Date: ??/??/???? | Time: 9:24 am
"Lola, I'll be leaving now!"
"When are you going back home?"
"I'm not sure... It depends... Maybe tomorrow, maybe at midnight, or later at dusk"
"Alright, stay safe, okay?"
"I will!"
The boy left the house where him, his grandmother, his female cousin, and mother lives. He exited the gate and stood by the sidewalk as he waited for a tricycle to come by
A few seconds later, a tricycle came by since this street is where most vehicles come by. He lifted his arm and pointed at the sky to catch the tricycle driver's attention
The tricycle driver took a U-turn and stopped in front of the boy. He entered the cabin and sat down
"Where to?"
The driver asked
"EDSA please"
The tricycle driver then nodded and started driving
The boy then pulled his smartphone out of his pocket and opened the Messenger messaging app. He tapped on the group chat that him and his close friends from senior highschool are on
"Omw"
"Be safe Philip!"
"I'm also omw"
"Omw mou shindeiru?"
"NANI?!"
"Nandato?!!"
"Nandato kudasai?"
"Yamete"
"IYAAAH~"
"HAHAHAHAHA"
"You're all so weird"
There were at least 50 new messages that constantly popped up in just a few seconds. There were also at least 20-30 profile heads that went down, meaning that they have read the messages
The boy, who is apparently named Philip, smiled and chuckled inside the cabin of the tricycle as he placed his phone back in his pocket. He was about to arrive in his destination in no longer than two minutes after all
He then reached for his small backpack and reached for the payment for his commute inside the small pocket. He doesn't use a coin purse since he could just easily grab the coins in the small pocket, rather than unzipping a smaller zipper. He also inspected the things that he brought on the trip
His small backpack is composed of three zipper with one of them being a bait pocket in front. Once the front zipper was opened, even if there's a pocket, the pocket is actually stitched together. Apparently, it's to prevent pickpocketing to bait the snatchers
The first zipper is behind the shoulder straps to make it more secure. He has a clear book and folder in that compartment. He didn't have anything important in the folders except for his birth certificate, for some reason, and he has most of his school works bundled together. There were papers involving algebra, trigonometry, physics, thermodynamics, rigid bodies, and many more since he took the mechancia engineer course
He also has type-C and micro-B charger extensions for his two smartphones. One is the A3S model and the second is the A53 model. He only has one adaptor though since he could just swap both chargers if one phone has low battery. Though, usually, he has two adaptors back at home
Meanwhile, in his main zipper, he has everytjing in there. There are two zipper pockets, two small pockets, and two hidden medium pockets on the side
In the first zipper pocket, he mostly has his utilities, small objects, and random things inside. There are friction ballpens of three different colors of black, blue, and red with two extra cartridges for the black ink and he also has a 0.3 g-tech ballpen. He has one HB pencil, one shade 2 pencil, a mechanical pencil, a sharpener, and an eraser
There is also an old nail cutter, a dental floss, a cuticle trimmer, a metal tweezer, a hex key or an Allen wrench, a pair of spare earbuds, a square envelope of his 2x2 and 1x1 picture, a round eyeglass, a USB flashdrive, a bright blue comb, a golf ball, and a ping-pong ball
On the small left pocket in front of the first zipper pocket has most of his coins. He has no idea how many ₱1, ₱5, and ₱10 coin inside
On the small right pocket, he has keys to his grandmother's house, the key to his mother's second hand car, and the keys to his old house. He also somehow have the 3-inch screws that belonged to his single bed back to his old house. He also has one padlock with an attached key
Meanwhile, he has nothing on the second zipper pocket because this pocket is too inconvenient for him
On the left hidden pocket, he has the shredded pencil dust from the sharpener. That was his small trash can because he doesn't dare litter trash around. Meanwhile, he only has his earphones on the right hidden pocket
Finally, the inside of his small backpack has his foldable umbrella, folded paper trash, a set of screwdriver heads, the case for his main eyeglasses, perfume, a calculator, a small notebook, a medium notebook full of notes, a large notebook full of drawings, his health pass, brown leather wallet, folded grau hoodie, one t-shirt, one polo shirt, two shorts, two underwear, an aluminum tape, and large ziplocks
Even though he has so much random and important junk and objects inside his small backpack, everything seemed to fit well. He is very prepared as always just in case he encounter certain situations that needed his random items inside his bag
Inside his brown leather wallet is an arcade membership card, his scholarship bank debit card, two pizza restaurant membership cards, his school ID and school's information card, and his DOST scholarship ID. He also has four old cinema tickets of "The Pool" and an old rides ticket for the Star City amusement park
There is also a wallet sized graduation picture of his former crush, a 1x1 picture of his other crush, and a 1x1 picture of one of his best friends
The method of how he got those pictures was just by asking them
