Stirred awake from his peaceful slumber by the sudden absence of the soothing lullaby that was the bus engine's rattle, Aves slowly pried his heavy eyes open.
Feeling like he had slept for an entire season, the rays of dawn that greeted his blurry vision first were more unpleasant than pleasant. Instinctively trying to shield his his eyes from the blinding light, Aves felt all the drowsiness get slapped out of him by his very own hand.
'What the—' Aves, his head still reeling backward from the impact, was too flustered to say anything.
After finally feeling the stars swimming within his field of vision slowly disappear, Aves brought his head down to check what happened and…
"Fuck!"
His eyes having barely been able to keep up with the speed at which things had happened, Aves was only able to see the back of the seat in front of him closing in on his vision before the familiar golden stars overwhelmed him in a mixture of shock and pain.
In his disorientation, Aves brought his hands up to his head in a bid to soothe the pain that he had brought upon himself by smacking his head against the seat, idiotically forgetting that they were the reason behind this mess in the first place, and felt the world flip on its head before the familiar cold, hard ground helped bring an end to the horrible sequence of events.
Ignoring the loud ringing in his ears, his face flat against the floor, Aves let his blurry vision take in the sight of the empty bus — the mother and son duo now gone — around him, and let out a weak sigh, not even bothering to question the strangeness of the situation he was in.
After all that had happened to him, his body apparently going out of control was ranked somewhere near the middle on the pile of crazy things he'd been through recently; nowhere near the top.
Aves wasn't too keen on finding out what crazy thing was in store for him next, so he just decided to think about something else, letting his body appreciate the freezing floor for a few seconds more.
'We've reached the last bus stop this quickly, huh. Looks like there weren't many passengers, if any, getting on the bus while I was asleep.' Aves deduced.
Aves based his deduction on the fact that, if the bus drove non-stop from the restaurant to the final bus stop, they would reach their destination at the crack of dawn. Looking outside one of the windows barely visible to him from his angle on the floor, Aves was fairly sure that he was correct.
The bus driver stepping out of his compartment and announcing the final bus stop's name helped Aves confirm that fact pretty quickly.
Looking down the aisle, the bus driver let out a gasp at the sight of Aves sprawled on the floor. "Hey, k-kid, are you okay?"
Aves, without even bothering to turn his head, replied, "Yeah, I'm just… admiring the scenery."
"I'm going to be frank, kid. You look like shit. Want me to get you a cab to the hospital?"
"No, I'm fine. Let me just—"
Even though Aves had learnt from his lesson, and thus decided to so very gently apply the minimum amount of strength required to stand up, through his arms, he was still sent catapulting vertically through the air in a twister of supernatural forces and violent drafts of wind. His back, being the first to greet the ceiling, collided with the metallic surface with a force powerful enough to put a dent in the damn thing, eliciting a grunt of pain from his mouth. His head and arms briefly hit the ceiling as well, but that wasn't the end of it…
Unfortunately for Aves: what goes up, must come down.
The rebound's falling speed almost matched the speed at which his body had flown up, but this time, there were a lot more obstacles on his way down than up, namely: the seats. Hitting the bridge of his nose against one of the aluminium rails supporting the seats, Aves felt a few tears involuntarily come to his eyes as his crash course was altered in the process, causing him to tumble over and fall flat on the floor, yet again.
Only this time, Aves was rolling on the floor while cupping his face, and there was a human-sized dent in the ceiling as proof of the quick incident.
It had all happened in a couple of seconds, so if one had looked away for a brief moment, they would've missed it. Unfortunately, the only other person on the bus happened to witness it in its entirety.
"…"
The bus driver blankly stared at the dent in the ceiling, his mouth slightly agape.
Did… did this boy just fly?
He was on the ground just a second ago… how in God's name…?
Holding his nose, not bothered by the fact that hastily doing so resulted in him being slapped in the face again, Aves felt the small valve holding back all the anger he'd bottled up within him snap.
