Chapter 2: Waking up
1190 Words
The Mornings Are Getting Strange
Believe me — some mornings hit me like a truck. Like my soul just refuses to rejoin my body because it knows another day of stress, stupidity, and academic misery is waiting. But weirdly, on vacation days? I wake up early as hell. Like 6 AM. No alarm. No reason. Just… awake.
It always felt normal before.
But lately… I don’t know.
Waking up feels different.
Like something else wakes up first.
Like something inside me opens its eyes before I do.
But anyway — that’s not even the point.
Why the hell is taking a bath in the morning so hard? At night, I’m fine. But in the morning? The water feels colder. The room feels darker. Even if the lights are on, something about the air feels heavier. It’s like I’m being watched, even though I know it’s just me in the bathroom.
Probably just my imagination. Right?
Last night, I locked myself in my room to finish that stupid homework. I didn’t even try. Bro, it’s 2025 — if there are tools that can do the job for me, why not? AI exists. ChatGPT exists. We exist in the future. I’m not about to kill brain cells for an assignment I don’t care about.
So yeah, I let the machines handle it while I sat there scrolling, overthinking, existing.
Then… she finally saw my message.
The crush. The girl. The one I actually dared to talk to.
She seen it.
No reply.
Just a cold, silent “Seen.”
Bro, the embarrassment… it crawled under my skin like ants. I poured my emotional guts into that message — okay maybe that’s dramatic, but still — and she treated it like another notification she didn’t care about. Like one of those random school announcements you ignore.
And then something weirder happened.
One of my friends messaged me and said:
“Dude, you’re acting weird lately.”
Weird.
Lately.
Weird how?
They didn’t explain. They just threw that sentence at me like a curse and left me hanging.
I sat there staring at the screen, feeling this… dull, uneasy pit in my stomach.
Because I didn’t feel weird.
I didn’t notice myself doing anything different.
But the way they said it —
the way the words were typed —
I don’t know.
It almost felt like they weren’t talking about my mood.
It felt like they were talking about something else.
Like they knew something I didn’t.
And to make it worse, I keep remembering this one embarrassing thing I did — even though I don’t actually remember doing it.
I just dreamed about it.
A very vivid dream.
Almost too vivid.
It was one of those dreams where you wake up sweating, confused, heart pounding — and you swear the walls in your room look a little too close, a little too crooked, like they were watching you while you slept.
In the dream, I was doing something stupid. Something humiliating. Something so real that when I woke up, I instantly grabbed my phone to check if I actually did it.
And the scariest part?
I found a notification I didn’t remember sending.
A message.
A reply.
Something typed from my account that I don’t recall writing.
I stared at it for minutes.
Did I type this half-asleep?
Did I sleepwalk?
Was it just déjà vu messing with me?
Or…
…did someone else do it?
Someone who uses my hands.
Someone who wakes up before I do.
Someone who knows the password to my phone
because it’s technically their phone too.
The air in my room felt colder suddenly.
The light flickered.
My reflection in the dark window didn’t look like it was mirroring me right away.
And in the corner of my screen — just as I was trying to calm down —
That same text message from before flashed again.
WHERE ARE YOU NOW?!!!!
I felt my chest tighten.
Because I still didn’t know who sent it.
And the worst part?
Some part of me…
a small, cold part…
felt like I should know.
Anyways — I freakingly hate kids.
Like genuinely. Deeply. With every tired molecule of my soul.
I’m on the jeep right now, and these tiny gremlins beside me are making demon noises like they’re summoned straight from some hellish daycare. One’s kicking the seat. One’s crying. One’s laughing like a little goblin. My anger issues are punching the air.
If you asked me right now what I’d choose to take care of for the rest of my life — a baby or a cat — bro, EASY. Cat. No debate. At least cats don’t scream for no reason. At least cats don’t smell like old milk and chaos. At least cats don’t stare at you with those big, soulless baby eyes that make you question existence.
But then I looked down at my wrist.
My bracelet.
The one I should’ve given to her —
yes, her, not Shinrah.
Not that girl. Not that walking headache.
The other one. The girl who made my chest feel like a glitching computer.
The bracelet catches the light from the jeepney window, and for a split second it almost looks like it’s glowing.
Or maybe that’s just the sun hitting it weird.
But staring at it made my stomach twist.
I regret everything now.
I don’t even know why.
It’s like all my thoughts are tangled — like wires inside an old computer, buzzing, overheating. Something in me feels wrong, heavy, like someone took my heart out and left a hollow, echoing space inside. A void waiting to be filled.
And I don’t know by what.
I leaned back against the metal railing, trying to steady myself, but the jeep felt too slow, like we weren’t even moving. The noise of the kids, the rumbling engine, the honking outside — it all blended together into one droning, unbearable sound.
Like a low hum.
Like a whisper.
Like something breathing beside my ear.
I turned my head.
Nothing there.
But the feeling stayed.
And the bracelet — my bracelet — felt heavier than normal.
Like something about it changed when I touched it.
I shrugged it off. Just overthinking. Lack of food. Lack of sleep. Life. Whatever.
We finally reached my stop, and I hopped off the jeep. The noise faded behind me, but the uncomfortable feeling didn’t. It clung to me like humidity, thick and sticky.
As I walked home, my phone buzzed.
A new message.
No name. No number. No contact saved.
Just a blank sender.
I opened it.
And this time it didn’t say:
WHERE ARE YOU NOW?!!!!
It said something different.
Something worse.
I SAW YOU ON THE JEEP.
YOU LOOKED LONELY.
My breath hitched.
Because I hadn’t seen anyone familiar.
And no one on that jeep was holding a phone.
But the part that scared me most wasn’t the message.
It was the line under it.
Delivered · 0 minutes ago
Sent from your device
My device.
My phone.
As if I sent the message to myself.
But I didn’t.
At least… I don’t remember doing it.
- Writer
