#isaiah pascual

[gabriel-gabdiel]

Fantasy of Evolution Chapter 5: Press Ctrl-Z to Undo

If only it were as easy as pressing Ctrl + Z in order to undo the mistakes you’ve done in your life.

At any rate, Florante is about to deal with his personal Judas Iscariot. His former best friend, Isaiah. 

You can also find more chapters of my original fiction here. Please enjoy.

First | Previous | Next

Back in Fatima High, after Florante Galang dreamed another one of his strange dreams…

In his latest dream, Florante "stalked" his classmate's apartment then they fought as a pair against a shadow monster at Makati's Guadalupe Church.

In the end, although he wasn't hero material even in his daydreams (or night dreams), he still managed to find a way to do something that he could be proud of.

He stopped Mammon's Minion and undid that reality where multiple innocents died, thus saving their lives all at once.

Or maybe he didn't and it was all in his imagination.

Florante Galang shut his eyes and exhaled. Whoopty-doo. He did something heroic in his dreams. The thought made him cringe.

Still, even if it was a dream, the feelings he felt for the dream version of Jenny still made his knees weak. It all felt so real.

If only reality could evolve and match his fantasy. Alas, reality killed such whimsical notions faster than it helped him defeat the immortal crawling chaos.

But it wasn't real. It was all just a dream. It didn't really happen.

Had he really been traumatized by his bullies to the point where he used his fantasies and daydreams to cope with his daily reality of social suicide? Yeah, probably.

If only his dreams were real, then he would've asked Jenny out for a date by now. No, no. He meant he would've asked her more about Mammon.

What was that American(?) white man foreigner's deal anyway? Why'd he sic his Minion at them?

Oh, right. Jenny.

He pressed his fingers on his forehead, remembering that imagined kiss from the bespectacled beauty that was Jennifer Tolentino. The girl next door.

He let out another deep sigh. He really did have it bad for her now, didn't he?

However, he had to remind himself of the obvious. The dream version of Jenny was nothing like the real-life version of her. They hadn't interacted that way at all.

No more stalking of her. Get rid of that photocopy of her number in the yellow pages and that girl that had the same name as her from that yearbook from the 1960s or whatever.

The Mammon from his dream was right about one thing, though. Florante did act like a creep by tracking down Jenny's phone number and address from the phonebook instead of asking her about it like a normal person.

What was he thinking?

Still, once he could write and draw these ideas into an actual novel or comic book though, then that could make his strange dreams worth his while. They were compiled inside his dream journal already. So maybe.

Regardless, he woke up from the… third(?) strange dream/nightmare he'd had as of late. 'I think.'

Once again, the reset button had been pushed. Or the shortcut to "Undo" your last change on the document, "Ctrl + Z" (pushing the "Control" key and the "Z" key on the keyboard at the same time).

So everything went back to normal. No harm, no foul, right?

Still, he should really grow up by now. Abandon his idle, childish thoughts and turn his life around for real.

Soon, it'd be his fifteenth birthday.

He had no girlfriend on sight, no social life to speak of, barely any friends, but life went on, right? Right.

***

Fantasy of Evolution

An Urban Fantasy Story by Abdiel

When you press Ctrl + Z on your Windows machine, you could undo the last action you've done.

Disclaimer: This work may reference copyrighted material, the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. It is believed that this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the US Copyright Law. All copyrighted material referred to in this work belongs to their respective owners. All rights reserved.

***

Chapter 5: Press Ctrl-Z to Undo

***

It was around dismissal time again, and Florante had time to kill before his school jeepney service came around to pick him up.

He spotted his acquaintances, the Dead Kids, from a distance walking the opposite way as him.

Florante couldn't tell because they usually wore the same uniforms, but whenever it was Casual Fridays at Fatima (when the students were allowed to wear casualwear instead of their daily uniforms), the Dead Kids wore clothes that subtly hinted of designer origins.

By the way, the Fatima High uniform for boys was brown khaki pants, a button-down white collared dress shirt with short sleeves, ankle-high socks, and black leather shoes.

For girls, it was a white blouse with a collar, sash, tie, and pleated knee-high skirt bearing the same checkerboard black-and-white pattern as well as ankle-high socks and black dress shoes.

Not that the "fashion senseless" Florante was any authority on the subject or anything. Sometimes, even on Fridays, he kept wearing his school uniform composed of the button-down polo shirt and long khaki pants with black leather shoes over black socks.

He also had a backpack full of his school books, notebooks, pencils, and ballpoint pens. Like the nerd that he was. However, even he with his bad taste in clothes could tell the Dead Kids were dressed to the nines that matched their remarkably good looks.

Then again, their mesmerizing faces looked so dashing they could've worn dishrags and pulled it off. Nevertheless, it seemed rather appropriate they'd have both money and looks.

The fact that they were unable to mix with the rest of the student body like Florante did somewhat boggled his mind, though. Many of their "haters" called them pompous pretenders at best or braggadocious snobs at worst.

They were mostly called weirdoes, to be honest.

On one hand, their richness didn't afford them any acceptance in Fatima High. Like celebrities being bullied in college by their jealous classmates because they exuded an aura of superiority that rubbed them all the wrong way.

On the other hand, Florante didn't fully believe that the lack of acceptance was circumstantial. The way their group acted indicated that they desired isolation. He just couldn't imagine how any door could remain closed by their halo of beauty.

Meanwhile, although the group of Alonzo Estanislao, Kalantiaw and Dalisay Hidalgo, Jacob Benjamin, and Francisco Celestino did wave back at himwhen they spotted him (though it was mostly Lonzo and Dalisay who did the waving), he himself opted to go alone to the nearby walking-distance mall.

Nirvana Plaza wasn't far from Fatima High. Just walk from one of the rear exits of the school towards the rear entrance near the local Nationwide Bookstore branch and you're good to go.

He felt relaxed going there even though he barely had any money himself to buy anything there, whether it was comic books or food.

He had no allowance to speak of and he had packed lunches more often than not inside recycled ice cream containers turned into makeshift lunchboxes.

He wasn't poor or anything, it was just that he wasn't rich either and private school tuition was expensive.

It was fine. He loved window shopping on an empty stomach. Well, not really, but the mall did serve as his safe haven from his droll and friendless school existence.

He remembered when he first ventured alone into the mall instead of going straight home from his school service. Trips to the mall for his family used to be special events. They had to go to all the way from Pasig to Cubao to eat out, get groceries, or watch a movie.

Now, he could hang out in places like arcades or peek at a few pages of comic books at bookstores to his heart's content instead of staring blankly at a wall, waiting for the school service to pick him up and take him home. Daydreaming of adventures with the Ninja Turtles or the X-Men.

If he could get extra money from his parents, like spare change from buying art supplies or home economics requirements, he could give himself the occasional mall treat.

An ice cream cone here. A doughnut there. Maybe even some supermarket turon (caramelized fried banana rapped in spring roll wrapper).

Or maybe a few rounds of the latest iteration of Street Fighter, with him usually succumbing to the third character during a one-player game. He sucked at versus mode since he couldn't practice at the arcades for too long.

This was what a friendless dork like him had to look forward to, honestly.

Maybe one day, once he had a job and his own money, he'd have a fun-filled day buying comic books, playing games at the arcade, or going to the movies in his lonesome. However, as a student with barely any allowance, this setup wasn't bad at all.

It sounded depressing, but only if he had to share his experiences with anyone else. He actually loved going to Nirvana Shopping Plaza in his lonesome.

However, today, he couldn't shake the feeling that someone kept an eye over him, which made him feel paranoid.

Did his bullies spot him again, like the last time? That one asshole with his girlfriend clinging unto him once smugly asked him if he was on a date after spotting him walking alone near the food court. What a bastard.

He couldn't spot any of his usual tormentors right now though, who had opted nowadays to go with the more passive-aggressive approach to bullying him.

After a few more minutes of being a listless mallrat, he went back to the parking lot and spotted his ride back home, which was his designated school service jeepney.

***

On the eastern border of Metro Manila, the highly urbanized city of Pasig City existed under the cover of smog clouds and the infamously polluted Pasig River, which it shared its name with.

To its south, it was bordered by the cosmopolitan center of Makati. To its north was Marikina. To its west was Mandaluyong and Quezon City (where Fatima High was). To its east were the municipalities of Taytay and Cainta in the Rizal Province.

Pasig was also known for its raging floods during typhoon season, by which it could've gotten its name from. The city had floods that were "Mapagsik" or "Mabagsik" (in English, it meant "Raging", "Fierce", or "Aggressive") which eventually evolved into "Pagsik" or "Pasig".

Usually, the private jeepney service fetched Florante and a couple of others from their private school so they could go home safe and sound on behalf of all their parents, who paid them a monthly fee for the convenience.

However, the jeepney's open-air windows also gave them to get a good whiff of Metro Manila pollution for good measure.

Florante covered his mouth with a handkerchief. No point in getting sick and triggering his asthma again.

The sky remained hazy, its blueness sporting an ashen tinge to it as though muted by the city smog. The wind in his face thankfully disappeared as they went to a standstill.

The classic late afternoon traffic jam in the metro. Only the Bangkok Jam could rival its ubiquitousness in Metro Manila.

His new school was about 4 miles or about an hour away from his home in Pasig City. His former school, which only offered classes up until Grade 6, was instead 13 minutes away or about a mile away.

Thusly, it felt like it took the jeep forever to get him home.

As they sluggish traffic wore on, Florante's mind started wandering.

His mother was the typical strict Filipina mother. Domineering, almost. He could never talk to her about anything. Their relationship was complicated. She wasn't the hugging or healing type of mother. She kind of scared him most of the time, actually.

Sure, she perhaps had her own things to worry about, like how he kept on hearing about her own domineering mother-in-law—his grandmother from his father's side—but he dreaded her wrath as much as she detested his grandma.

His mother also for the most part looked like her sisters or his aunts... of course... while Florante himself looked like one of his cousins or uncles when they were younger. They all shared the same almond skin, black hair, and sharp, dark brown eyes.

She was in stark contrast of his father, her husband, who looked somewhat like he was of Chinese or Japanese (East Asian) descent but was actually a Filipino himself. As strict and boisterous as she was, his father was the exact opposite.

A relaxed and chill engineer who tinkered a lot around the house, doing quick fixes from their pipes to their ceiling to save them thousands of pesos from having plumbers and electricians do their work for them.

By the time the jeepney school service arrived at his home, there was a drizzle of rain. It soon became a downpour when he got inside the house. Just in time.

It was already June, after all. Rainy season. Also, the month of Florante's birthday.

He'd have another birthday spent with his family. He had no friends to invite over the house for dinner. No parties with his compatriots drinking beer either. He never even tried beer.

He had heard that taking in too much alcohol could compromise his breathing as an asthmatic. Not that he'd ever tried.

Besides, he was a minor. Even though he had heard of several of his classmates drinking a bit of the bubbly themselves.

He was used to having a simple feast of spaghetti and a liter of Coca-Cola as his only birthday splurge. Tuition for his private school was expensive and in the Philippines, the school year started in June.

So his birthday had to be as simple as possible during tuition month, which was also his birthday month.

***

After Florante got home to the Galang Residence in Pasig, he went straight to the television set to catch the tail-end of whichever anime was airing in the afternoon.

He hated how as a kid, when "Thundercats" was a big deal, he always ended up seeing the end credits whenever he tried catching it on TV.

Ditto with "Rainbow Brite".

When he finished with that attempt at entertaining himself, he took his bag and went to his room.

Before doing his homework, he changed into a shirt and baggy shorts as popularized by the G.O.A.T. (Greatest of All Time) of 1990s basketball, Michael Jordan. He also read a bit of "Paradise Lost" by 17th Century English poet John Milton for good measure.

