a man the natives called Ilantik due to the strange way he stretched his words, pointed at the massive ancient trees.
"Cut them.
These trees are worth more than any story.
Take them, and you will become rich."
Dayang's eyes gleamed.
He raised his axe.
Sierra Madre's leaves trembled.
When the blade struck the bark of the first ancient narra tree-
one that had watched centuries of people grow-
a deep, sorrowful cry echoed through the mountains.
Birds scattered.
Deer fled.
The forest itself gasped.
Sierra Madre staggered, pain rippling through her entire being like a wound.
"No... my child..."
she whispered to the tree as it groaned under the steel.
Caraballo felt tears dripping from his leaves.
Cordillera clenched his stone fists until shards broke from them.
Another tree fell.
And another.
With every crash,
Sierra Madre felt something inside her break.
Not branches-
but hope.
---
That night, Sierra Madre asked the winds:
"Did I not protect them?
Did I not give them shade, water, shelter, life?"
Her voice trembled through the valleys.
Caraballo hurried to her side, kneeling as thick roots rose from the soil around him.
"Sister... they do not understand what they are doing.
They think the trees will grow back as quickly as their desires."
Cordillera spoke from behind them, voice low and furious:
"They are destroying what keeps them alive."
Sierra Madre placed a hand over her chest,
feeling the pain of every fallen tree.
**"They are young. Lost... misguided.
But must our love for them
be paid in wounds?"**
Cordillera looked toward the horizon where the trees once stood tall.
**"If a child burns his own home,
do we blame the flame?
No. We blame the ignorance."**
Caraballo swallowed hard.
"But still... they are our people."
Sierra Madre nodded, tears glistening on her cheeks:
**"Yes.
Which is why we must endure the pain."**
---
When the Lumalaban elders discovered what the young had done, they rushed into the forest.
The devastation stopped them in their tracks.
What used to be a living cathedral of green...
was now a graveyard of fallen trunks and torn vines.
Amang Lakat fell to his knees.
With trembling fingers, he touched a stump-
still warm, still bleeding sap.
**"Child...
why did you do this?"**
Dayang, still holding his axe, looked away.
"It is just a tree, Lolo."
The old man's voice broke.
"Just... a tree?"
Dayang's jaw tightened.
"You told me stories of the guardians, of spirits, of balance...
but these are stories, Lolo.
The visitors deal with reality.
They give us tools, wealth, new life."
Lakat shook his head, tears streaming down his wrinkled face.
"Anak... this is not new life-
this is the beginning of destruction."
The other young natives murmured among themselves.
"Maybe the elders are jealous."
"They fear change."
"They are stuck in the past."
The words stabbed deeper than blades.
Sierra Madre heard them all-
and it felt like betrayal.
---
That evening, the sky shifted.
Clouds rolled in early.
The winds grew restless.
Cordillera summoned his siblings to a cliff where the whole land stretched below them.
"We cannot ignore this anymore," he said, voice echoing like thunder.
"They dig for gold in my belly.
My cliffs are weakening.
My slopes tremble with every strike of their hammers."
Caraballo nodded miserably.
"They cut my trees faster than I can regrow them.
The rivers are becoming muddy, clouded by their greed."
Sierra Madre wiped tears from her cheeks.
"And if they continue cutting my forests...
the storms I once softened will reach them unbroken."
Cordillera looked at her gently.
"Sister...
you must prepare yourself."
Sierra Madre tilted her head in fear.
"For what?"
Cordillera took a deep breath.
"For a storm we might not be able to stop."
---
Days later, the sky turned an unnatural shade of purple.
Winds howled long before rain fell.
Animals fled from the forests.
Rivers began to swell.
The Lumalaban felt the shift.
They ran to the elders.
"Amang!
Is this another test?"
Lakat looked at the horizon, heart sinking deeply.
"No...
this storm is different.
Stronger.
It is the land crying from our wounds."
The Sumunod didn't believe him.
Dayang scoffed.
"A storm is just a storm.
We have the visitors' tools now.
We can survive anything."
But the elders saw the signs-
and the guardians felt every trembling of the earth.
This was not just a storm.
It was the natural consequence of imbalance.
---
As the winds roared closer, the three mountains rose to their full height.
Sierra Madre spread her surviving forests like wings.
Caraballo rooted himself deep to hold the soil together.
Cordillera braced his peaks against the incoming tempest.
They had done this countless times.
But tonight-
their strength was not whole.
Their wounds were fresh.
Their hearts were heavy.
Cordillera whispered,
"Let us try... once more."
Sierra Madre breathed,
"For them. Always for them."
Caraballo closed his eyes,
"May we endure this again..."
But deep inside,
all three guardians feared the same thing-
**They might not withstand this storm.
Not this time.**