He also got five ₱20 bills, one ₱50 bill, six ₱100 bills, two ₱500 bills, and one ₱1000 bill with a total of ₱2,750. This is his allowance for his trip
After looking at his things for one second, he pushed his right hand into the bag until he reached the left small pocket and grabbed a few coins. He assessed the coins with his sense of touch and grabbed four coins
He pulled one ₱5 coin and three ₱1 coins
At that point, the tricycle parked beside the road and Philip exited the cabin. He reached his payment towards the driver and the driver accepted it
"Thank you"
"Thank you"
The driver thanked Philip and Philip thanked him back. It's just how Philip used to thank people instead of saying "you're welcome"
He then walked away and went to the other side of the road, or more accurately, the highway. He went towards the overpass and climbed the stairs. The overpass was built to let people cross the highway towards the center island, where city buses travel along from stations to stations
EDSA is short for Epifanio de los Santos Avenue and it's one of the major highways that connects six of Metro Manila's 17 municipalities or cities in the Philippines. It has a length of 23.8 kilometers and it's the busiest road in the country where it's almost filled with traffic jams everyday and causes the country to lose billions of money every year
But during the pandemic for two years, the highway became more open and free. The once two hour commutes became 20 to 30 minutes long. Of course, the highway also has the the MRT, Metro Rail Transit, but the max speed limit was lessened due to past accidents, so it's not reliable at all. Especially since the waiting line are sometimes long that spans for over 500 meters to 2 kilometers of waiting line with no exaggeration
After a while, Philip is climbing down the stairs of the overpass in the middle of the highway. He then went in line to wait for the city buses to come
As he was waiting in line, people were occasionally looking at him with interest and curiosity, not because of how he looks, but because of another package that he's bringing that couldn't fit in his backpack
He was wearing a casual outfit of a blue checkered polo with only one button attached that is above a white shirt, blue jeans, and a black-red rubber shoes
He doesn't have too much of fashion sense, so he just slapped any clothes that fit him well. He was planning on just wearing his gray hoodie, but he ended up with a polo to change things up a bit
He wears a maroon framed eyeglasses and a camouflaged mask due to the pandemic
What's unusual about him is that he brought his wooden katana that's inside a black painted sheath. The wooden katana has an eccentric design and yellow in color. It's almost similar to a demon slaying lightning boy's sword in an anime
He had no reason to bring his wooden katana but he brought it anyways. He thought that it would be cool nonetheless or at least for self-defense. Plus, he always has this mindset that an apocalypse might happen and the wooden katana will be his weapon
He has an active and powerful imagination that he can almost create any world or scenario in his mind and he has to prepare for everything
~~~
Date: ??/??/???? | Time: 9:32 am
A few minutes has passed, he finally boarded a bus and his destination is towards the east. Then, he has to get off, ride several more public transportation vehicles towards the north and he will reach his final destination
He sat down on one of the chairs that let him be alone where no one would be able to seat one seat apart from him. He placed his backpack on his lap and rested his arms on top
He then pulled his earphone out of the right hidden pocket, wore it, and played music. He blasted the music at 70% so at least he could hear his surroundings since he has good hearing
The music that he's currently playing are random and it's shuffled. It's a mix of jazz, classical, pop, modern, a few rock, lo-fi, ans many more. He liked the diversity, randomness, and chaos
He then leaned on the window and looked at the sky while he vibes with the music depending on the type
A few minutes later, the sky darkened and became cloudy. Philip wasn't bothered though since he doesn't like the Sun too much, or the mood right now doesn't suit the Sun
[There has been reports of military movement in western Russia. The motive is still unknown]
[Deep sea creature that came from the deepest parts of the Mariana Trench suddenly surfaced. Experts say that the water became hot, so the creatures surfaced. Other experts also say that there were earthquakes deep in the ocean which caused the creatures to surface]
[WHO warns the world of a possible new variant of Covid-19. The virus has the possibility to originate from animals this time. Scientist and researchers are trying to find out the cause of this]
[Military helicopters seemed to be constantly flying across the country. Reports also say that this is also happening in all countries. The government refuse to give any information, even to the media]
[Rumors has it that the UN and European Union had a secret conference and this may be the cause of the presence of military helicopters]
[Whatever this event is... The government needs to make a statement to avoid any misunderstandings and to make the public mass calm down]
Philip panned his eyes towards the television of the bus with a news broadcast
"Heh..."