And the anger came flooding through.
'What the fuck is wrong with me?! Why can't something normal happen to me for once this week? Whoever, or whatever, is messing with me, please leave me alone!'
The vision, the eye colour change, the nightmare, and now this… whatever this was. What had he actually done to deserve all of this?
The more Aves thought about it, the more he figured some higher force was at play here. Not even considering the fact that none of these occurrences could be created by a human, even if they were, no human would be sadistic enough to have a normal college student go through all this shit for no reason. At least, he hoped there weren't any humans out there like that.
Well, the more he thought about it, the more the idea of humans being sadistic enough seemed plausible…
Going back to his main line of thought: the higher force. Aves was an atheist, but that didn't mean that he would close off his mind to the possibility of there being a higher force, or God, out there. Not when all these random nonsensical things started happening to him all of a sudden, at least.
But what was its purpose? Did Aves anger it by chance? If so, how?
That was unlikely, not because he could never hope to anger a being of that magnitude, but because for the longest time, Aves had — bluntly speaking — always been a goody two shoes.
Well, that was before he yelled at his parents… but the vision started happening even before that incident, so it couldn't have been his parents smiting him from their abode, right?
No, it was definitely the work of someone out there. They thought that just because he was a mere college student, they could do whatever they wanted to him. That they could step over him all they wanted, and he would merely smile and endure.
That, just because they were gazing at him from above, he wouldn't dare look up as he was doing right now.
That he wouldn't dare touch them… that he wouldn't walk up to them and slit their throat and watch them die as he stood over their bloody corpse.
"H-hey kid, you—"
Don't touch me.
That he wouldn't watch their loved ones cower in fear as he brought down the night upon their heads, just like he would this cowardly old man.
And then he would look down on them, all the whilst crushing them with his gaze, and whisper…
"Know your place."
"—Pleas—"
Wait…
Old man…?
As he blankly surveyed the scene before him, Aves felt the blood drain from his face.
In a corner near the driver's compartment, the old bus driver, who was fine just a moment ago, was now huddling in on himself, seemingly hoping that he could penetrate through the steel behind him if he squeezed into the corner hard enough.
One of the reinforced windows right above him was cracked, split from the middle, but not broken all the way. Looking at the trembling bus driver right beneath it, it wasn't hard for Aves to put two and two together.
He had actually sent the old man hurtling through the air and into the window…
"What have I done? No, no… I-I didn't do this! Old man, what happened?" Aves, prying his gaze off of his trembling hands, blurted the first question that came to his panicked mind.
No answer came. The bus driver's lips quivered in response — in fear, even — but he didn't speak. He merely looked at Aves like a prey would a predator.
Fear was the one emotion written all over his face.
And that's when it clicked. No, it didn't click. His mind had already known what had happened but refused to acknowledge that he was the one behind all of this; that he had somehow gone out of control and lashed out at the old man in front of him.
"I-I'm so sorr—"
"Stay away from me, you freak!"
Stopping in his tracks, his hands frozen in their outstretched position, Aves watched the old man reel back in horror at his helping gesture, and spit out venomously at him. It appeared that the old man suddenly remembered who he was talking to, as he almost immediately started whimpering, obviously more than fearful of something.
Freak.
That single word managed to halt Aves' entire thinking process as it thundered within his head like an ancient bell would.
That's right. He was a freak.
How could he not be labeled as such, when the amount of crazy things he'd seen and experienced would make even the craziest of people seem sane? How couldn't he have realised this sooner?
Feeling the light in his eyes go dimmer, and the distance between the old man and him grow much more distant, both metaphorically and physically, Aves let one last phrase lifelessly hang in the air before taking his leave.
"I'm sorry for everything."
