Forge of a Pact II

Marcus’s POV

            The image of him cracked open his jaw and revealed a gruesome two pairs of canines shook me up from my sleep. Having to breathe slowly so I didn’t get hyperventilated, I picked up everything that has left out from me—my sanity, my sense of rationality, my stable breath, and my… blanket and pillow that I threw down to the floor upon waking up.

Like an old man, I grumbled and stretched. Then, with an old man behavior, I scratched my back while lazily picked up all the clothes. And when I said old man, I literally mean my speech too.

“Just who left their clothes sprawling across the room. Those shameless gnats…” I whined and picked the dirty clothes that was scattered on the floor of my bedroom.

Well, I am shameless, and I am also the gnat. Because I was the one who scattered the clothes by myself after returning late from class last night. Last night was the deadline for an assignment that I have to send to my faculty. Luckily I get a passing grade from the all time efficient Mister Roger, my lecturer who evaluate and graded my assignment in just a few minutes time. And that’s when my hunger started and I ate that wholly three cups of ramen which caused me to have a strangely realistic lucid dream.

Are ramen noodles a key for a lucid dream dimension or something?

I placed down the pillows and blankets on my bed and make up the bed before tossing the dirty clothes into the laundry basket. Carrying the laundry basket into the laundry room, I then sorted some clothes from others and washed them accordingly by their type and water temperature.

After that is another moment of me stretching while standing beside the washing machine that had just begun to spin. While stretching my arms up, I saw my reflection inside the mirror which was installed above the sink countertop on one side of the laundry room.

“Now that I remembered it…” I paced to the mirror and placed my hands on the countertop before staring deeply at my face. My gaze then drifted down to my neck.

I remembered feeling a great amount of pain when I heard my flesh being pierced by his teeth. I thought I was gonna die that moment, but as I woke up and is standing in front of this mirror, looking completely fine, I am somewhat convinced that it was all a dream, probably.

“What a scary lucid dream…” I rubbed my neck, te area that had being bitten inside the dream is clean without any bite marks. “Well, at least I have fun experiencing it.” I tossed a smile at my own reflection and exited the laundry room to go to the kitchen.

My morning went on pretty normal after that. After cooking myself some breakfast and killing some time making a batch of caramel pudding while waiting for all the laundries to finish washing, I hung them all at the laundry pole located at one side of my house’s balcony before I took my bath. And after dressing up, I went to class.

***

“I never know that Programming  can be so hard.” One of my nerd friend, Alphonso, grumbled as he adjusted the backpack strap around his shoulders. For Programming students, it’s all about self exploring. We would usually attend class to hear a brief teaching from the lecturer and them he’ll let us experiment with some websites. Sounds pretty easy, but at the very end, the student would have to write a 10 thousand words assigment and also create a website and an app that can function for the public. That’s where the hell will come to us Programming students.

Albeit having to face that hellish month sooner or later, we Programming students at least were dismissed from class earlier than any other class, which gives me time to go home and well, watch some animes or mangas and do my shenanigans I loved to do.

And my caramal pudding might also turn solid by now.

“11 am.” I mumbled the time as I looked at my phone, a picture of an anime guy looking very cool with glowing blue eyes and shadow soldiers surrounding him decorated the background of my phone’s screen. At the ame time, I was actually partially ignoring Alphonso who started to talk about some 90s anime he watched, given that he’s a newbie in terms of animes.

“And you know what, for the sake of his family, the MC would turn into a S*p** Sa**a*. That yellow aura and his fiery hair looks so cool!” Alphonso sounded excited, gaining a lazy nod from me.

I know what anime he’s talking about, but compared to G***, I would rather watch O** Pi*** although that series have a long list of episodes. The anime just keep getting better and better.

The two of us paused to enter the university’s cafeteria. Despite some of the students have already returned to their class, the cafeteria is as bustling as ever with some of the students sitting in a group and chatted while some gathered with their close friends and have something to eat while they worked on something.

Ah… My social anxiety can’t take all of this.

“…Let’s just eat somewhere, shall we?” I suggested to Alphonso who also looked like he’s struggling with his anxiety given how nervously he adjusted his thick pair of glasses.

“Kuri Café have a new arrival of mangas we can read.”

“Then Kuri Café it is.” Me and Alphonso was about to pivot our heels around when we suddenly heard some of the girls squealed.

“What’s that?” Alphonso asked. Our heads angled back to the cafeteria.

The majority of girls looked somewhat excited as they stared at the screen of several televisions installed inside the cafeteria that broadcasted a similar news channel. A scene of a female reporter was giving her report with what look like a live broadcasting appeared on the screen.

What the, are the girls be squealing over another woman? Or is it just my eyes?

I blinked my eyes for a few times and looked at the television. Little by little, I noticed some of the guys also looked at the screen. They were talking with each other about something inaudible that caught my attention to watch the news—even though watching news is not my cup of tea.

Me and the nerd beside me exchanged glances before we drifted our gaze to the screen, still standing at the entrance of the cafeteria and disturbing other student who wanted to enter.

On the screen, the reporter said something about some crime cases involving a group of criminal being captured after messing with a CEO of a corporation. After giving her brief report, the image changed into a brief display of the criminal’s face with the whatever number they were holding, before the girl squealed again at the last image displayed on the screen, which shows a picture of a young man dressed in suit.

“Fortunately, the CEO of … Company managed to…” The female reporter resumed her report, albeit the majority of the students in the cafeteria ignoring her and were talking about the handsome CEO the news just showed.

Surprisingly, I too, stood there while looking at the news like I just received some kind of a shocking news.

That guy…