"Manila. Manila. The next stop is Manila-"
A young lady's voice could be heard inside the train. The compartment that Brylle's currently in is compressed with multiple different people, each minding their own business.
'Man, standing up is a pain.' he rants to himself. Brylle used to go to school by car, however his mother insisted that he should take the train to make himself 'experience independence.'
There is a problem though, he hates taking the train, specifically because of its smell. Brylle likes questioning everybody in his head if they took a bath before leaving the house everytime the compartment he's in is full. He even describe the smell as 'Get yourself a football player who just finished playing an entire game, take off his socks and shove it in your nostrils'. To avert his attention, he decides to play some games his phone instead of stressing himself over pointless things.
Brylle's father is a police, while his mother is an attorney. One with knowledge about his background would probably speculate that he's been raised in a strict and just environment then assume that he's just the same as the parents who raised him.
However, it nothing like that at all. He disliked being just all the time. If anything else, he embraces the idea of freedom and self-indulgence.
This lifestyle has its pros and cons, of course, but Brylle is the type of person that thoroughly enjoys the pros and completely ignores the possible cons. A happy-go-lucky bastard.
After the train stopped and the passengers left, Brylle meets up with his friends, Bene and Paul, who also seems to have the same attitude he does.
"Let's go have karaoke later!" Bene asks him as he puts his arm around Brylle's shoulders. "I invited girls from our class to accompany us, you know?"
"Ooh, then we should totally go! You in, right?" Paul insists before slightly tapping Brylle' chest with his elbow.
"No, I'm not." he replies nonchalantly before shaking them off and fixing his clothes.
"Huuuh?!"
"Huuuh?!" the two of them frowns at the same time.
"Do you hear yourself right now? Wait, don't tell me-" Bene gasps before whispering something in his ear, "-Are you gay?"
"W-what? What the fuck are you saying?" Brylle yells before punching him in the shoulder. Bene caresses his shoulder to ease the pain.
"I mean, you've always snubbed the girls at our class and only ever hanged out with boys! Can you blame me?" he defends himself.
"Yeah, you're acting pretty suspicious for a long time now, Brylle. Why don't YOU tell us the problem?" Paul suggested with a concerned but angry tone..
Of course, he had no choice but to clear the misunderstanding. It's better be a laughing stock for two idiots rather than create a misunderstanding with her mother. After a deep sigh, he told them the problem as they walk their way towards school.
"Pffft! Seriously? You're afraid of women? That's- hehe- That's embarrassing- HAHA-" Paul laughed his lungs out before covering his stomach reflexively. "Ouchuchuchuchu-"
"Don't judge him, Paul. Brylle, my friend, remember this, I'll always support you." Bene pats my shoulders to assure me. "Now, good luck finding a wife HAHAHA-" Bene told me before he bursts into laughter with Paul.
Brylle just stood there, agitated and unable to say anything. This is why he hated sharing anything about himself with the two of them.
"Stop! Stop! I can't breathe-" cried Paul as lays on the floor while holding his stomach. The two boys were having fun while the same could not be said for for Brylle.
"Ugh! Go fuck yourselves!" he shouts before leaving them behind. He turned around to check on them, still laughing their lungs out. Rolling his eyes, he marched towards school with a bad temper.
When he arrived, he went straight to his classroom and sat on his chair before resting his cheeks on her arms placed in her armchair. He'll nap his mood away, apparently.
As an attorney, someone who defends other people's justice, his mother was strict. Very strict- no, suffocating. She wanted her child to be a person who knows the law and abides by them. This tight environment made her respected, but also feared by Brylle. That fear progressively grew as he got older, to the point where somehow he considers all women the same. At the ripe age of 13, he acquired his gynophobia.
BONK!
Brylle woke up at the sharp pain he felt on the top of his head. As he got up and stretched his body, the class teacher greeted him with a cold smile before patting his head then continuing the class. The smile was effective, it made him focus. From the events that accumulated this morning until now, he could tell that it's going to be a bad day.
"Pst-" a call from one of his classmates. Brylle averts his gaze to his side, there greets Sayaka, his childhood friend.
When Sayaka was young, Brylle often mistook her for a boy due to her boyish personality. However, as both of them grew up, the growth of their body was evident, especially Sayaka. She really developed well over the years, in both body and personality. This girl is the only girl that Brylle talks to except for his mom.
"What is it? You just witnessed me get scolded earlier right? I'm in a very bad mood today-" he said with squinted eyes. Brylle's not a particularly grumpy person, in fact he's often cheerful, it just so happens that this day didn't go as he planned it to.
"How cold, I just wanted to greet you-" she pouts.
"You can do that after class. Now scram!" he brushes her off as he diverts his attention towards the teacher.
After a moment of silence between the two, Brylle felt a jolt of electricity at the side of his torso. Sayaka, with his finger aimed and ready, repetitively tickles the side of Brylle causing him to laugh out loud in the middle of the class. A loud thud, most likely a sound made from chalk splitting into two, silenced the already silent class.
Mr. Martinez is a kind, patient teacher. As much as possible, he answers questions asked to him by confused students, no matter how repetitive they get. He's a pretty chill guy, and tolerates a lot of things. Except one-
Intentional disrespect.
'Man, this day sucks' Brylle rants once again while sitting on the floor in the hallway that's just outside the classroom. Good thing he bought some snacks earlier before going to school, otherwise he'll die from boredom.
Food makes him think and not think depending on the situation. Whenever he's bored, he eats food. Whenever his mind is too full, he eats food. Eating food was one of the few things he found fun and relaxing in life.