And when that gave him a headache, what with his short attention span and the hard-to-read long-form poetry, he had the Cliffnotes version help him summarize and analyze each passage.

At the back of his mind, he chided himself to do as much effort on his math homework as he did with his "extracurricular reading" of this book for the sake of creating his own comic book story.

Nevertheless, while he was wandering around the mall earlier, alone in his thoughts, he thought about Mammon's intentions in his dreams.

As a demon, he obviously tried to tempt him to go all out and transform into an Ophanim, perhaps to the point of becoming a fallen angel and turning into a Minion.

However, for what purpose? To add him to their demon horde? Their "Pandemonium"? What were they trying to achieve, awakening Ophanims and corrupting them to become Minions?

The thought kind of excited him a little bit. He'd been struggling to come up with a plot for his comic book or original story, only for his strange dreams full of his male power fantasies and coping mechanisms to hand him such a plot on a silver platter.

He should really make more detailed accounts of his dreams in his dream journal from now on.

While also making sure never to allow his classmates, especially his mostly male bullies, to know he was keeping a dream journal like a 6-year-old girl still having tea parties with her dollies.

The rest of the afternoon and evening became a blur.

His Dad got home after fetching his two elder sisters from college at the University of Sto. Tomas. Then it was dinnertime. They ate his Mom's specialty of pork adobo (meat simmered in a mixture of garlic, soy sauce, and vinegar).

He couldn't bring up the fact that he was getting bullied at school to his parents, which apparently was typical of bullied kids.

No one wanted to be a victim of bullying or admit to being one.

What would they do to help fix it anyway? Knowing his Mom, she might even blame him for the bullying, bringing up that he was a disrespectful child.

His Mom, bless her heart, was such as stereotypical strict Asian parent. He was also petrified of her more often than not—more than his bullies—particularly when he came home with bad grades.

He didn't get beat up for them or anything, but he did get an earful of lectures from her. The beatings came when he answered back or "disrespected" her somehow, as she put it.

She had quite the fiery temper. Her arsenal of weapons included tsinelas (flip-flops), the nearest wooden spoon, a walis tingting (broom made from the thin midribs of palm leaves), or a walis tambo (broom made from the flower stalks of Tiger grass).

Had he mentioned that he had a complicated relationship with his mother? Because he did. Confessing to her that he was being bullied was the last thing on his mind.

She might somehow make it about him disrespecting her or something. No way did he want to trigger that ass-whupping if he could help it.

In contrast, Dad was more of a congenial fellow. The good cop to his Mom's bad cop. He never hit him and Florante couldn't remember the last time his father became angry or lashed out at him.

He could have heart-to-heart talks with him. It was much easier with him than with his contentious Mom that reminded him more of Cinderella's Stepmother whenever she got into one of her "moods".

However, he also couldn't outright confess to him about the bullying. It was too embarrassing. Shameful. Like he was too old to still not have friends or to still get teased by the boys in his class.

He did mention to him about having to deal with the jerks in class though. So he subtly told him about the bullying without telling him he was being bullied. If that made sense.

***

After dinner at the Galang Residence…

Once everyone in the family settled down and went their separate ways, with his parents going to their room, one sister going to the TV, and another sister going to the phone, Florante planned his approach to his father carefully.

After chancing upon Dad going to the kitchen to fetch a container of cold water to drink, Florante asked his question.

No, not about bullying. It was about the Dead Kids.

"Dad, do you know anyone named Celestino in Pasig? Or Hidalgo…?"

His father blinked at that. "Can't say that I have. I don't even have coworkers named like that. Hidalgo is the national artist, right?"

By the way, Florante's father was a mechanical engineer who worked at a factory for a multinational company. And he meant "Felix Hidalgo" by national Filipino artist and painter.

"How about Benjamin? Estanislao?" Florante pressed. "Back in Makati, did we know of any Tolentinos?"

"Whoa, whoa. Settle down there, kid."

Dad scratched his the freshly shaved stubble that would've formed into a beard.

"I might've had a classmate named Benjamin, but that's his first name. I've heard of Father Estanislao who marched with Jose Rizal during his final walk before his execution. There are too many Tolentinos around to say that I know the same Tolentinos you know."

Florante sighed then smiled. "Thanks, Dad." His father always obliged or humored even the silliest of his questions. He answered them the best he could. 'He really is the best.'

"Why are you asking me this? Are they the names of your friends or something?"

The son awkwardly laughed. "Yeah, something like that."

Dad ruffled Florante's head. "That's good. Make more friends in school, son."

The heartwarming exchange made Florante divulge something he normally wouldn't. "They… the kids… they're a little different. They don't seem to fit in at school." Unsaid, he added, 'Like I do.'

His Dad pulled a seat and sat with him, setting aside the cold water bottle he fetched from the refrigerator for now.

"Did I ever tell you about how your cousin punched a kid who was messing with him at Fatima? He got suspended and the school faculty even called your uncle to the principal's office. But the kid never messed with him ever again."

'If only I had the guts to do that,' Florante thought. He said, "I don't think they'll ever fight back or anything, but it's messed up that they don't fit in. They did nothing wrong. Who cares if they're a little weird?"

Dad nodded. "When it comes to bullies, it's best that you show them who's boss from the start. The more you let them get to you the more they'll mess with you."

Florante then realized his father was subtly giving advice for his own bullying after bringing up his friends.

However, he was so pathetic he could only dream of blasting his bullies to kingdom come, which was even more messed up. Now that he had considered the consequences of such actions, he'd rather just embarrass them a little bit. Like his cousin did to his bully.

Punch them once to have them leave you alone for good. Or even pull a prank. No need to kill them or anything!

Good thing it was all just a dream. Once it ended, he faced no consequences for his actions. Or so he kept telling himself.

Like he'd just hit the reset button on his game console to go back to the main menu or the first level. Or hit the Ctrl + Z shortcut on the family's personal computer, undoing his mistakes on the MS Word document or MS Paint bitmap.

If only he could hit "Undo" all the way to the first day of his freshman year at Fatima, then that would be peachy. Alas, reality didn't work that way.

Backpedaling a bit while also denying he was being bullied, Florante said, "Those guys seemed nice enough to me. I just noticed they kept to themselves more often than not. Some of them are my classmates in the Art Club, even."

"So they act just like you, huh?" said Florante's father. "You also keep to yourself a lot. Which is perfectly fine, son. It's a good thing you've found friends who match your personality, Florante."

"Yeah, I guess, Dad. Birds of a feather, am I right?" he said, now wishing to change the subject.

They lapsed into silence before Dad got up, grabbed his water bottle, and said to him, "Good night, son."

He in turn said, "Good night, Dad."

After a little while, Florante himself got up from his seat and went to the TV to watch whatever it was his sister was watching.

He was already sleepy by the time he started on his math homework, which he considered finishing while traveling to school on his school service jeepney.

***

The rest of the week proved uneventful. No new fucked-up dreams about him murdering classmates or battling eldritch abominations with his newest crush, Jenny Tolentino.

No Mammon. No Minions. No Ophanims. Just… vibes. These alien concepts all started fading in his subconscious like dreams and nightmares were supposed to.

He got used to the routine of his classes and being at least civil around classmates that tolerated him at best while whispering devilish rumors about him behind his back.

Oh well. He did promise the Jenny from his dreams to forget all about the angel and demon nonsense to live out his normal life.

However, try as he might, he couldn't forget those fever dreams where he moved as swiftly as the wind and destroyed everything in his path like a U.S. missile strike.

In reality, during P.E. (Physical Education) class, the classmates he got paired up with learned not to pass him the basketball and to step quickly in front of him if the other team attempted to exploit his unathletic asthmatic self as their weakest link.

Florante did his best to get out of their way or serve as an extra body to clog passing lanes when he wasn't being benched for other, more skilful basketball players.

However, he noticed something was amiss.

Jennifer Tolentino hadn't come back to school since the last time he got into contact with her.

It had been a week since he last talked to Jenny. On the phone in real life and at Guadalupe Church in his dreams. Or did both things happen in his dreams?

Every day, he watched anxiously for any sign of her. The hawk-sized butterflies at the pit of his stomach made him wonder if she wasn't able to revive from her untimely demise in his last dream.

Only for him to mentally slap himself and chide that his daydreams or nighttime dreams had no effect on reality. Jenny was probably absent for some other reason.

He'd been hanging out with the Dead Kids again lately, acting as their gopher. Nevertheless, he couldn't get Jenny out of his mind. How could he? She was gone!

It'd be much easier for him to follow her advice and forget about this Ophanim business had she continued going to Fatima High and acting normal herself.

Then he could at least pretend that his psychotic massacre of his classmates and failed attempts at heroism against fallen angels or demons hadn't really happened.

In English class—as headed by the no-nonsense Mr. Benigno "Noy" Borabo—Florante took his accustomed seat at the back of the class, near the windows overlooking the streets outside.

They got a pop quiz on English grammar involving Subject, Predicate, Object of the Preposition, and so forth, which only made him wish they'd do more required reading.

He'd at least watched the film/TV/animated versions of "Tom Sawyer", "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", "The Odyssey", "To Kill a Mockingbird", "The Great Gatsby", "Lord of the Flies", "Animal Farm", or "Of Mice and Men".

Or read the CliffsNotes versions of such and many other classics. Reviewing grammar rules was as boring as reading the phone book.

Regardless, he felt more comfortable with school lately than ever before.

He had reached some sort of closure or homeostasis (thanks, Ms. Del Mundo's Biology Class) with his nightmares involving classmate murder and choosing between becoming an angel or a demon.

Ha. Closure. He sounded like the family of a missing person that finally found out the grisly fate of their beloved.

In regards to his real-life bullying situation, he had instead reached ennui (thanks, Webster's Dictionary). A feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation or excitement.

Maybe it was this lack of catharsis and boredom—from the impasse he and his bullies had reached since he decided to bite the bullet and snitch on them—that led him to dream such horrid dreams.

By Friday, he wondered about whether or not he should give Jenny a call. He had her number for real, after all.

For all he knew, she had already dropped out of school.

He tried not thinking about the nerdy girl, but he couldn't completely suppress his anxiousness that he'd been somehow responsible for her absence, as absurd of a thought as that was.

Florante Galang slept a dreamless sleep over the weekend due to the soft June rain and even softer thoughts of the bespectacled Jenny.

He might've finished his weekend homework by then but he neglected to read up on Social Studies, leading him to cram at the last minute for the upcoming quiz while riding his jeepney service to school that fateful Monday.

It felt a bit nippy outside so early in the morning at 7:30 AM or so, before the school assembly started.

He got cursory acknowledgements of his existence from several classmates by Monday morning, after getting off his school service ride and making a beeline towards his classroom.

He also dealt with small talk on whether or not he was able to finish the homework before they proceeded to talk to their own actual friends and ignore him in his lonesome.

The morning was cold but at least it wasn't raining. The school assembly proved uneventful. Still no sign of Jennifer though. Was she absent again?

The different classes then headed to back to their respective classrooms in order to proceed with the first subject of the day.

***

Another day, another boring class.

Florante had Araling Panlipunan (Social Studies) for today, as covered by Mr. Neil Nepumoceno. Neil was the jokey type of teacher with a strange goofy charisma to him whose signature outburst was "Aye Caramba!"

Yeah, like Bart Simpson's catchphrase from The Simpsons. Quite the character. Mr. Nepumoceno encouraged debate and rapport with his students during every topic he covered, from the Philippine Revolution against Spain to World War II.

Florante's blood ran cold as he remembered something.

Neil was the teacher that got in his way during his dream massacre of his classmates from First Year St. Francis.

