“You knew I was skipping and you didn’t rat me out.”
“This isn’t about you, Nika. I didn’t want to stress Ma.”
“You were protecting me.” I beam at her. “You were saving me from a consequence of my actions.”
Achi bristles with the accusation. “Well, don’t expect me to do it again. If you don’t get your act together, I’m not defendingyou in front of the faculty.” I keep teasing her that I’m her soft spot as she flips open her iPad and places it on top of the comforter.
I lean closer to her while she scrolls through Netflix. Once again, she ignores all my critically acclaimed suggestions. “The new K-drama I’ve been watching is pretty good.”
Achi makes a face. “Aren’t the episodes, like, three hours long?”
“Remember when you gave a talk at school about my generation’s short attention span?” I ask. “That’s you. You’re the problem.”
She ignores me and angles the iPad away from me so I can’t see. “Why is thisPagpagmovie on my recently watched list?”
“I don’t know. You have weird taste, Ach.” I shrug, avoiding suspicion.
She still tilts her head at me, and pretty soon, I start hearing the film’s opening credits.
“Thisis what you’re watching?” I ask.
“I’ve never watched Seph’s movie before.”
My eyes roll to the top of my head. “This isn’t Seph’s movie.” Regardless, Achi still pressed play, so I ask her to turn up the volume.
Achi rewinds the movie to the beginning, and I pay more attention once we pick up where Kayla and I left off. After a group of teenagers break superstitions that should be observed during a wake, a ghost suddenly comes back to haunt and kill them.
When one of the girls sees a shadow lurking through her home, she assumes it’s her boyfriend surprising her instead of the actual ghost murderer on the loose. The girl proceeds to follow the ghost around the dark on her own.
“Stupid,” Achi and I mutter at the same time.
Eerie music builds until the ghost appears and gouges out the girl’s eyes.
“She wouldn’t die instantly from the ghost ripping out her eyes,” Achi says. “She would be blinded, but she would have to lose forty percent of her blood to die.”
“You know way too much about murder.”
Two more dead bodies (and two more death probability analyses from Jackie Ilagan) later, the movie reveals the truth about Roman the ghost. When Roman passed away in a fire, his wife made a pact with the devil to bring him back to life. The devil’s condition for his resurrection: Ghost Roman has to murder nine people.
And that’s where Celebrity Moseph King comes into the picture. When ghost Roman tracks down Kathryn’s character and threatens to stab her heart, a little Seph shields her and cries in tears, “My heart is yours!”
Cue very extra-dramatic music when Seph’s heart gets pierced and Kathryn Bernardo sobs while cradling his body as the light in his eyes goes out.
For an eight-year-old, it’s pretty decent acting—but there’s no way in hell I’ll ever admit that to Seph’s face.
“Hey, what if you were Roman’s wife in the movie? Would you do the same thing?”
Achi side-eyes me. “Are you asking me if I’d make a deal with the devil?”
“Hypothetically,” I stress. “Would you exchange murder to bring your dead husband back to life?”
“I don’t even have a husband.”
I groan. “You’re the worst at this game.”
While more people die and Roman’s wife defends her actions by saying all she wanted was to bring her family back together, I ask Achi about Ma.
“… How is she?”
