"Ashes of Crestfall: The Rise of Aaron San Agustin"

Each mile closer to Crestfall felt like peeling back layers of his life. Beneath the hardened soldier and forgotten city worker lay the boy who once ran barefoot through narrow dirt roads, who learned to keep his voice soft to avoid angering a father always too tired, too bitter.

But he wasn't that boy anymore.

When the bus finally stopped at the Crestfall terminal—a small concrete shed with faded paint and broken benches—he stepped off into a warm morning breeze scented with dry grass and earth. Nothing had changed here. The distant mountains still loomed silent and unmovable, the cracked roads still wound through rows of rusted tin rooftops and tangled electrical wires.

He walked down the familiar narrow street lined with mango and jackfruit trees, their heavy branches dipping low over fences patched with scrap metal. Dogs barked lazily as he passed, and neighbors peered at him from behind threadbare curtains, their eyes narrowing with vague recognition.

Finally, he reached a small bungalow at the end of the lane. Its white paint had yellowed with age, and flowering vines curled around its rusted gate. He paused, staring at the old mailbox etched with peeling letters: Colleen San Agustin.

He opened the gate and stepped onto the tiled porch. Before he could knock, the door swung open.

There she stood—Aunt Colleen. Time had bowed her back slightly, and silver streaked her black hair tied neatly in a low bun. But her eyes remained the same, soft and brown and filled with a quiet, unbreakable strength.

For a moment, neither spoke. Her gaze traced over him, over his broad shoulders, sun-darkened skin, sharp eyes, and the faint scars along his arms. Then tears welled up, spilling silently down her wrinkled cheeks.

He lowered his duffel bag and stepped forward, wrapping his arms around her small frame. She pressed her face against his chest, trembling with silent sobs.

After a while, she pulled back just enough to look at him, wiping her tears with the edge of her worn housedress.

"You're home," she whispered.

He nodded, his throat tight with emotion. She gestured for him to come inside.

The bungalow smelled of boiled ginger tea and old wood. A simple wooden table sat at the center of the small kitchen, its surface polished from decades of use. Photos lined the shelves—some of him as a boy in worn clothes, some of his mother, her face forever etched in quiet sadness.

Aunt Colleen poured him a steaming cup of tea, her hands shaking slightly with age. He watched her move about the kitchen, the same way she did when he was a child, humming under her breath as if to chase away the silence.

When she finally sat across from him, she studied his face carefully.

"You've… you've changed so much," she said softly.

He nodded, staring into the swirling tea. For a long moment, they sat in silence broken only by the ticking of an old wall clock.

Then he spoke, his voice rough. "Tell me about my mother."

Her eyes softened with sorrow. "She loved you, Aaron. More than anything in this world. Even when things… fell apart with your father, she always held onto you. You were her reason to keep breathing."

He clenched his hands around the warm cup. "Did she… did she ever regret it? Having me?"

"No." Aunt Colleen's voice was firm, cutting through the quiet like a blade. "Never. She only regretted not being able to give you the life you deserved."

His chest ached at her words. The memory of his mother's tired eyes and silent prayers at dawn flickered through his mind. Back then, he never understood the weight she carried. Now, he felt it in every scar etched onto his skin.

He spent the rest of the day helping Aunt Colleen tend to her small vegetable garden and repairing broken hinges around the house. In the evening, they sat under the cracked porch light, listening to crickets sing in the darkness.

For the first time in years, Aaron felt something like peace. The Army taught him to survive. The city taught him to endure. But Crestfall reminded him why he needed to keep going at all.

Because here, in this quiet forgotten town, lay the truth of who he was—and the beginnings of who he was meant to become.