Oh yeah. Galang had turned Mr. Nepumoceno into a splatter on the wall. Like something out of a horror B-movie. Or a Mortal Kombat "Fatality".

He pushed such dark thoughts deep into his subconscious mind. He promised the dream version of Jenny that he'd forget about that dream. Or all his dreams since then. So he would.

With that said, a certain someone—a classmate of his—still didn't give him the time of day. Not that any of them did, but this particular one hurt him the most when it happened.

Galang still felt awkward being around Laura Reyes, but that was to be expected.

His first high school crush remained upset about that "nude drawing" incident when he didn't actually draw her nude! He was using a rough sketch and shapes to construct her body before adding details and clothes, dammit!

He had hoped he wasn't as subconsciously psychotic as he suspected he was, what with him dreaming about killing Laura (albeit in a moment of duress) just because she didn't return his affection and all.

For weeks since the incident, they avoided each other like the plague even though they were classmates. It even got to the point where Florante could've sworn Laura got bothered by him avoiding her before she could avoid him.

Yes, it was ridiculous, not to mention egotistical, to think that he could affect anyone that strongly. It was impossible, even. And yet he couldn't stop worrying that it was true. At the time, anyway.

That little twinge of annoyance from her gave him a small spark of hope that he still occupied Laura's mind somehow, even in the form of a pest.

Better that than be ignored altogether.

However, now Laura was but an afterthought compared to the glasses-wearing girl in Florante's literal dreams.

Florante held his breath at the door, peering here and there of any sign of Jennifer Tolentino, but it seemed she wasn't around. He exhaled and went to his seat.

Jenny then followed him from behind, talking about yearbooks and phone calls or something.

Wait a minute.

"Jenny?" he blurted out.

"Flor!" she said in return. "Oops, you told me to not call you that! Sorry!"

"No, it's all right. I don't mind," he reassured. "What was that about phone books?"

"Oh, I was just askin' why you called me from my house last time," she said with the sweetest smile as she brushed a single lock of hair from her face.

He gulped and explained himself, saying he found it interesting that he found another Jennifer Tolentino in an older Fatima High yearbook, stuttering all the while.

At the back of his mind, he told himself to calm down. This wasn't unusual. Jennifer had talked to him before. She didn't cut all communication from him like Laura did. She'd always been friendly to everyone.

She wasn't friendly beyond logic like the dream version of her that invited him into her apartment after finding out he essentially stalked her though.

Still, he couldn't remember one person where she had beef or drama with in their class.

She lingered by his desk till the bell rang, which left his heart aflutter. She then went to sit by her actual seat while Mr. Nepumoceno finally arrived to start the class.

He considered hanging out with Jenny some more but thought the better of it.

This wasn't the Manic Pixie Dream Girl Jenny. Even a nice girl like the real Jenny might lack tact to let him down gently if ever he became one of those overly friendly boys that hung around the girls a bit too much.

However, as class began, Florante realized he had another problem in his hands.

He couldn't stop staring at Jenny. He tried to be slick about it too, but he knew she knew he was watching her. This made him overcompensate and avoid gazing at her ever for fear for him creeping her out.

What was wrong with him? Dammit. He pulled the same thing the first time Laura rejected him over that misunderstanding with the drawing. With him not staring at her and all. Or ignoring her beyond reason.

Susmaryosep. He wouldn't be surprised if Jenny started avoiding him too.

Anyway, he should pay more attention to class. They were covering the Martial Law years or something. He hoped he crammed about the right topic for the quiz later.

The good news was that Jenny, the real Jenny, had begun talking to him more, like she used to before his unfortunate falling out with her group due to Laura thinking he was a creep.

The bad news, if it could be considered bad news, was that he kind of missed having memorable dreams and fighting against nightmarish monsters beyond human comprehension.

He could deal with those dreams better than his awkward reality of teenage infatuation.

***

Much later, during lunchtime…

As Florante walked out of class along with the rest of his classmates as the lunch bell rang, the air glistened with a light rain. The cold wind bit at his nose. His cheeks.

A light sprinkle fell from hesitantly overcast skies that still shone of daylight. Silvery slivers of water reflected bits of rainbow sunshine as a result.

Dammit. He should've brought an umbrella with him but he forgot again.

Meanwhile, his head got lost in those clouds, wondering how to best approach Jennifer while a part of him screamed at himself to stop making a fool of himself over his newest crush.

Sometimes, discretion was the better part of valor. Sometimes, the only way to win the game was not to play.

"I'll see you at lunch, okay?" Florante heard someone from behind him say, which he soon realized was Alonzo Estanislao. Huh.

Florante smiled and began to nod, but he then hesitated and said, "We'll see. I might skip lunch."

Lonzo kept walking as he spoke. "Sure. No prob. Still waiting for your girlfriend to get back?" he teased.

"Shut up. She's not my girlfriend. Stop being weird," Florante hissed at Lonzo, looking around him for any sign of his classmates. They might overhear and spread rumors again about his crush, just like with Laura.

"Okay, okay. I'm just kidding," reassured Alonzo. "So did anything good happen? You're smiling more."

Gah. Was he that obvious?

"She's back already," Galang murmured it so softly it sounded like an afterthought, hoping Lonzo would miss what he'd say, only for him to cringe when he heard, "Congrats, man."

The drizzle became a squall, and Florante's mood became as soggy as a wet sock The more it rained the soggier it got and the worse his unease grew.

He considered locking himself in the library again on an empty stomach instead of eating with the so-called Dead Kids like the social outcast that they were.

He checked his wallet. He had enough spare change for a soda, at least. And maybe a bag of chips.

He entered the cafeteria, which was on a basement level of a building separate from their high school building. The grade school and high school buildings shared the same cafeteria.

The sun flooded daylight inside the cafeteria basement through a series of chain-link fences that served as the wall that separated the area from the nearby park and the grassy soccer field.

The soft squall made the grass glisten in the sun. During downpours, whole islands were formed on the field amidst the flood of puddles, mud, and sludge. Like a miniature archipelago.

Florante scanned for the Dead Kids' table in the corner of the cafeteria out of habit. Then he froze where he stood.

There were six people at the table now. Excluding Florante, because he hadn't reached there yet.

Huh. Six people.

The usual five were there: Alonzo "Lonzo" Estanislao, Kalantiaw "Kal" Hidalgo and his sister Dalisay, Jacob "Benjo" Benjamin, and Francisco "Kiko" Celestino.

The sixth one was a familiar face, though. It was Jennifer "Jenny" Tolentino.

Florante took out his asthma inhaler and took a puff as soon as he started making those familiar wheezing sounds.

***

Alonzo Estanislao called after Florante Galang after spotting him.

"Yo, Flor!" Lonzo said, which made "Flor" wince. "What are you standing around for? Come over here!"

As Florante did just that, he wondered what was Jenny doing over there.

She'd finally got to school after a week of being absent, but what was she doing with the Dead Kids' table?

Galang looked down and away from the table as soon as Jenny stared at his direction. His ears felt hot. He told himself he had no reason to feel self-conscious. It wasn't as if he did anything wrong, after all.

"What's with Florante?" Florante heard Dalisay ask, which made him finally pick up his pace towards the table before he embarrassed himself any further in front of the one group in the school that hung out with him.

The dainty Dalisay asked once he got there, "You okay, Florante? Do you need to go to the clinic or something?"

Benjo sniggered and needled, "Maybe he's constipated. He needs to take a massive dump!" which prompted Lonzo to smack him upside the head while in the background, Kal harrumphed and called them both idiots.

"You're so gross, Benjo," admonished Dalisay.

He felt his body jolt when he heard Jenny ask, "It's not your asthma acting up, is it?"

Galang reassured her that it wasn't the case, revealing his handy inhaler in his pocket. "Not asthma." He shook his head vigorously. "I'm fine," he reassured, scratching the back of his head. His wheezy breathing belying his reassurances.  

Once his eyes met with Jennifer, he muttered, "H-Hey. Fancy meeting you here."

Jenny smiled and brushed her hair back from her face. "Likewise, Flor. I'm back, I guess?"

Florante smiled in spite of himself. Laughing nervously, he changed the suhject. "I think I'll get a soda today. Any of you need anything?"

"Just soda?" asked Jenny. "It's lunch, not recess. Eat something."

"Aren't you hungry, Florante?" chimed in Dalisay.

"Actually, maybe I do feel a little sick," Florante said, looking at the floor and his dirty shoes. "Um. I mean, I don't have an appetite right now."

Lonzo, who now looked scuffed up from his roughhousing with Benjo, grabbed Florante by the shoulders and sat him down the bench of the lunch table. "Then sit this one out. I'll fetch everyone their lunch and buy your soda."

Florante gulped and nodded his thanks while handing the money to Lonzo, who elected to be the group's gopher for today.

Jacob and Kalantiaw also volunteered to come with him to help out holding the lunch trays.

***

Florante waited for the trio to get their food along with the usually studious Kiko, the wallflower Goth Queen Dalisay, and, well, his classmate Jenny, whom he ended up sitting beside with thanks to Lonzo's prompting.

Damn that Lonzo.

He had nowhere to look and he somehow didn't feel like talking at length to Jenny right now.

Also, when he looked up across the table, he ended up staring at a stern-looking Celestino who looked more like a teacher or a college student than someone from high school.

The studious Kiko barely talked at all, even though he was viewed by the rest of the school campus as the leader of the Dead Kids.

His batch's likeliest Valedictorian or even Salutatorian was this socially awkward nerd. Who knew?

Francisco hadn't even gone to college yet and Florante could already swear he'd become the Summa Cum Laude, if not at least the Magna Cum Laude of his year of college graduates with ease. He just exuded that kind of academically superior aura.

"What is it?" asked Kiko, his eyes meeting with Florante's as he looked up from what he was reading (Advanced Calculus).

"HUH? Oh, nothing!" said Florante. The last thing he wanted was small talk with Mr. Battle of the Brains himself. "Sorry for staring."

For a student supposedly only 3 years older than him, Celestino gave Galang the vibes of a someone much older. Like a college professor. Or a CEO. Or a high-priced attorney. Any full-grown adult with loads of money, power, worldly experience, or influence.

With a raised eyebrow, Celestino returned to his book and commented, "Take the hint, kid."

'Take the hint…?' Florante thought, only for him to realize that Alonzo probably already talked to Francisco to about him and Jenny.

Dammit, you guys. It wasn't that serious! He didn't even remember telling any of them about his feelings for Jenny either! How'd they figure things out?

Minutes later, he got his soda, which he sipped slowly. Or maybe he should sip it faster so that he could excuse himself and leave.

He could even play his asthma up and escape to the clinic for the next hour.

However, he told himself to get a hold of, well, himself. Why should he run away?

To make way for their lunch trays and lunches, Florante took the opportunity to move away and give room to the rest of the Dead Kids, with him sitting on a separate table with his soda.

Eventually, he decided to permit himself to glance beside him. If Jenny glared at him for staring, he'd have the resolve to go to the nurse's office and skip class for the rest of the afternoon.

Or complain about the upset stomach he was literally feeling right now. Like the coward he was.He wouldn't be lying either. He had butterflies in his stomach the size of eagles, it felt like.

He looked up in time to see Dalisay and Jenny laughing at Benjo's antics with Lonzo.

This reminded him of how the Dead Kids charmed him into their group in the first place, actually. They were social outcasts like him, but they chose to be so. They showed him it was okay to be different.

They liked keeping to themselves and didn't care how they looked to others, which Florante respected a lot.

The most abuse Florante got from them was them using him as their gopher or getting his name wrong. Even Benjo, their one member that reminded Galang of his classmate bulies, never went the extra mile when teasing him.