After the class hours, Brylle went straight home with nobody to accompany him. Yes, he's angry at the people who made fun of him this day, but nothing sucks even more than being alone. 'They could've apologized', a thought that would completely screw over Brylle's already screwed day.
'This day sucks THE fattest ass.' he ranted to himself once again, as if he's hoping that someone, something in his mind would comfort him. It's not surprising that nothing did.
Walking back home, he stared at a big billboard that warns "Wear your masks, beware of Twisters!", a billboard that made him scoff and shake his head.
The Twister Virus, also known as TTV-04, is a virus that appeared just last week on the internet and the news about it quickly spread throughout entire world by James Dober, a German Scientiest and it still currently is.
There are a lot of 'precautions' since the appearance of TTV, also known as 'the new normal', even though the World Health Organization denied that such a thing exists. However, a lot of people still abide by it, listening to his constant updates and following his so-called 'safety procedures'.
His website and articles, however, was taken down by authorities for the reason of spreading false information. Every single one, including the videos.
This particular subject had piqued Brylle's interest. For him it's just a pretty well thought out fiction, and the internet just made everything else worse just like it always does.
He read articles about it in his spare time. The virus caught his interest so much that he memorized every single article of James Dober about the virus just before they were about to get taken down.
'It will make for a nice fanfic' he says inside his head.
After staring at the billboard for so long, an advertisement of McRonalds took his attention. His stomach voiced out it's interest by growling, so he decided to stop by McRonalds first to eat some chicken.
It was good, he enjoyed it. The crunchy texture of the skin and the blend of spices that came with it in addition to the juicy, tender texture of the meat made the chicken an obra maestra.
Feeling full and satisfied, Brylle went home with his mood stabilized. The early phases of his day were shit, but the good ol' food always does the job. Of course, he also ordered a take-out of chicken nuggets for him to snack later on.
A clear, orangey afternoon sky can be seen at 6PM as Brylle continues to stroll his way home after enduring another train ride. He hums at a volume only he himself can hear while greeting other people along the way.
To his surprise, his usual road home was blocked with men wearing yellow hats plus a barricades that has the words 'under construction' in them. The long way home it is.
Brylle took a turn to the right, entering a dark and cramped alleyway between two 2-story buildings. It was full of trash and filth. He hates this alleyway, but he has no choice. He stops to stretch his body and yawns before continuing his journey. 'Sleep, sleep, lots of sleep.' This was the only thing that filled Ken's mind from thereafter.
After walking a good distance inside the alleyway, he noticed a person with ragged clothes but still somehow has a facemask sitting upright while leaning on the wall and seems to be sleeping.
He snickers a bit, this man must be another believer of that 'fiction'. Speaking of it, there has been a list of to-dos that James Dober wrote in one of his articles. It was titled 'The New Normal'.
The New Normal is a list of 'safety procedures' written by James Dober himself on how to avoid the spread of the Twister Virus. It was a video he posted online, demonstrating the scenarios himself. The procedures are-
"One, wearing a mask is mandatory when going to crowded places such as cities and malls, but it's safer if you wear it all the time while you're outside. The breath of the people infected by the virus, I call them Twisters, can spread the disease and get to you. Always wear your masks!"
This explains the amount of people wearing masks in Manila, some wear it even if they're just stepping outside.
"Two, always avoid a Twister. Twisters will KILL humans and eat them-".
A lot of footage about it can be seen and searched, most especially James Dober's videos. Some of them say it's edited, while others say it's real.
The internet was doing a really nice job of being chaotic again. Articles per articles about the virus pile unto each other. Officially, the government deemed everything about the Twister Virus as false information, which a lot of people still choose to not believe.
"-This leaves the question, how do you identify a twister from a human? It's simple, just check their teeth! A twister's teeth is composed of metal instead of calcium or bones with it's form, shape, and composition similar to a shark's instead of our typical human teeth formation. Moreover, they have blood red eyes due to their inhuman abundance in hemoglobin rushing towards their head when excited. So be open minded. And- "
Not so surprisingly, a random and stupid idea came out of Brylle's head. His idea is that he'll take a photo of the homeless person sleeping, both with mask and without mask, photoshop it, and post it on the internet to 'attract attention'. In reality though, he's still salty about his day and wants to vent it over someone else.
As Brylle approaches the hobo, he tread lightly as to not wake him up. It would be bad if he wakes up and ruins the plan. Slowly and carefully, he brings out his phone and took a picture. Afterwards, he very gently pushed the mask down from it's mouth and took another picture.
Now, for the hard part. Softly, gently, and very carefully, he lifted the hobo's lips to take yet another pic of it's teeth. However, the hobo wakes up.
"!!!" Brylle backs off from the hobo, who was wiping its eyes at the time.
"I'm sorry sir, I just wanted to take a pic...ture..."
To his surprise, the hobo started growling like a wild animal the moment it saw him. Brylle felt disturbed by the noise the hobo was generating, leading him to ask questions to himself if he's sick or not. He might be an asshole, but he was still raised in a just environment.
What comes next, however, changed his life entirely. An unforgettable experience. A bloody one at that.
The hobo drops on all fours and looks straight at Brylle with it's blood red eyes, snarling and flashing its metallic, shark like teeth stained in a crimson red, supposedly blood, which froze the poor boy from his place.
The hobo looked absolutely terrifying, its veins were visible from its face like it's about to pop out anytime. For the first time since elementary school, he pissed himself as the thing he once considered 'fiction' unravel into reality right before his eyes..
'T-that online bullshit was real? W-what the fuck? What do I do? What do I do?'
He then remembers the third part of the new normal.
"-If you do encounter a twister, there's only one thing you can do and you all know it! Say it with me, with energy! You need to-"
Run.