The next morning, he closed the piggery. He handed the key to the landowner—Mang Tino—and walked down the mountain. He couldn’t bear to watch the total collapse of everything he had built. In his mind, everything was already a loss.
For five years, he never returned to the mountain.
He and Marites moved to Quezon City and worked as factory workers. Life was simple—not rich, but peaceful.
Whenever someone talked about pig farming, Roger would only smile bitterly.
“I just fed my money to the mountain.”
But earlier this year, Mang Tino suddenly called him. His voice was trembling.
“Roger… come up here. Your old piggery… something big happened.”
The next day, Roger traveled more than 40 kilometers up the mountain. The old dirt road was now covered with grass and trees, as if it had been abandoned for a decade.
As he climbed, his chest filled with anxiety and fear.
Was the pig pen already destroyed?
Or was there no trace left of his former dream?
When he turned the last curve of the mountain, he suddenly stopped.
The place he had abandoned… looked alive.
It was no longer the old piggery he had left behind. The rusty tin roof was now covered with vines and thick vegetation. The muddy pens had blended into the forest. Trees around the area had grown tall, and the old pathway was almost unrecognizable.
But that wasn’t what made him stop.
He heard sounds.
“Ngrok… ngrok…”
Roger froze.
Slowly, he walked closer to the fence that was almost buried under tall grass. When he peeked inside the old pen, he stepped back in shock.
There were pigs.
Not just one or two—but many.
Large ones with thick bodies. And several small piglets running around.
The thirty piglets he had left five years earlier seemed to have turned into an entire herd.
“No… that’s impossible…” he whispered.
Mang Tino, who had been walking behind him, stepped closer.
“That’s what I was telling you,” he said softly. “They didn’t disappear.”
“But… how did they survive?” Roger asked, still unable to believe what he was seeing.
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