He never felt like any of them dehumanized or degraded him. Or treated him like the "other".

They didn't treat him particularly well or superbly, but even their mere tolerance of him was leagues better than the treatment he got from his own classmates as the resident weirdo of the class.

Florante heaved a relieved sigh at Jenny getting along with the rest of his so-called friends. Or even acquaintances.

His heart twinged with jealousy at the sight too. Made him wish he was closer with both the Dead Kids and Jennifer.

What was he even worried about again?

That he'd ruin another friendship because he caught feelings with Jenny like he did with Laura, so he'd start acting all awkward and creepy around her?

Nah. He had no need to fear. He simply just had to deny his silly crush with Jennifer so they wouldn't end up cold and distant like him and Laura Reyes did.

Even if this was good as it got, he'd be fine with it.

This was his path of least regrets.

If there was an event he wouldn't "Undo" with a magical "Ctrl + Z" command, then it would be him meeting his friendships/acquaintances, the Dead Kids.

***

Aside from the playfulness and banter, something seemed different between the Dead Kids and Jenny Tolentino from the rest of Florante's classmates that he couldn't quite put his finger on.

Their infectious positivity seemed like something out of a commercial for menthol cigarettes or saltine crackers, thought the bemused Florante.

No wait. Mentos. They acted like they were in a Mentos commercial!

Something about them seemed almost surreal. Or unreal. Like a performance.

He examined Jenny the most. Not because he was enamored by her, of course. Well, maybe because of that too.

Jenny's glasses glinted in the daylight of the open cafeteria. Her skin was pale, but it looked practically tanned when near the porcelain or marble statue skin of Dalisay, who truly lived up to her name. In Tagalog, "Dalisay" meant "Pure".

Hell, compared to her, Florante's skin was practically wood-colored.

Florante averted his eyes from Kal's sister by reflex, knowing full-well of how extreme Dalisay's overprotective brother behaved around people who stared at her or even tried to talk to her (like Lonzo, who was supposed to be their friend).

Meanwhile, Jenny's pink lips pursed into a cute pout as she and Dalisay teased each other over… something. Her hazel eyes sparkled with her flushed, blushing face.

What was about her that seemed strange to him? Was it his imagination? He pondered, staring at Jenny, trying to isolate any changes in her expression.

At the back of his mind, he idly wondered if this Jenny had the same memories as the Jenny in his dreams. The one that saved his life twice. The literal girl of his dreams. Did reality match his fantasy?

"What are you staring at, Flor?" asked Lonzo with a snicker, and Florante knew that the cheeky bastard already knew the answer to his own damn question.

At that moment, Jenny's eyes flashed to meet Florante's.

Instead of merely looking curious, she gave him a harsh stare. Like a warning of some sort. Her sharp eyes belying the smile on her face.

Florante dropped his head, letting his curtain of hair bangs cover his face. During the instant that their eyes met, he could've sworn.

"Flor…?" Lonzo beckoned again.

Florante could've sworn that she recognized him. No, wait. That didn't make any sense. Of course she'd recognize him. He was her classmate, Florante.

No, no. What he meant was that her eyes glowed the same way it did in his dreams.

Her look of recognition wasn't because she recognized him as Florante. It was because she recognized him as Archangel Gabriel.

He had promised in his last dream that he'd forget about everything, but here he was breaking that promise once more. Even though honestly, he couldn't help it.

How Florante surmised all that from a simple glare, he couldn't tell you.

Or maybe he was just in denial. His constant staring must've finally got on Jenny's nerves, leading to her glaring at him.

Lonzo whispered, "Is your girlfriend staring back at you too?"

Florante palmed his face. His cheeks felt hot to the touch. "She doesn't look angry or anything, does she?"

"I don't know," came Estanislao's unhelpful answer. "Maybe stop being a weirdo and talk to her like a normal person?"

"Stop calling her my girlfriend then," Florante begged. "She's probably the only friend I got in class. You'll just weird her out."

"Sure thing, buddy. I'm just teasing," relented Alonzo.

"…So she's not angry?"

"Ask her yourself, dumbass!" Lonzo put Florante in a headlock and rubbed his knuckles over the top of his noggin. "Jeez, no wonder you're bullied so much! Grow a spine!"

***

Mustering up the courage to talk to Jenny, Florante sat beside her and talked. Like the good ol' days when he, her, and Laura first met.

He asked Jenny without looking at her, "Where have you been?"

She thought for a minute. "Oh, around."

The coy answer made him second-guess himself. If he referenced his dreams about her in any way, would she confirm them as real?

No, that was stupid. "Were you sick?" he asked.

"Maybe a little. Like you. I'm fine now, thank you for asking," she answered.

"Oh. That's good to hear. I'm glad," he said.

"It's been cold lately, hasn't it?" she said. "No wonder everyone is getting sick nowadays."

"Yeah. But sunny other times. Like the weather's bipolar or something," he said.

"I know, right? Like it couldn't make up its mind," she said.

"Did you get contacts?" he then blurted out unthinkingly.

Puzzled by his unexpected question, she answered, "No. I'm wearing glasses."

"Oh yeah," he mumbled, wishing the earth would part and swallow him whole. "I thought there was something different about your eyes."

She shrugged with a confused smile. "It's the same eyes I've always had."

Man, what was this conversation even about? Talk about awkward.

After a slight pause, Jenny asked, "…Sooo were the rumors true? Did you or didn't you draw Laura Reyes nude?" while adjusting her large, bug-like spectacles in a way that honestly only she could pull off.

"What? NO! I didn't…" Florante raised his voice, but he then trailed off lamely. His voice sounded sad, even to him.

He soldiered on though, pleading his innocence. "I-I was doing a rough sketch! Can you tell her that it wasn't a nude sketch but a rough sketch? The guys who told her it was nude were just messing with me!"

"Really? Show me," she said before taking out a pencil and notebook from out of her purse.

"What? You mean right now?" he asked.

"Why not?" she countered.

Why not indeed. So Florante recalled the anatomy lessons of Art Class and did rough sketches of what initially looked like a naked woman. He then added details like a blouse, skirt, glasses, and shoes to the full-body sketch.

"See? It was all a big misunderstanding!" he said, only for his jaw to go slack as a blushing Jennifer beside him told him, "I didn't realize you were going to use me as an example!"

He looked down and sure enough, he ended up drawing Jenny. "I-I can explain…!"

"I'm just glad you didn't turn it into a nude portrait! My boobs aren't that big!"

"OF COURSE NOT! To do that is sexual harassment!" he yelped, which made Jenny laugh.

He felt his heart twinge at the sight for sore eyes. Her giggles sounded soft and enchanting. Like wind chimes on a gentle summer breeze.

"I was joking, Flor!" She looked at his sketch of her. "Wow. Not bad."

"Eh, it looks a bit cartoony," he said, criticizing his own sketch. "Like an anime sketch. I could've done better."

"Just accept the compliment, you dork!" she chided.

Florante chuckled at that. "You know what? You're an okay gal, Jenny."

This made the both of them go silent. That line was what he said to Jenny before he proceeded to massacre the rest of his classmates.

"You're an okay gal, Jenny. Don't go to school today. For your own good."

A flood of memories—well, false memories that didn't happen anywhere else but his dream—almost overwhelmed Florante.

Him becoming a roaring typhoon of vengeance against his bullies before facing off against an angelic Laura. His tandem fight with Jenny against a spaghetti monster, where he discovered she was also an angel.

His visit to her apartment. Their confrontation with Mammon. Him managing to defeat the crawling chaos. None of that happened yet Florante remembered them all as if they did.

***

The group went their separate ways. Florante was about to head off to the library himself, killing time like always until the late afternoon bell rung for their next class.

However, what Jenny told him before he went off gave him pause.

She looked him in the eye and said, "You promised."

…What?

Before he could speak, she invaded his personal space and said, "Don't break your promise."

She then turned around and left, as though she didn't just say something cryptic and disturbing to him.

"Jenny…!"

"Hmmm? What is it, Flor?"

He hesitated answering. Did he just imagine her say, "Don't break your promise"? Was she gaslighting him? He then said, "I'm okay with it."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm okay with you calling me Flor."

Jenny tilted her head to the side and smiled. "Okay."

His mind spun from confusion. Had he made up the whole exchange before just now? She acted perfectly polite. Like the conversation they had about promises and breaking them never happened.

Or maybe she meant some other promise he couldn't remember breaking?

He had half the mind to believe that the entire exchange was from his own imagination. It was his subconscious mind taking the form of Jenny, warning him not to pursue the madness that was his questionable dreams.

Because the minute he started believing that everything he'd dreamed up until that point was real, that was when Jennifer would give him the same disgusted stare Laura gave him when she had rejected him.

Maybe he really was going out of his mind, dreaming up scenarios where Jenny was his Damsel in Distress and he served as her super-powered Knight in Shining Armor, rescuing her from eldritch abominations and whatnot.

Just like Mammon said. Maybe Mammon was no demon. Instead, Mammon was his common sense. What was left of his sanity.

On one hand, he should be glad all this murder, mayhem, and destruction using fantastical or cosmic powers happened merely in his dreams instead of irreversible reality.

They served as his own Ctrl + Z or Magic Slate that undid what could've been permanent mistakes.

On the other hand, he also wished he'd have dreamed up being a social pariah and the butt of everyone's jokes in Fatima High. He wanted to redo that part of his life as well.

Then maybe once he woke up every morning, he'd instead be greeted with friends and cheers as well as belong in a social circle not rejected by the rest of the school campus.

Undoing the destruction of a shadow monster or sentient Italian dish wasn't a problem Florante could relate to. His inability to form healthy relationships with his peers was.

Hell, if only he could Ctrl + Z his entire childhood. Now that was an even cooler superpower than the Light Array.

"…Galang? Florante Galang?" someone called out to him in the middle of his introspection, thus interrupting his inner monologue.

Who was it? Who dared interrupt the great and powerful avatar of Archangel Gabriel?

Oh. It was him. One of his bullies. Not one of his worst bullies, mind you, but one of his bullies nonetheless.

His bully that used to be his friend before he went with the flow of the rest of the class.

His personal Judas Iscariot. The Brutus to his Julius Caesar: Isaiah Pascual.

The guy whose head Florante blew apart in the murderous fever dream, to be exact.

***

The two former friends kept talking and walking as they went to their late afternoon class.

"Florante," said a sweaty Isaiah, who rubbed his hands together.

"Pascual," said Florante, who wrinkled his nose.

"Hey, buddy. Been a while since we've talked, right?" said Pascual with a hesitant, crooked smile.

"Yeah, I guess." Galang shrugged, eyeing the door to the classroom. "What do you want?"

On the asthmatic's part, he probably smiled the same disingenuous smile as well to keep up appearances of politeness. What did this snake in the grass want anyway?

Florante vaguely remembered Isaiah as one of his few classmates that stood by him when he was being teased by his bullies.

Up until it Isaiah started getting teased himself, so he threw Florante under the bus to save himself.

Galang's first impression of Pascual when they were still cool with each other was that he had the vibes of a Golden Retriever. Or maybe even a sea otter, with that big nose of his.

Once inside the classroom, Florante went straight to his table, with half the mind to ignore Isaiah altogether. He merely half-listened to him at any rate.

"…Look, maybe we can continue this later. Okay, bro?"

"Sure. Whatever."

Grimacing, Galang remembered the swift kick to the testicles that Pascual gave him in his dream, thus "forcing" him to blow his head apart with his dream powers.

Should Florante condemn the guy for something he did in a dream though? No, he condemned Isaiah more for his betrayal of him in real life.

Regardless, the students settled down for Biology class for their section's Science subject that afternoon.