***
Aves had initially thought that the incident with the bus driver would weigh on his mind for the rest of the day, but boy was he wrong…
The moment he stepped out of that bus, his low mood was almost instantly swept away as he started feeling the state of his body. Putting aside the fact that his body was acting weird for the moment, he had never felt better in his entire life. He hadn't had the opportunity to check his state earlier since he had been too occupied with other things, but now that his mind was clear — or at least clearer than before — he was feeling amazing.
All his fatigue from the night before was gone, his burning fever was gone as well, even his various injures, such as the head wound and his fractured bones… they were all gone. It was as if what happened last night was all an illusion, though Aves obviously wasn't going to fall for that misconception again.
What happened the night before was definitely real.
Regardless, he could now walk on his two feet without staggering in pain again, and he even felt lighter than ever while doing so, to the point where the mere act of moving took almost no effort at all. It was as if his body was pumped full of energy all of a sudden. In fact, Aves believed that it was for this very reason that his body had become abnormally strong or fast — or even both — all of a sudden; there was almost too much energy within him.
That wasn't good…
What should've been a ten minute walk back to the college dormitories actually turned into the most painful hour-long journey he'd had in his life, reason being that he couldn't take two steps without running straight into a lamp post, or trip over a bench on the side, or something. His body did quite literally everything at a faster rate than his eyes could clearly register.
Even the casual act of swinging his arms while walking almost earned him a smack on the nose more than just once. It had gotten so bad that, after a while, he gave up trying to keep them under control and started walking like a robot — his arms dangling uniformly to his sides. Fortunately, there was basically no-one on the streets at this time in the morning, or else he would've gotten more than just a couple weird stares; he was walking faster than some people could run after all.
Aves didn't dare try to jump; he loved his life way too much to attempt doing that. Though, he did check if there was anything wrong with his body by lifting his shirt in front of a store window, but his body was pretty much the same as before; he didn't gain enormous muscles that could explain the increase in power, for he was still as frail as before. It reinstated his idea that it was some sort of supernatural energy fuelling his every exaggerated movement, and managing to keep his body from popping like a balloon while doing so.
It made no sense to him how that was possible, since that amount of energy would've at least had some visible effect on his physique…
Eventually though, whatever supernatural energy he'd had within him started dying down past the thirty minute mark, and by the time he made it to his dormitory, aside from being a little light on his feet, he felt the same as before the vision: uninjured and normal.
'Scratch that; this one definitely belongs at the top of the pile of crazy things I've experienced recently, alongside the vision of course.' Aves mused while swiping his student key-card against the main gate's scanner.
It had to be said that Aves was definitely taking this calmer than he would've a day ago, and that was mainly because of the realisation he had come to when he accidentally hurt the bus driver in his outburst.
He realised that he was a freak, and that instead of reacting to every weird thing that happened, or will happen to him, just like your daily Joe would, he would take things in stride and calmly think over why they were happening in the first place. There was no need to freak out, because as long as he had a calm head on his shoulders, he could analyse things slowly and work his way out of bad situations.
In fact, that was what he was intending on doing at the moment.
Making his way over to his room, appreciating how nimble he had become while doing so, he swiped his card a few more times and eventually made it inside his room.
It was around six in the morning, and even though he was uninjured now, there was still signs of caked blood on his face, so he took a quick hot shower, put on some nice clean clothes, took out a random notebook he had lying around, and started writing.
[First occurrence: Vision]
Raising the pencil to his lips, Aves started thinking. He couldn't remember much about how the first vision went, but he did remember two things: there was a crowd when it happened, and he also remembered their twisted expressions which were identical to the twisted expressions he'd seen in the second vision.
He was able to see a wider variety of expressions on his second run than on his first, but Aves threw that up to him being way too scared and confused on his first vision to notice any more expressions.
Regardless, assuming that the number of different expressions that he had seen during his first and second visions accounted for all the expressions that a ghost could get within a vision, there was actually only four of them, and they were:
Clean slate — Was what Aves dubbed the ghosts with no human facial expressions whatsoever. For example: ghost-Isabelle; there were a few more people in the background that Aves personally didn't know, who were also the same.
