Tap. Tap. Tap.
Fingers hammered the phone screen like they were possessed, tapping and tapping the already rough screen protector of the mobile phone—maybe from too much use. Different lights flashed, illuminating the visible face of the young man as everything around him was too dark.
"Left flank—LEFT! Yes, yes, focus the mage, FOCUS THE MAGE—HAHAHA, got the bastard!"
On the screen exploded carnage: fireballs, plasma lances, swords sparking in a blizzard of pixels. But then, the screen suddenly shut down. Everything was now dark; the room was too dark for anyone to see. Then a voice muttered—of course, the one who had been playing the mobile game.
"Ahh... When will the electricity be back?"
He blew air through his nose, already numb to the long brownout. Somewhere out there, a lineman must have received many curses from many people. He put the phone on the bed and looked at the only glowing red light on the clock near him. It was 8:03 a.m. He moved his body, sitting up on the bed with little difficulty.
"Ouch... my body..." he said as he stood up. Bare feet smacked the cold concrete. He shoved the window open, and the morning sun stabbed him square in the face. This momentarily blinded him because of the sudden light, revealing the face of a young man with pale brown skin that hadn't felt real daylight in weeks. Narrow shoulders begging for protein and actual sun. Eyebags deep enough to smuggle coins. Short black hair sticking out like it had lost a fight with static. The face of any random dude you'd swipe past on the street—deliberately forgettable.
He looked at the clear blue sky outside and smelled the air.
*What a nice day if you're not thinking about food and rent.*
*Should I go home now? Maybe they're now cultivating the cornfield.*
*Not here spending my lonely days.*
Outside: jeepneys coughing black smoke, tricycles screaming their horns, and the smell of air that smelled like the neighbor frying eggs and rice for breakfast, mixing with the smoke coming from the vehicles. At the side of the street were skeletal trees still standing after the last super-typhoon had ripped them bare.
"Hoo.... Tahooo!" The voice of the shouting taho vendor was heard on the street where people were walking.
Then he saw some small kids in school uniforms, which surprised him and made it seem he remembered something. He immediately looked at one side of the room where the paper calendar was hanging on the wall.
Monday.
It was Monday.
"Shit—"
Blue towel ripped off the nail with a sharp tug, door slammed wide open with a bang that echoed down the narrow hallway. He sprinted to the communal bathroom, rubber slippers slapping loudly against the rough concrete floor, heart already pounding in his chest as the reality sank in. Someone else arrived almost at the same time, their footsteps echoing just behind him.
"Going to work?" the pretty young woman with silky black hair asked him. She was also carrying a white towel on her shoulder and a small bucket—like something you'd put soup in.
"Nah... I'm going to campus," he said, voice tight, forcing calmness while his pulse raced.
"Ah... I see..." the young woman said. Then the two of them fell silent while listening to someone taking a bath in the single bathroom that all the boarders used. Water splashed steadily against plastic buckets, the faint scent of cheap shampoo and soap drifting out from under the door. The air felt thick and humid, heavy with the shared breath of too many people in too small a space. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, the cold concrete biting into his soles, every second stretching painfully long.
*Ah... I'm late...* he exclaimed in his thoughts, stomach twisting with dread.
The bathroom door suddenly creaked open with a groan, releasing a puff of warm, soapy steam. A wet young woman stepped outside, dripping slightly onto the floor. He lunged forward instinctively, but caught himself when he saw the young woman beside him also moving and looking at him.
"Are you in a rush?" the young woman asked, her voice soft over the distant roar of morning traffic.
"Nah... you can go first," he said through a strained smile, the words tasting like regret.