His Science teacher was a chirpy twenty-something named Ms. Isabelle "Belle" Del Mundo. The tall, slim teacher had a signature faint, singsong voice that was hard to miss. She sounded like a character straight from "Sesame  Street". Or "Batibot".

Ms. Del Mundo walked around the room, took attendance, and then had them move single file to the laboratory room at the second floor.

From there, Pascual kept following Florante.

"Gerry and the others finally let up on you, huh?" was the topic he chose to break the ice with. Goodness gracious.

Florante grunted. "More or less."

"Glad to hear it, bro."

'Uh-huh. I bet,' Florante thought, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

Galang ended up with the reputation of being a snitch in exchange for his bullies to leave him alone, but at least now their bullying wasn't as bad as it could've been. He didn't appreciate the passive-aggressive digs though.

He also didn't want to have this talk with Isaiah. He instead wished he could've paired up with Jenny as lab partners. To talk to her more.

To ensure to her that he wasn't going to break his promise. No wait, the real Jenny didn't care about that. It was the Jenny in his insane mind that told him to lay off the daydreams and fever dreams once and for all.

When they got to the lab, Ms. Del Mundo had them separate themselves in pairs.

This was usually Florante's worst nightmare since nobody in class wanted to pair up with him, the social pariah. However, he hoped after his interactions with the real Jenny that they'd pair up this time.

However, instead, he got stuck with Isaiah, who insisted on being his lab partner for the day. What was up with him today?

Their Biology teacher then proceeded to distribute a microscope and a box of slides on each table. The room buzzed with conversation as they prepared the materials.

As Florante and Isaiah worked as lab partners like the good ol' days, when they were still buddies, the latter continued his small talk.

For his part, Galang kept his eyes away from the lab doors, doodling all sorts of sketches on the back of his Science notebook. Like a short comic of Freeza and Goku battling it out at Planet Namek.

"Wow. You just sketched all that out without thinking, huh?" said Isaiah.

"Yep. Just like before," said Florante without looking up from his notebook.

"You never change," said Pascual, which almost offended Galang.

Florante groaned. Instead of hearing the musical voice of Jenny, he instead got stuck with his former best friend's nasally whine. Stuck with the backstabber who saved himself from a social suicide pact and got himself new friends.

Well, maybe his new friends could help him out with whatever problem he was having!

In the corner of his eye, he saw that Jenny and Laura had actually paired up as lab partners instead, with them seated to the desk right in front of the teacher's table.

Laura looked stunning as usual—a showstopper for sure—but Jenny stole the show as far as being the apple of Florante's eye was concerned.

Her side profile remained friendly and open even when looked at from behind, her mouth open with a slight smile on her flawless lips.

Her glasses framed her dazzling features beautifully, like there'd be something missing without them.

She had a pretty nice figure from Florante's vantage point too. Both she and Laura had shapely hips, thin waists, and uh, wide hips that couldn't be hidden even by the folds of their checkered skirts.

He palmed his red face at having such lewd thoughts about his classmates.

"Ah, so you've moved on from Laura Reyes to Jenny Tolentino, huh?" asked Pascual, which got on Galang's nerves.

"Shut up," he murmured, which made Isaiah laugh.

"Bingo! I was right, wasn't I?"

Florante sighed. "…Is it that obvious?"

"Bro, you couldn't stop staring at her empty desk when she was absent last week and now you couldn't stop staring at her when she finally got back."

Jeez. Florante should be more careful and not wear his heart on his sleeve.

If his other bullies caught wind of this, he'd never hear the end of it. Or maybe they already knew and were biding their time to use this info against him. Dammit.

Thankfully, the soft-spoken Ms. Del Mundo began class at that very moment.

Florante tried to focus on her words as she explained to the class what they'd be doing today in the lab.

The slides inside the box were out of order. The lab partners had to separate the slides of onion root tip cells into the different mitosis phases they represented then label them one by one.

They couldn't use their Biology books. In 20 minutes, she'll be coming around to check who got everything right.

Galang already studied (crammed on) this topic and Pascual, if memory served him correctly, had the lower grades and lazier study ethic (work ethic for studying) between the two of them.

So by his calculations, he'd be doing most of the work while his partner did most of the talking.

"Prophase," said Florante after studying one of the slides he magnified to 40X via the microscope briefly.

"Say, Florante…"

"What? Just down 'Prophase' for the first slide, Pascual," he ordered as he slid another slide under the microscope.

Isaiah did what he was told, letting Galang do most of the work. He didn't even bother double-checking.

"How much do you remember about that stormy night?"

"Anaphase," Florante murmured. "What stormy night? I don't remember any storms."

"How to you spell that?" Pascual asked, and Florante obliged him.

"A-N-A-P-H-A-S-E. Anaphase."

"Okay, thanks."

"No problem."

After a brief pause, Pascual's voice went even quieter than before when he continued speaking. "The storm you caused. The one where you ran amok. You don't remember any of it?"

Florante blinked at that. Did he hear him right? No, he must not have. "Third slide please."

Pascual handed Florante the third slide and sighed. "So you don't remember, huh? I should've figured as much."

"What are you talking about?" asked Florante, feigning ignorance while his heart beat began rising in his chest. He then said, "Interphase," after glancing for a few seconds at the microscope.

"Enterphase?" asked Isaiah.

"No, 'Interphase' with a Letter 'I'. Still spelled with a 'phase'. P-H-A-S-E," clarified Florante, before probing, "…Well?"

Pascual wrote down the label and said, "It doesn't really matter if you don't remember." He chuckled. "Would you believe you blasted my face off with light bullets a few days ago? Like something out of a Sci-Fi or martial arts movie, man!"

Florante took his eye off of the microscope and snapped his head in attention towards Isaiah. He felt lightheaded after doing so.

The two were about done with the activity. At the corner of Florante's eye, he could see both Laura and Jenny were already finished with their own slides minutes ago.

The color from Pascual's own face drained the same way it did when facing off against an angrier Florante in his fever dream.

"Oh shit. You do remember, don't you?"

'No. No way. There's no way my dreams are real. There's no way I literally killed my bullies in my dreams, only to press 'Ctrl + Z' and 'Undo' what I did!'

"Susmaryosep," Florante Galang murmured under his breath, wishing he could "Ctrl + Z" this exchange just now.

***

To Be Continued…

Everyone wants to be able to just press Ctrl + Z on their proverbial keyboards in order to undo any careless mistake they've made, whether it's an errant brush stroke on MS Paint or a typographical error on MS Word.

However, reality doesn't work like that. You can't take back what a careless thing you've said a few seconds ago that may or may not end friendships or break bonds. You can unbreak a dropped mug. You can't unspill spilled milk, no matter how hard you cry.

Farewell, Abdiel

[bdsrsated]

My Idol Famous People THank you po Dahil nameet ko kayo

Musician #Celebrity #Politician #Sports #Vlogger #Animals #Book #Anime #Cosplayer #knowledge #Travel #FoodDrinks #Shop #People

Health #Vehicles My Hobbies

Danny Zamora (Angas ng Cavite) Pro Wrestling Isaiah Valencia ANG PAMBANSANG KATROPA Pro Wrestling Liezel Lopez (Voltes V Legacy) Eunice Jorge (GraceNote) Charess John Weak Mei-mei Power Ranger The Movie Comics Enzo cosplayer2sibs Chelsea Marie Artiaga Lisle cosplay2sibs Mila Librando Jobert Librando Julia Pascual Bernie Mercado Nina Torralba Dimples Romana Noel Layon Flores Jastine Lim Bonner Dytoc Mark Ivan Liveta (All About Cavite) May Samonte Chelsea Robato Geiko Artwork Jayce Aiyana Cavite Kristoffer Gomez ReANIMUS Peyt Barner Bea Benedicto Lush Angel Rinzler batcat cosplay Ivyree Rosario (Little Thing PH) Tarantadong Kalbo ANNE CLUTZ Dj Bigboy Cheng The Abangers Vlog Azrael Coladilla Elle Villanueva Arianne Bautista Resty Ztankiel Siarez Kylie Padilla Reen Barrera Pat Jade (Envelope Voltes V) Chocnut-san Kong Kayla Heredia Rojean Delos Reyes Misaki Helen Plum Aster Coser Jed Madela

[scuzzzy]

My Favorite 20 ‘17 Tunes + Scuzzzy Pop Awards 2017

Presenting a run down of the tracks that kept me singing, humming and grooving the whole 365 days of 2017. Top 20 ‘17 tunes + the bubbling under tracks (21-99):

Ed Sheeran - Perfect

Harry Styles - Sign Of The Times

Sam Smith - Too Good At Goodbyes

LANY - Super Far

Ed Sheeran - Castle On The Hill

James Arthur - Say You Won't Let Go (last year’s #5)

LANY - ILYSB

Ed Sheeran - Shape Of You

Lord Huron - The Night We Met

Zedd with Alessia Cara - Stay

Lauv - I Like Me Better

The Chainsmokers & Coldplay - Something Just Like This

Selena Gomez - Only You

LANY - 13

Shawn Mendes - There's Nothing Holding Me Back

Linkin Park - One More Light

Bruno Mars - Versace On The Floor (last year’s #26)

Logic feat. Alessia Cara & Khalid - 1-800-273-8255

Clean Bandit feat Sean Paul & Anne-Marie - Rockabye

Bruno Mars - That's What I Like + BUBBLING UNDER TRACKS…

Demi Lovato - Sorry Not Sorry

Good Great Fine Ok & Before You Exit - Find Yourself

AJR - Weak

Ed Sheeran with Beyonce - Perfect Duet

Justin Bieber feat. Blood Pop - Friends

Pink - Beautiful Trauma

Niall Horan - Too Much To Ask

Louis Tomlinson feat. Bebe Rexha & Digital Farm Animals - Back To You

Rico Blanco - Sorry Naman

David Guetta feat. Justin Bieber - 2U

Martin Garrix feat. Troye Sivan - There For You

Kyla & Jason Dy - Tayo Na Lang Kasi

The Script - Rain

Charlie Puth - Attention

Eminem feat. Beyonce - Walk On Water

Clean Bandit feat. Zara Larsson - Symphony

John Mayer - Love on the Weekend (last year’s #37)

TJ Monterde feat. KZ Tandingan - Ikaw At Ako Pa Rin

Mark Carpio - Hiling

Luis Fonsi feat. Justin Bieber - Despacito (Remix)

KZ Tandingan - Two Less Lonely People In The World

Kygo feat. Justin Jesso - Stargazing

Migz Haleco - Bes

Ely Buendia and The Itchyworms - Lutang

Pink - What About Us

3D - Burnout

Paramore - Fake Happy

Zayn and Taylor Swift - I Don't Wanna Live Forever

John Legend - Love Me Now (last year’s #35)

James Arthur - Can I Be Him

Maroon 5 feat. SZA - What Lovers Do

Lorde - Green Light

Billie Eilish - Bored

Eminem feat. Ed Sheeran - River

Machine Gun Kelly x Camila Cabello - Bad Things (last year’s #68)

Kygo feat. Selena Gomez - It Ain't Me

JP Cooper - September Song

Machine Gun Kelly feat. X Ambassadors & Bebe Rexha - Home

Alessia Cara - How Far I'll Go (last year’s #77)

Khalid - Young Dumb & Broke

Drake - Passionfruit

Ben&Ben - Maybe The Night

Isaiah - It's Gotta Be You

Josh Groban - Evermore

Unit 406 - Tanghaling Tapat

Charlie Puth - How Long

The Weeknd feat. Daft Punk - Starboy (last year’s #31)