Philip chuckled and smirked. Ever since the pandemic happened, he already knew that the world was about to go on a decline
He always like to predict the future and occasionally snap his fingers to somehow cause a rippling effect or the Butterfly Effect to let certain scenarios happen in the future
He predicted that World War 3 will happen, zombie apocalypse will happen, multiple volcanic eruptions or the Big One earthquake will happen, even an alien invasion, a meteor strike, or a literal end of the world into a planetary explosion
The future will happen either one of the predicted futures. But of course, Philip doesn't believe that those things will happen because it's almost not possible. There is a possibility, but the chances are slim
He just wanted the world to end and die because he doesn't enjoy living too much. He doesn't have anything to do and he's almost a NEET in his grandmother's house.
Even if he has good friends, a good family, and a scholarship and that he should be happy, he didn't want to live anymore. He also believes that his mother is the cause for his internal suffering and the reason why his father left them
He doesn't blame his father or be angry at him, in fact, he understands his father's decision. It's his mother's fault for his father leaving them
Now that his father is gone, he's suffering the full brunt of his mother's stupidity, ignorance, and pride
The reason he's still with his mother is he initially had a choice whether to stay with his mother and stay in the city or to stay with his father and go to their province
He chose to stay with his mother because he had a loving girlfriend when he made the choice. His girlfriend lived in the city, so he wanted to stay in the city, even though he didn't want to be with his mother
But even so, he still suffered from his mother and that affected his relationship with his girlfriend. He became broken and his girlfriend broke up with him
She initially meant it as a joke to test him, but Philip had enough and agreed. He let her go and he became single once again
Several minutes has already passed, he's almost near to his bus stop. He checked the group chat once again to see any updates
As soon as he opened the group chat, everyone was popping off. There is a tab that says [322 unread messages]
Of course, since he likes and loves his friends, he took the time to read back and catch up. Some of them are pretty hilarious too
There are fifteen boys in his friend group, thirteen girls, two gays, and one lesbian. Even if their friend groups is large, they all get along very well. They sometimes mock or make fun of each other, but they know that they don't mean it to each other and they're just bantering. The bonds of their friendship cannot be broken
"Zen, are you coming?"
"Yes, I'm already on the way"
"I'm also on the way!"
"MARK!!! WAKE UP AND GO NOW"
"Yeah yeah! I'm already going"
"Oh, I though you're still sleeping"
"Do you think I'll miss this special trip? No!"
"You won't miss it, but you'll just be late"
"Better late than never!"
"I'm taking a shower guys!"
"Eh? How are you chatting?"
"The traffic is heavy in my place, but I'll be able to arrive in time, no worries"
"That's fine. You're an exception anyways. Your place is far far"
"Kayl is on his motor, he'll be there in no time"
"Aww, I hope everyone had a a motorcyle"
"He's rich! We can't complain"
"Good thing he'll pay most of our fees HAHAHA"
"HAHAHHA"
"Hey! Be sure to thank him, okay?"
"We know we know. This trip won't be possible without him"
"Also, it's thanks for Philip's planning that he managed to convince all of us"
"Cha rue! We don't have too much of this anyways"
"If it's Philip who plans for our events, it almost happens 100% most of the time"
"Well... He takes no for an answer when it comes to these things"
"He's also the navigator for us"
"Exactly! All of you are directionally challenged... You won't be able to go anywhere without him"
"Guys stop"
Philip finally caught up and sent a message
"I'm already at Cubao... I'll be waiting at McDonalds at Gateway, next to Aurora Boulevard, for those who are supposed to come with me"
Some of his friends are close to Cubao, the center hub of Metro Manila and where almost every public transportation converge. So, for efficiency, the people who are close to each other should meet and all go together until they meet with the other group also
"Alright! We're coming"
"I'm almost close"
"I already at Anonas"
"I'm at T.I.P"
"I'm in front of Alimall"
"I'm an SM Megamall"
"I just pass Kamias"
"I'm currently at Circle, wait for me!"
"I just got on LITEX"
"Who are supposed to meet me here?"
Philip asked
"Mark, Jelo, Clair, Joy, Trish, Lenard, Selene, Jassy, Warr, Echo, Hena... Who else?"
"Me!"
"Jasper... May, Anna, and Miguel... So, 15 people"
"That's a lot... Okay, I'll wait"
"Okay!"
Philip then closed his phone and placed it back in his pocket and walked through a mall to reach Gateway until he reached a McDonalds branch
He ordered food, cheeseburger, coke float, and a hashbrown, and sat down to eat and wait for the other. He then opened his other phone and he read manga and novels while still listening to music. He placed his wooden katana across the table
He ate and waited for one hour because sometimes he goes to the meeting place one hour before the given time. That's his personality anyways, plus it makes other people come on time. If the given time was scheduled for later, they'll come one to two hours later, so Philip adjusted the time in consideration for these people
Philip knows how to manipulate people's feelings according to certain situations
Date: ??/??/??? | Time: 10:05 am