Frown — Lips curved downward. Aves had seen more than a few in his second vision.
Smile — Lips curved upward. This was what he pictured whenever he thought of the vision; it was the most frequently seen expression as well as the most horrifying one in Aves' books.
Expressionless — Ghosts whose faces are neither smiling nor frowning; flat or apathetic. Aves had only seen this one a couple of times in passing.
Aves honestly had no idea what these expressions actually meant or represented, but there were a few things to note, and those were: all smiling ghosts looked exactly the same, all frowning ghosts looked exactly the same… etc.
Aves had previously had the notion that the ghosts' expressions depended on who they were representing in the real world, and what their real expressions were at the time, but he later realised that that was a ridiculous idea since Isabelle obviously still had normal facial expressions when he later left the vision.
And, for humour's sake, let's say that Isabelle and the few other clean slate ghosts were exceptions, why would all the ghosts share the exact same smiles, the exact same frowns and the exact same expressionless faces, when everyone in real life would have different yet subtle variations to the same expression?
It made zero sense, especially since a smiling ghost would turn out to actually have a different expression in real life at that exact moment in time.
Aves felt like he was missing a piece of the puzzle, but he really didn't know how to get that piece.
Moving on, Aves then made a list of the side effects of the vision, such as his lack of stamina within the vision, and the high fever after it ended. Curiously, there were three things that had happened after the first vision but didn't happen after the second vision, and they were: intense headache, change in eye colour, and nightmare.
Again, Aves didn't have a solid theory as to why they didn't happen again but he did have a couple of ideas.
The most plausible one being that the second vision wasn't actually a full vision; it was actually interrupted somehow at the beginning when he got jealous and blacked out for a moment, which would also explain why he had energy to move around a bit unlike in the first vision.
The fact that he was able to run around probably meant that he succeeded in stalling out the vision's timer long enough for him to be able to escape the vision without being touched by the ghosts; that's what he assumed the ghosts had done to him in the first vision but he couldn't be sure since he'd had his eyes closed at that time.
Again, this idea had many flaws, the most prominent ones being: how does Aves blacking out affect the vision? And why does a semi vision not give him any of the three aforementioned symptoms?
Not knowing the answers to those questions, Aves left a gap next to them and moved on to the last bit about the vision — he wanted to get everything about the vision out of the way, reason being that it was the thing that was most likely going to get him killed first.
'Wait, does my body being overloaded with energy count as being one of the after effects of the vision?' Aves wasn't sure of that point as it had started happening only after waking up this morning.
After some contemplation, he eventually decided to add it to the list of after effects.
Proceeding to the last part, Aves started recalling some inconsistencies that he had noticed taking place within the first and second visions.
In the first one, the ghosts would only move whenever he looked away from them; even Jason, towards the end of the first vision, only started moving when Aves wasn't looking directly at him. They would stop moving whenever he looked at them. In the second vision however, the ghosts would start moving the moment he first looked at them… they wouldn't stop again, no matter how many times he held them within his field of vision after that.
Those two details were small and seemingly inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, but Aves, and his over-thinking mind, saw a pattern — a frightening pattern — within those details.
'Based on that pattern, if the third vision comes rolling around, does that mean they will start moving automatically?' Aves started massaging his temples at the thought of that terrible discovery.
The only reason he'd made it out alive in the second vision was basically because the ghosts didn't start coming at him during his initial stupor, and had actually given him enough time to react. If they hadn't, he probably wouldn't be here right now.
There was no one else in the room, so Aves didn't bother keeping his voice down as he sighed. "Huff… What to do? I mean, it all comes down to what triggers the vision in the end, right? I just need to avoid triggering it, and I will be fine."
Thinking up to that point, Aves wrote down a couple of things on his notebook before leaving his room to grab a cup of coffee.
"Vision's trigger: Crowds or emotional distress?"