Lady Gaga - The Cure

Silent Sanctuary - Malayo Na Tayo

Louis Tomlinson - Miss You

The Ransom Collective - Tides

Linkin Park feat. Kiiara - Heavy

TJ Monterde - Mahika

Alessandra De Rossi - Twelve

Imagine Dragons - Thunder

Ebe Dancel feat. Rachel Alejandro - Kahapon, Ngayon At Bukas

TJ Monterde - Kahit Kunwari

The Ransom Collective - Open Road

Logan Paul feat. Why Don't We - Help Me Help You

Sir Sly - High

ONE OK ROCK - American Girls

Jonas Blue feat. William Singe - Mama

She's Only Sixteen - Magic

December Avenue - Sa Ngalan Ng Pag-ibig

Clean Bandit feat. Julia Michaels - I Miss You

Niall Horan - This Town (last year’s #43)

Imagine Dragons - Walking The Wire

The Japanese House - Cool Blue

Zayn & Sia - Dusk Till Dawn

Bamboo - C@ll

Artists for Grenfell - Bridge Over Troubled Water

Maroon 5 feat. Future - Cold

Francis and the Lights feat. Chance The Rapper - May I Have This Dance (Remix)

Inigo Pascual feat. Aikee - Extensyon

UDD - Sigurado

Quest - Walang Hanggan

DJ Khaled feat. Justin Bieber, Quavo, Chance The Rapper, Lil Wayne - I'm The One

Maroon 5 feat. Kendrick Lamar - Don't Wanna Know (last year’s #19)

Kaye Cal - The Labo Song

Scuzzzy Pop Awards 2017: Favorite Female Artist: Alessia Cara Pink Selena Gomez

Favorite Male Artist: Bruno Mars Ed Sheeran James Arthur Favorite Duo / Group / Band LANY Linkin Park The Script Favorite Breakthrought Artist: Ben&Ben Khalid SZA OPM Awards: Favorite OPM Band: The Ransom Collective Favorite Female Artist: KZ Tandingan Favorite Male Artist: TJ Monterde Songs included in the list are my 20 favorite songs of the year. Rankings and Pop Awards results were based on the number of accumulated points garnered by each song on my personal weekly music countdown (chart geek / weirdo alert!) dated December 24, 2016 - December 29, 2017. Check out my Favorite OPM 20 ‘17 tunes Check out my Favorite 20 ‘16 tunes Check out my Favorite 20 ‘15 tunes Check out my Favorite 20 ‘14 tunes Check out my Favorite 20 ‘13 tunes Check out my Favorite 20 ‘12 tunes Check out my Favorite 20 ‘11 tunes Check out my Favorite 20 ‘10 tunes Check out my Favorite 20 ‘09 tunes

​

[dpinoycosmonaut]

BIGGER IN DEATH

by Bert A. Ramirez / February 02, 2020               

The shocking, tragic passing of Kobe Bryant last January 26 in a helicopter crash that also killed his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven others generated an outpouring of grief, anguish, sympathy and pathos worldwide the likes of which might have never been seen before.  Why, even my own daughter Tintin, previously so casual, if not apathetic, towards my love for basketball, suddenly became involved herself, posting even more material in the family chat group than I did.

               Obviously, the way Kobe died along with his daughter and the rest of their companions had something to do with such a universal reaction.  It was a case of being gone at a remarkably young age (41) that isn’t even approached by the death of another legend, pop music and entertainment icon Michael Jackson, as Kobe died in such a cruel manner while Jackson, whose own demise at 50 shocked the world in 2009, died of a natural cause, albeit induced by an external factor.

               What made Bryant’s death oh-so-tragic is the fact that he was just about beginning a second act just after a remarkable career that made him a pop culture icon in the mold of Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Lionel Messi and Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal, to name just a few sports figures who have reached iconic stature in this age of the Internet.

               “Kobe was a legend on the court and just getting started in what would have been just as meaningful a second act,” former US President Barack Obama, himself an avid basketball fan, said.

               “To think that Kobe was at the peak of his life, retired from basketball but capable of taking care of his family and doing charitable works with all the resources he had, is something anyone cannot comprehend with this tragic life ending,” my own brother Tony, a passionate basketball fan like me, told our Celtics chat group.

               “Oh man.  This is just so sad!” Ryan Mercado of the same Celtics chat group exclaimed.  “Kobe is not only a loss to basketball but he was an icon, an ambassador and a humanitarian as well.”

               “A true legend in the game of basketball and an inspiration to the world,” baseball great Barry Bonds tweeted of his friend as he mourned his passing and that of his young girl.

               “I guess sports fans all over the world are devastated by the tragic loss of a transcendent figure and his daughter,” my own kumpare and fellow roundball enthusiast Erick Reyes said.  “Kobe always played the old-fashioned way.  He didn't demand for (star) teammates.  He always believed that he could carry the team by being a good role model.  He played injured, didn't go for load management.  He didn't bring his talent elsewhere and could have won many more championships.  Instead, in the tradition of the greats like Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, and others who wore that purple-and-gold uniform, Kobe stayed with the Lakers until he retired.

               “I was in Negros when Kobe played his final game in the NBA.  I watched the game while having lunch and I thought this was one of the emotional farewell games.  Instead, we were treated to a feast.  He scored 60 points and led the Lakers to a 101-96 victory over the Utah Jazz.  That is Kobe for you.  He wanted the ball till the end.”

               Indeed, what made Kobe Bryant different from his peers was the way he approached his commitment to his sport and his profession, spawning what eventually became known as “mamba mentality” (in reference to his nickname “Black Mamba”), a kind of work ethic and passion that simply prescribes how one should approach an endeavor in order to be successful.

               “There was nothing inauthentic about Bryant’s intensity,” Bryan Armen Graham of The Guardian wrote in explaining Kobe’s commitment and approach to his job as a pro athlete.  “He was probably the hardest worker in sports. Often it is supporting players who are praised for getting the very most out of their talent, but Bryant was an example of a supremely gifted athlete hell-bent on squeezing every last drop from his natural gifts, propelled by a maniacal competitive streak that wouldn’t have been out of place on Wall Street in the ‘80s and often led to flare-ups with cooler-tempered teammates, most infamously with Shaq (O’Neal).

               “He appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated no fewer than 20 times (when such appearances still mattered) and became one of the rare sporting figures to genuinely transcend the sports pages in the US and become a household name.  His international popularity may have even exceeded his standing at home as he became a crucial figure in elevating the sport’s global profile.  Michael Phelps may have won a record eight gold medals at the (2008) Beijing Olympics, but Kobe was the star of those Games on the ground.”

               Kobe had game, all right, but this goes far more than his basketball stature. He was viewed as an inspirational figure who after his retirement became one of the greatest ambassadors of the game, if he still wasn’t one as an active professional.  As Kobe himself remarked, “The most important thing is to try and inspire people so that they can be great at whatever they want to do.”

               This is why even the staunchest Celtics fans like me cried (secretly of course) when I learned about Kobe’s and his companions’ tragic death.  Bryant, I told a friend who had met him personally in his basketball academy in Los Angeles, was one of my most hated rivals because of my lifelong affinity with the Celtics, but the tragedy that befell him and the rest of his companions that included his daughter Gigi knows no bounds.  We're all human, after all, and thus we cry with their followers and loved ones.

               As a member of Facebook page Celtics Nation said, “As Celtics fans we are taught one thing, hate the Lakers.  But this is bigger than basketball.  He was a husband, a father and an icon.  Loved by millions around the world.  The impact he made will never be matched.”

               Kobe Bryant’s persona that had gained worldwide fame because of modern technology has no doubt also contributed to the worldwide impact of his passing.  Many who had the privilege of having had personal encounters with him, from avowed Lakers fan and sports broadcaster Jinno Rufino to that friend of mine who used to work at the now-defunct RPN 9, Babette Pascual-Yllana, are all unanimous in saying that Bryant was a gentle human being, a humble and gentlemanly character who belied that sporting image of an arrogant competitor who had that undeniable swagger and confidence.

               “When I met him, there was not a tinge of yabang.  Very accommodating,” Babette said.  “During those times he was already planning for his retirement, that’s why he put up the Kobe Bryant Basketball Academy and, later, the Mamba Sports Academy.  At that time, he was already working on the legacy that he would leave behind.

               “He was a gentleman, it stood out.  Maybe perhaps he was raised in italy?  I noticed that in my travels, mas well-mannered sila kaysa Americans.  (Kobe, of course, partly grew up in Italy as his father, former NBA frontliner Joe “Jellybean” Bryant, played for a while in the Italian League, one of the top professional leagues in Europe.)  Even if they (the Italians) also have superiority complex, di sila entitled kung umasta.  You could see it in Kobe then that he had a good heart.”  

               Of course, that good heart knew no bounds when Kobe needed to mentor or to simply encourage fellow basketball players young and old alike when they needed some words of wisdom or encouragement, like what Kobe did to current and former Celtics Jayson Tatum, Gordon Hayward and Isaiah Thomas.  Bryant was one of the first to advise Hayward on what attitude to take when the then-first-year Celtic suffered that horrific ankle injury in 2017.

               Perhaps what also made people relate more with Bryant was the fact that they could identify with him despite his superstar image because of his own frailties and weaknesses, which he never hid from the public but eventually overcame with that single-minded purpose and determination for which he became noted. In 2003, for example, he was accused of raping a woman in his hotel room while he was in Denver for knee surgery.  While admitting having sex with the woman, he denied rape, and a judge eventually dropped the charges, although he had to eventually settle out of court when the woman went on to file a civil lawsuit.

               While issuing a public apology, stating that he was sincerely ashamed of what he had done, Bryant had to go through a turbulent phase in his life that culminated with wife Vanessa filing for a divorce in 2011.  Eventually though, the two reconciled, with Kobe turning to his Catholic faith and upbringing to overcome his personal crisis. Kobe and Vanessa later founded the Kobe and Vanessa Bryant Family Foundation that is dedicated to, among other things, helping young people in need, encouraging the development of physical and social skills through sports, and assisting the homeless.

               Asked about this commitment in 2013, Bryant said, “My career is winding down.  At the end of my career, I don’t want to look back and just say, ‘Well, I had a successful career because I won so many championships and scored so many points.’  There’s something else that you have to do with that.  (The homelessness) issue is one that kind of gets pushed on the back burner because it’s easy to point the blame at those who are homeless and say, ‘Well, you made that bad decision.  This is where you are.  It’s your fault.’  In life, we all make mistakes and to stand back and allow someone to live that way and kind of wash your hands of it… that’s not right.”

               Is it still surprising why Bryant achieved that iconic status of his?

               “An icon is the perfect word for him.  His impact was far more than basketball.  Unbelievable,” Brandon Goldberg of Celtics Nation said.

               “Kobe was an icon and a legend.  He was always driven and committed to his goals.  A man with vision,” said my own sister in the US, Kitchie Beltran, not especially a staunch sports fan like another younger sister, Lourdes Beltran is (they’re married to brothers, thus the similar surnames), but who knew Kobe through the extent his stature reached.  “The impact of his death was felt by almost everyone.  They say that the people’s reaction to Kobe’s passing could be compared to the way the world reacted to the death of JFK (former US President John Kennedy) and the loss of Princess Diana.”

               That’s true, of course.  And that's also due in part to the available technology nowadays, which really brings more intimacy to a worldwide public, providing infinitely more people much closer knowledge about a celebrity or icon, particularly a great basketball star like Kobe whose game has become a global sport much like football.  And this is why the impact of Kobe's death is felt more not only because of the circumstances of his death, but also because basketball is now in the world's cultural mainstream due to the technology available.

               Even then, all those factors wouldn’t have made a difference in making Kobe Bryant even bigger in death than he was in life perhaps without the element that counts most of all – his character and greatness as a human being. That element transcended race, sports and cultural boundaries for him to be universally mourned.