*Anak ng tinapa! Ladies first, ladies first—who spread that saying?*
Two hours later, he was half-jogging toward the university gate, lungs burning from the humid air thick with exhaust fumes, wrinkled uniform clinging uncomfortably to his sweat-damp skin. The sun beat down mercilessly on his neck, each step sending jolts through his aching legs. Stray dogs barked at his heels, tricycle horns blared in his ears, and the sharp smell of street food—grilled skewers and overripe mangoes—mixed with diesel as he weaved through the chaotic crowd. His backpack thumped rhythmically against his back, almost weightless as it carried only one notebook and a low-battery phone. The guard at the gate threw the usual suspicious squint, one eyebrow raised as if to say *late again*.
*ID. Shit, the ID.*
Bag unzipped mid-stride. Notebook, phone, ID. He yanked the lace over his head just as he crossed the invisible boundary.
Safe. Again.
Campus thrummed—couples glued at the hip, study groups yelling about yesterday's lecture, gamers howling over last night's ranked losses. He blocked it all out. One more absence and he was looking at another warning. At this rate he'd flunk the subject before midterms even showed up.
*Screw it. Afternoon classes anyway.*
He decided to spend his remaining time in the library to kill boredom.
Inside: cold air slapped his face, carrying the familiar musty smell of old paper mixed with the faint bitterness of morning coffee someone had spilled and never fully cleaned. He walked around the stacks of books, snatched the thickest one he spotted—something on neuroscience—claimed the quietest corner, and dropped into the creaky wooden chair.
He never planned to read.
Ten minutes later he was fifty pages deep, eyes devouring diagrams of the prefrontal cortex.
*So that's why drunk people can't walk straight or shut the hell up—their neocortex is basically drowned in ethanol. Higher reasoning offline, impulse control zero.*
He flipped the page.
*Wait—if the neocortex does logic and planning, what part hijacks everything when someone's angry enough to kill? Amygdala hijack? Rogue dopamine loops?*
Three hours vanished without a trace. He shut the book halfway, leaned back, and stared at the harsh fluorescent lights buzzing faintly overhead.
*Sigh… if people spent even five percent of their scrolling time on shit like this, half the garbage decisions on my feed wouldn't exist.*
Self-aware smirk.
*Social media, games, endless reels—same damn mechanism as booze, just slower poison. Dopamine drip instead of ethanol flood. Way more addictive because it never hands you the hangover… until one day it does.*
He rubbed his eyes hard enough to see sparks. He looked around and, at one corner, saw a beautiful young woman with a blessed chest. He was stunned for a second, which she noticed; she instantly looked back at him. Pretending to do nothing, he shifted his gaze to the window beside her, as if viewing the outside world.
*This girl always sits at that spot alone. And what the heck is with those breasts gaining size like that? Is it genetic? Hormones? Whatever...* Thinking deeply, he glanced down at his own skinny frame.
*Sigh...*
*Maybe it's time to—* He was about to get up when
ZOOM!
The entire building lurched like a drunk giant had kicked it. His teeth clacked together painfully, the impact rattling through his jaw.
*Earthquake?*
WEE-OO! WEE-OO! WEE-OO!
Emergency sirens shrieked, piercing the air like knives. People scattered like startled chickens, every single drill they had ever memorized instantly erased. Panic surged—chairs scraped violently against the floor, books thudded to the ground, muffled screams and shouts filled the room as everyone ran toward the stairs.
He snatched his weightless bag by instinct—dropped to a crouch for head protection, and started the practiced duck-and-shuffle toward the exit, the floor still trembling beneath his shoes.
*Idiots. Running inside a shaking building is exactly how you get brained by falling concrete.*
A girl's scream cut through everything—raw, animal, pure terror.
He looked around and saw the girl from before, now running toward the stairs, her chest bouncing wildly like it was trying to win a physics prize. Then—mid-stride—she simply wasn't there anymore.
No blur. No flash.
One frame she existed, the next the air folded like bad CGI and swallowed her whole.
*…Hallucination? Sleep deprivation plus adrenaline?*
Ice crawled up his spine, the exact feeling you get right before realizing the question you skipped was worth forty points.
Vision collapsed into static.
Everything went black for the second time that morning.
BOOM!