Rain-soaked
Growing up, I never learned how to be afraid properly.
Whenever thunder cracked the sky open, Roger Ray— my older brother — would take my hand and squeeze it just enough to remind me I wasn’t alone.
He was actually the kind of brother who stood in doorways and made the world feel smaller, manageable.
“Count with me,” he would say during storms. “One… two… three…”
By the time we reached ten, the thunder would soften. Or maybe it didn’t. Maybe I just believed it did because he was there.
We also had some sort of rituals.
Watching sunsets on the balcony while playing our favorite songs through his phone.
We always share food — his food— and him pretending to be annoyed while sliding whatever he had closer to me anyway.
There are nights when sleep wouldn’t come, and he’d read out loud some stories until my breathing evened out.
When my head aches crazily, he would massage it until I feel okay.
Roger Ray was my safe place in a chaotic world.
And I never questioned him. Why would I?
As I grew older, though, he changed.
He still watched over me, but he looked tired. Quieter. Sometimes he would sit beside me without speaking, his gaze unfocused, as if he were listening to something I couldn’t hear.
“Are you okay?” I asked once.
He smiled — small, strained. “Just… a little worn out.”
I thought he was sick. I thought that was why he seemed to fade in and out of my days.
I leaned on him harder then, talking to him about my fears, my loneliness, the way the world felt too sharp sometimes.
He listened. Always listened. But he was slipping and I didn’t understand why.
The night it happened, the air was heavy, thick with rain that hadn’t fallen yet.
I was walking home when someone stepped out of the dark. Armed. Demanding.
My body locked up, fear swallowing my voice whole. The world narrowed until there was nothing but my heartbeat pounding in my ears.
And then — Roger Ray, my older brother.
He was there in an instant, furious and fearless, placing himself between me and the man like he always had. I remember shouting his name. I remember him lunging forward.
But I remember the sound more — a gunshot.
I remember screaming as Roger Ray fell, blood blooming across his shirt, his body crumpling in a way it never had before.
“I’ve got you,” he whispered, breath shallow. “You’re safe. I’m here.”
But he didn’t move after that. No matter how much I begged him to.
The police lights were blinding. The questions came too fast. My answers didn’t make sense to anyone but me.
At the hospital, they asked for my brother’s name. His age. His records.
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They searched. And searched.
And then a doctor sat beside me, voice careful, eyes kind in a way that terrified me.
“Ced,” she said gently, “there’s no one else admitted tonight. No gunshot victim matching your description.”
I laughed. I screamed. I shook.
“He’s right there,” I said. “My brother. Roger.”
The room stayed empty.
That was when someone finally asked the question that cracked everything open: “Ced… how long have you had a brother?”
Therapy came later. Explanations wrapped in soft words.
Dissociative coping.
A protective figure created in childhood.
A mind that learned how to survive on its own.
But for me, Roger Ray wasn’t a hallucination.
He was my shield.
Every moment I thought he protected me — he did.
Just not in the way I believed.
The grief didn’t care about the explanation.
I mourned him like he had lived. Like he had loved me. Like he had sacrificed himself.
Because to me — he had.
Even now, I find him everywhere.
A sweater I swear was his.
Songs I remember him humming.
The balcony where I watched the sunsets with him still ache the same way they always did.
And tonight, the rain finally falls.
I stand under it, letting it soak my clothes, my hair, my skin. The city blurs, lights smearing into color and memory.
I close my eyes, half-expecting to feel his hand in mine.
For a moment, I almost do and maybe that’s okay.
Because even if Roger Ray never existed in the world, he existed in me. He was the part of me that refused to break.
The part that stood up when I couldn’t. The part that carried me through the storm.
The rain keeps falling.
And I stand there alone —
not because he’s gone,
but because I finally learned how to stand without him.
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Dissociative coping is an unconscious, involuntary mental mechanism that disconnects a person from overwhelming stress, pain, or traumatic memories, often leading to feelings of being detached from oneself, emotions, or surroundings. It serves as a protective “escape” during, or after, high-stress events.
To make it simple, Roger Ray is just a part of Ced’s hallucination.
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CHARACTERS:
Celine ‘Ced’ Domingo of Akari Chargers
Roger Ray Pogoy of TNT Tropang 5G