               As my favorite golfer of all time, Jack Nicklaus, said, “Kobe Bryant embodied excellence.  Legendary talent; inspirational athlete; great role model; American icon loved globally.  Sports lost a tremendous friend but (you) don’t have to be (a) sports fan for your heart to hurt.  Just have to be human!”

               “You inspired a generation,” my brother Raul’s inaanak Angel Espejo de Llana said in his own obituary for Kobe. “You were the example of hard work and determination.  You will always be remembered as an inspiration and a hero.”

               “Kobe was truly larger than life, a legend,” Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio tweeted.  “LA will never be the same.”

               Perhaps Bill Velasco, in his eloquent tribute to Bryant in The Philippine Star, put it best when he wrote, “I believe that the deepest, core reason why Kobe Bryant stirred us so is that he took us to places inside us that very few of us dared to go…  It was his fearlessness to look within, to face his weaknesses, to pile onto his strengths, to refuse to recognize limits, that is what we mourn…  Kobe Bryant ventured alone into the realm of what is possible more deeply than most of us ever will…  He showed us the light that leads inside of us, and faced his own demons and flaws to prove that it could be done.”

               Rest in peace, Kobe.  Yours was a life that was short by human standards, but it was a life well-lived, and a life that gave joy to millions of people.

[gabriel-gabdiel]

Fantasy of Evolution Chapter 6: It Wasn't All Just a Dream…?

Wait. What if it wasn’t all a dream? What will Florante do now?

You can also find more chapters of my original fiction here. Please enjoy.

First | Previous | Next

Back in Fatima High School's science laboratory…

The Biology teacher of Florante Galang and Isaiah Pascual—the soft-spoken Miss Isabelle Del Mundo, known by the faculty by her nickname "Belle" a la the protagonist of Disney's "Beauty and the Beast"—looked over their shoulders to glance at their laboratory work.

After staring intently to check their answers, Ms. Belle Del Mundo said to Florante, "Mr. Galang, don't you think Mr. Pascual should get a chance at looking into the microscope?"

The two former best friends exchanged glances. Pascual was the first to speak.

"We're just about to finish up, Ms. Del Mundo," he said to the soft-spoken teacher before taking the last slide and putting it onto the microscope so he could peer at it.

"Well," she said after a moment of deliberation, "then go ahead, boys. Remember, this is a cooperative exercise between lab partners, okay?" She then walked away.

After she left, Florante began doodling on his notebook.

"Florante," said Isaiah in an almost whiny manner. "I don't know what I'm looking at. Help."

With a sigh, Florante whispered, "The last two we haven't found are prometaphase and telaphase. Telaphase is easy because it's the cell splitting into two. If it's not split into two, it's probably prometaphase."

"How do you spell that, bro?"

"Come on, man."

The two exchanged glances again.

"I'm just kidding, Florante."

"Haha. Funny stuff. Can you spell it or not?"

"Yeah, of course. It's something like 'Pro' as in 'Pro-wrestling', 'Meta' as in 'Metal', and then P-H-A-S-E for 'Phase', right?"

"Yeah, something like that."

"The slide I got is probably the pro-something one, by the way. The cell hasn't split."

"Gotcha," said Florante as he took the slide out to label it. "The last one's probably telaphase but look at it just in case."

"Yep, it's a split cell," Isaiah confirmed after changing microscope slides. "You saved my bacon, bro. Thanks," he added.

Florante harrumphed. "I saved the both of us. You're not going to drag my grade down with you."

And, just as Galang was about to wave off how Pascual talked about his fever dream as his imagination running wild, his imagination apparently chose that moment to run wild again.

"You remember killing me, don't you?" said the pokerfaced Pascual in a deadpan monotone. "You blew my head off. You did all sorts of nasty things to our classmates too."

Isaiah sounded like something out of a horror story. Thusly, Florante resisted the urge to scream, his blood running cold once again.

Was Galang going mad? This wasn't happening, was it? Or was he in a dream again? He hadn't gone off the deep end yet, had he?

He should check out his dream journal when he got home, just in case. It helped him differentiate when something was a dream and wasn't.

It was his sole tether to sanity and objective reality at this point.

***

Fantasy of Evolution

An Urban Fantasy Story by Abdiel

Who keeps dream journals of their nonsensical dreams as though they have any bearing with reality? Florante does, but his is a special case.

Disclaimer: This work may reference copyrighted material, the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. It is believed that this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the US Copyright Law. All copyrighted material referred to in this work belongs to their respective owners. All rights reserved.

***

Chapter 6: It Wasn't All Just a Dream…?

***

Sometimes, Florante Galang wondered if he got bullied because he deserved it.

Nine times out of ten, he'd say no. Like that one dentist who didn't recommend this or that brand of toothpaste even though nine others did.

No one deserved to be bullied the way he got bullied. However, one of those ten times he might reconsider that maybe he got what was coming to him because he did something wrong.

His feeling of inadequacy and insecurity haunted him. Maybe he had it coming. Maybe he was asking for it.

Maybe nines times out of ten, he had a brief moment of self-awareness. He got bullied because he committed the grave sin of social ineptitude.

Maybe he just needed to fit in with his classmates better. Maybe, even though they were mean to him, they were mostly excellent to one another, so there must've been something wrong with him instead.

Maybe he should be the one to adjust to them instead of the other way around.

Was he victim-blaming himself? Maybe. Or maybe he was a narcissist manipulating others to his will only to face karma from his bad behavior.

Maybe a large portion of his life leading up to this moment was a series of huge mistakes of which he learned nothing.

Maybe he should emulate their behavior except for the part where they were being jerks to him.  

Or maybe he should be a jerk to other weirdoes while imitating the manly behavior exhibited by the jocks and tough guys in his class. Find someone weaker than him to pick on so he wouldn't be the one picked on by everyone.

Maybe he simply needed to fit in with his bullies and coexist with them in the social food chain. Maybe he merely needed to grow up like his asshole classmates, who themselves were already having hookups, parties, and girlfriends.

Meanwhile, like a child, he couldn't even hold a romantic conversation with a girl his age, with him stuck in the Friend Zone for all of the girls he was actually in good terms with. Or worse.

He might even have the E.Q. (emotional quotient) of a child too, or at least that was what his mother and teachers kept telling him. Arrested development, if you would.

Outside the Dead Kids, he simply couldn't find a clique to belong with in Fatima School and its roughly 800 high school students, specifically the 200 or so students in the same year.  

He rationalized that he couldn't relate to people his age. Despite what his mother suggested, he was friendlier towards people who were older than him, like college-aged students, teachers, or other grownups.

However, even then he wasn't really all that close to anyone in school. Perhaps the truth of the matter was that he couldn't relate to people period and he was a gigantic weirdo, dork, or wimp.

A wimpy kid with no friends.

Anyway, at least he had an okay I.Q. (intelligence quotient). He sometimes made it to the Top 10 of the class. Sometimes. Bottom three of ten, usually. So at least he wasn't completely pathetic academically.

He was back to his usual ritual of barely eating lunch and finding ways and places to hide himself inside the school every recess and lunch break so he wouldn't look like (more of) a total loser to his peers.

He'd end up eating alone outside the cafeteria, near the boiler room, or under the mango trees with the circular concrete seats surrounding them time and time again. Or reading in the library until his hunger passed.

He was skin and bones practically. The wimpiest of kids. Certain sporty girls in the varsity team could probably outdo him in athletics, he was so pathetic.

So it was probably this insecurity that led him to dream the dreams he dreamt. He had also called them nightmares because it involved him murdering his bullies.

However, if it were proverbial rather than literal murder—like him imagining their murder to let off some steam from their bullying without ever daring to murder them for real—he'd understand how these dreams could be considered as the power fantasies of the powerless.

Like parents tempted to kill their misbehaving children without really meaning it.

Or maybe his being a terrible person who deserved all the bullying he ever got was just the dose of self-awareness he needed.

Maybe he should stop being so dependent on what other people thought. As long as he followed his own moral compass, they had no business dictating how he lived his life!

If he left them alone then they should leave him alone too. Right?

As long as he didn't hurt anyone else—so again, he crossed his fingers that his dream murders were nothing more than dreams—he didn't need anyone's approval.

***

As the class returned from the lab to the classroom to further discuss cell mitosis or whatever, Pascual played catch-up with Galang, walking beside him and asking him how he'd been doing.

Or more like Isaiah talked and Florante half-listened, waiting for the other shoe to drop in regards to them sharing memories of something that only happened in his, well, their dreams.

Maybe Florante misheard him the first time? And the second time? He didn't know. Isaiah didn't press the matter.

He merely asked him for the time instead, wishing to change the subject. "What time is it?"

"Let me see. It's skin thirty," Pascual said with a straight face while pointing to his bare wrist.

It took Florante a minute to get it.

"Oh."

They then both shared a hearty laugh, with Florante laughing in spite of himself. A cathartic laugh from all the stress he felt.

Dammit, Galang kind of missed this. He missed talking to his former best friend like this.

Too bad their friendship went south in the end.

Pascual then told Florante about the rumors he heard about him. How Florante had ended up joining the infamous Dead Kids of Fatima High.

How he finally got his bullies to let up with their bullying by listing their names and sending them to his teacher. A teacher that actually did something after catching Florante's bullies in the act.

How he started wooing(!?) their classmate Jennifer Tolentino.

"I wasn't wooing anyone, don't be weird," Florante told Pascual off. "I just want to be better friends with her, that's all."

Or be friends again at all. They were supposed to be friends when they first met during the first day of school, but they then drifted apart. Kind of like the situation between Pascual and him, to be honest.

Florante avoided eye contact with Isaiah all this time out of embarrassment of being told loads of gossip, rumors, and half-truths about himself.

At the same time, he had to also avoid getting caught stealing glances at Jenny from time to time as she walked on ahead of them alongside Laura Reyes.

Her bespectacled face was such a distraction that he tried not to look at her as much as possible, only to end up staring back at Pascual and his nonsense.

It didn't help that Laura was there too. They still had an awkward air about them when they were near one another.

He didn't know where to look. The floor, perhaps? Or how about the ceiling?

There he was again, falling in love with another girl who gave him an ounce of attention. Or kissed him in his dreams.

On second thought, yeah. He was dreaming, wasn't he?

Once they were back in the classroom, Florante returned to his seat and tried to listen to the rest of Ms. Del Mundo's lecture, who used an overhead projector to project transparencies onto the blackboard with the windows and shades closed.

He couldn't manage his thoughts. Was he hearing things with Pascual? Did he really say what he thought he heard him say?

***

For a change, as the bell rung and Biology class ended, Pascual continued talking to Galang. Usually, no one bothered to do so in their class.

As of late, before she went absent for a week, it had been Jenny who talked to him, but only sometimes.  

"Jenny seems friendlier to you now than before," was the icebreaker Isaiah went with. "You even had lunch with her and your gang."

'Humph. My gang, huh?' Florante thought, with Pascual avoiding calling them by their infamous name of "Dead Kids".

To Isaiah, Galang went with, "Yeah, I guess," while also wondering aloud, "I wonder why she was absent for so long."

"There's been a cold bug spreading. Must've been the change in weather."

"Yeah, that must be it."

Florante frowned, though it felt more to him like the petulant pout of a child. He looked away while resisting the urge to stick his tongue out childishly at Isaiah for good measure.

He couldn't focus on his former best friend's chatter as they grabbed their bags with their P.E. (Physical Education) uniforms and proceeded to have P.E. class at the gymnasium.  

Mixed-gender volleyball at the gym didn't catch much of Florante's attention either. He ended up playing with Pascual and his friends though, which was a relief for him.

