1 Van-kun

The world has been experiencing the Covid19 pandemic in the past 6 months since late January of this year. Lockdown was implemented since May for 14 days, to control and lessen the spread of the virus.

Yesterday, the news confirmed the first local case in the province and her/his family is possibly having the virus. The country has currently 100 thousand confirmed cases, 30 thousand fully recovered and sadly, 5 thousand passed away.

50 million is the current tally of the world wide cases, 10 million able to fight it w/ their antibodies and 1 million casualties are old people, sick and young kids.

The suspected origin is at a wholesale food market, that sells wild animals and the suspected host was either a bat or pangolin. The rest is history, he's now waiting for his ride since few people allowed to travel in public transport is scarce and expensive these days.

Delivery service is quite a lot these days, since people are mostly at home and scared of getting the virus. Fake news, misinformation and absurd rumors are circulating on the internet, radio and TV w/c mess things even more.

Bert's still in college at the age of 30, while his batch mates are busy getting their license, earning and have a decent place after graduation. Life has changed after his parent's death and people's greed mess the bright ahead of him.

Struggling on his studies, he able to passed the college entrance exam, interview and became an official student of the PLI's (Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Iloilo) architecture dept. was only offered 7 years ago.

The school was established in 1895 as an Iloilo trade Institute known as the Iloilo Vocational Institute. By virtue of Commonwealth Act No. 33 in 1949, the school was converted into School of Science and Arts with Iloilo School of Science and Arts as its official name.

In 2000, a bill was authored by lone congressman of the city; it passed the lower house and senate, and then became an official state university after former President officially signed it.

The current President made a law, about the free education on tertiary level in state universities and college.

Ten years later, he still stuck in making his thesis and why it's so freaking hard in his mind. Internet is slow, expensive and scarce in rural areas like his home island province.

He's checking almost 20 songs in this week alone, the singles were from the artists he followed and listened to killing time as he wait for the bus. Every 15 minutes is the regular interval of the bus schedule, since the pandemic happened and the time was much longer up to an hour.

The fare on bus and boat was doubled due to lesser passengers and the social distancing protocol was implemented. An hour later, the bus is still nowhere to be seen and he's playing games on his tablet.

What he didn't noticed is the incoming delivery van, usually vehicles slows down on this downhill curve road since it's an accident prone area.

The van was faster than normal they do, drivers like to speed up on this area and it started since the road widening has six lanes.

This new road has few defects that the contractor over in order to save money. Like the uneven part that water settles there, moss made slippery and this area is evaded by everyone.

The driver was kind in hurry today, the last schedule of RoRo vessel today is 3 pm and he didn't to be stranded on the island port.

The van accidentally hit the slippery part of the road. The driver tried control the car, as it slides on the curvature and he tried brake but it doesn't work at this moment.

"Thud!" the van hit the flower pot, it went over the barricade and the situation was getting worse. The driver honks the horns to warn the person in the shed, also get the attention of anyone nearby and he covers himself from the impact.

"Craaasshh!!!" the van toppled the makeshift waiting shed, everything underneath it was crushed and that included Bert's body. The accident attracted the neighborhood near the incident, people helps the driver out the car and he quickly spill about Bert.

Everyone knew the person according to driver's description; they all worked together to retrieved Bert's body and a unrecognizable corpse.

The village mourn for his death, the body was moved to his grandparent house and a lot people went to see him a day before he laid to rest.

From elementary to college classmates and teachers are all there. Each said a good word about him; his ashes were next to his mother and father.

All these post death events are shown to him, the gatekeeper of afterlife also watched it together w/ Bert and this will be the basis of the judgment on where he'll go.

"Ding!" A card appears in front of him, this is his ticket to where he'll be going after death and it's still unknown until he was teleported.

"May you live well in your next life, Bert" a farewell message to every soul he encounters.

"Thanks, man!" he stepped on entrance, insert the card and he was sucked into the gateway.

"Shing!" Bert soul vanishes after he entered the gate. A new life, beginning after a tragedy and journey in this timeline.