Usually, their P.E. teacher had to force one of the multiple cliques or groups in Section St. Francis to include Florante with them. Or he ended up with the rest of the social outcasts who couldn't find a group to team up with.

He was always left out whenever the gym coach instructs the class to group themselves into four or five people.

After doing warm-up exercises and partner drills, they had a simultaneous mini-tournament of sorts. Multiple five-member teams ended up doing a set of games until the end of P.E. period.

Florante ended up in a team composed of four guys—two of them Isaiah and Florante himself—and one girl up against a team of three guys and two girls.

Naturally, Florante Galang sucked at P.E. in general and volleyball in particular.

Most of his volleyball returns resulted in shots that went outside the court, so his teammates covered his position so he wouldn't bungle more shots.

However, strangely enough, both Isaiah and even Jenny (who played against another team at an adjacent court) cheered him on, leading him to surprise himself by serving the volleyball decently, even scoring an ace or two.

Sure, their team lost in the end, but at least the unathletic Florante was able to somewhat contribute when normally he couldn't.

Well then. The day ended up better than he expected!

***

Inside the boys' locker room, while the class either changed back to their regular uniforms or just gathered their belongings to head out of the school for dismissal time, Pascual continued talking to Florante, making him self-conscious.

The introvert felt tired from all that talking—well, half-listening and barely answering—he did for so long. His social "health bar" was spent.

To explain, introverts tended to shy away from social gatherings because being in such situations took a toll on their energy. They could only take so much before becoming anxious or nervous wrecks.

Even though Pascual and Florante were having mostly one-on-one (or rather, one-sided) conversations instead of a more open social encounter with multiple people, Pascual's sudden over-friendliness after they'd acted like strangers for so long had depleted Florante's tolerance for the social situation.

"…Oh, I remember that one time, in the grade school playground, you were playing alone, pretending to be Rambo or something, tying an imaginary bandanna on your forehead…!"

"All right, ALL RIGHT! That's enough," said Florante, who now focused his full attention on his ex-friend Pascual. "I get the picture."

By the way, his bullies had caught him playing alone as a high school kid, since he spent his grade school in Makati.

"Sorry," apologized Isaiah. "You're not going to zap my brain to mush again like before, are you?"

This jolted Florante awake from any more random thoughts. He hoped the earlier declarations from Pascual was just his imagination, but no such luck.

He'd been actually delaying any potential confrontation as long as he could.

Galang's eyebrows knit together in concentration for the first time the whole day, like he had just suddenly noticed that the things happening around him didn't make sense because he was merely dreaming.

Like someone between the verge of sleepiness and wakefulness.

He then exhaled, mumbled, "Susmaryosep," under his breath, and said, "No. I only have those powers when I'm dreaming, not in real life."

The daydreaming asthmatic didn't want to look like a fool and attempt to shoot nonexistent laser bullets at one of his bullies, thank you very much.

Isaiah gave him a quizzical look. "You can totally shoot your power beams or whatever right now."

Florante scoffed at the idea. "No, I can't. That's not how this works. I need to be dreaming in order for me to use those powers. Because none of it is real."

Pascual raised an eyebrow at that. "You sure about that?"

Galang also raised an eyebrow in kind. "What do you mean?"

So Isaiah clarified. "You don't need to dream to use your powers."

What. Now hold on a minute there! "No, I can't. That wasn't real. That was just a dream," Florante dismissed the very notion until something else occurred to him.

"Hey, Pascual. How'd you know what happened in my dreams?"

Although Isaiah had been talking up a storm since Biology class, Florante just now noticed his ex-friend's hands gripping the edge of the bench they sat on in the locker with immense tension.

Like a squashed bed spring ready to uncoil.

Had Isaiah been acting this nervous around him this entire time, unbeknownst to him? Was he talking nonstop to help calm his nerves?

Why was he so afraid of him…? Oh. Right. The murders.

No, please. Not this again. Not him questioning whether his dream happened or not again! Anything but that!

"Florante Galang," Isaiah Pascual said. "That wasn't a dream. You really did kill us all."

No. NO. That couldn't be. No, no, no. Shut up, Pascual.

Pascual continued. "Was that how you were able to cope with what happened? You waved off everything as a dream? You avoided accountability that way?"

"NO! What happened was a dream!" exclaimed Florante.

"You always had the power. To destroy. To kill. It's as plain as the nose on your face," said Isaiah.

"But you can't see the nose on your face unless you look in a mirror," said Galang.

"Then let me be that mirror to your face. Let me prove it wasn't a dream," said Pascual.

Florante productively released his anger, malice, and frustrations in that dream because he was powerless in real life! Also, who had superpowers in real life? How absurd!

"Just because you were somehow able to reset everything back to the way things were doesn't mean you've completely undone what you did."

"SHUT UP!"

It was then that Florante noticed how Isaiah hadn't taken off his P.E. uniform yet even as the introvert immediately took those clothes off and changed into his school uniform.

"We remember everything. I remember everything you've done. And what a monster you were back then."

No no no nonono. Florante was not the monster Mammon accused him of! None of it was real! This wasn't real either! He was dreaming again, wasn't he?

His fever dream was supposed to be catharsis so he could successfully avoid committing a murder in real life! Or at least wish-fulfillment because he was never a violent or particularly powerful person either!

The bullies in his life had always silenced him but the one time he struck back and silenced them instead, he was the bad guy?

How was that fair? He was solely responsible for losing control? They could do whatever they wanted with him but he couldn't to them in turn?

Before the asthmatic could let out a wheezy exhale, Isaiah disappeared from view.

Then the whole world became a blur.

***

The drizzle had become mist by the time they ended up suddenly in the streets, leaving a trail of devastation behind them.

It took a minute before a bleeding Florante Galang realized that Isaiah Pascual had just pushed him from the gym lockers all the way through the soccer field, right past part of the high school building, to the back of the school wall, right into open traffic, with one hand to his chest.

They busted through wall, brick, concrete, and plaster like a bulldozer through Styrofoam.

It all happened within a second. Or a fraction of a second. Before Galang's eyes could even blink or his mind could register what had happened.

Wait. So Pascual was actually an angel too? Or maybe even a demon? An Ophanim or a Minion? Like the spaghetti monster or the maelstrom man?

The impact should've caved Florante's chest in. Not to mention broke and dislocated his bones in 30 different places.

He might've even ended up like roadkill too, if not for his Ophanim halo that served as his shield.

Thankfully, a combination of light energy and gale winds formed a protective vacuum cocoon around Galang's body that kept him safe from harm. His own halo effect, if you would.

Isaiah just looked at the (mostly) untouched Florante, his palm outstretched, his jaw agape, before he gave him a sheepish grin. "Hehehe. Didn't expect that, did you?"

"You have superpowers too?"

"Yep. See? And so do you… AH! Please don't blow my brains out!"

Isaiah flinched or perhaps even overreacted at Florante stepping towards him, with him unleashing a flurry of punches.

"I wasn't! OW! Stop punching me!" One of the fists hit Florante's nose before he could summon his light wind dome again to block the rest of the blows.

Something else then dawned to Florante as he surveyed how far they went out. "You… you almost killed me!" He considered taking a swing at his former friend, but settled with attempting to catch him.

However, Isaiah disappeared the instant Galang tried grabbing his arm. Like a fly disappearing before the fly swatter could hit it.

By instinct, Florante jumped back into the sidewalk as a car beeped at him.

He then looked around. Several onlookers began gathering around the scene of devastation, particularly near what was left of what was once a wall and a planter's box.

Isaiah ran away and Florante was about to chase him when he felt something coming at him from behind. 'What…?'

Instead of multiple supersonic punches, Galang got hit by a single spine-tingling punch that actually blew away his halo shield and rattled him to the bones.

Then it hit him again. And again.

"…Catch me if you can, Slowpoke!"

Multiple Pascuals kept appearing and disappearing, punching his weakening halo shield with supersonic punches that came at Florante stronger and faster by the second.

What was this? In spite of his panic, Florante figured what Isaiah did. He ran in a tight circle at supersonic speeds and incrementally increased the momentum of his punch until it reached an irresistible power at an unstoppable level.

Sneaky bastard.

Pascual ran at the supersonic speed of a racecar going through a racetrack, crashing through Galang's halo shield bit by bit.

The more time passed, the faster the momentous punch got and the harder it was for Florante's halo aura to resist it. Isaiah might actually break through his hallowed field. What was he supposed to do now?

"…Lightning BOLT!"

Florante thusly summoned lightning from the drizzling overcast skies just as the infinite mass punch shattered his halo vacuum field, which electrocuted Pascual while energized Galang.

This jolted and froze Pascual, but his forward momentum remained, which prompted Florante to finally dodge one of the continuous punches.

The resulting blockbuster explosion blasted both of them thirty or so feet clear into the gray heavens.

***

The next thing Florante knew, he'd landed on the roof(?!) of the Fatima High School Building.

What the hell.

He looked around him to see where he was. He felt a tingling sensation travel across his extremities. His acrophobia (fear of heights) had acted up again.

Or maybe that was the millions of volts of electricity he'd just absorbed before making the electrocuted Isaiah miss, resulting in a blast from his massive punch that jettisoned them from the streets of Mandaluyong to the rooftops of Fatima High.

It was times like this that convinced him that the time when he jumped from rooftop to rooftop in order to experiment upon using his powers was just a dream. An acrophobic would never do anything as crazy as that for real. Also, he had superpowers. Of course it was all a crazy dream.

He looked around to make sure he was indeed where he was. That was when he noticed the still figure of Isaiah Pascual beside him.

Huh. He survived the fall too, huh?

"Dammit, you weren't this powerful before," was what Florante thought Pascual murmured under his breath.

'Before…?' thought Florante. What did he mean by that?

However, as Galang braced himself for another assault, he realized Pascual's stiff body still hadn't recovered from the electrocution.

Also, because they were on the roof deck of the building, his former best friend has less running room for his supersonic punch.

Most importantly, Florante still had enough energy left from absorbing the millions of volts of electricity from the lightning strike. Perhaps 1.21 gigawatts of power. Perhaps even more than that.

A billion joules of electricity. Enough to power dozens of homes for a day. Or 10 million light bulbs at the same time. Maybe even a flux capacitor on a time-traveling DeLorean.

Should he do it? Should he test out whether this was a dream or not?

Should he hit him with his five-fingered Light Array bullets, which was now practically his finishing move? Or he could use both hands and fire all ten shots?

Nah. That was overkill. Instead, he elected to focus his accumulated power on one closed fist, cocked his arm back, and then shouted, "Thunder BOLT…!"

It made sense. Even though the high school building had a narrow roof deck, Isaiah could still dodge. So Florante might as well shoot his thread-thin concentrated laser that cut through the air and produced a powerful "thunder" or "sonic boom" shockwaves with a wider destructive area.

However, he hesitated at the last minute when he heard Pascual ask, "Thunder Bolt? So what's different between that and the Lightning Bolt you shot earlier?"

Florante couldn't help himself. It had been his pet peeve ever since he saw "Thunder Bolt" and "Lightning Bolt" used interchangeably in anime, manga, action games, and RPGs.

"…Well, obviously, a Lightning Bolt is the bolt of electricity. The thunder comes after the lightning bolt, correct? It's the rumbling sound from the shockwaves of a sonic boom. So to me Thunder Bolt is basically just a sonic boom."

"Oh, I see. I never thought of it that way."

The two then just stared at each other for a hot minute, with Galang allowing the rivulets of electric might fade away as he relaxed his shoulders and stopped cocking back his fist.

Pascual himself relaxed as well, the paralyzing effects of Florante's electric shocks finally wearing off.

***

The two former best friends sat down on the roof deck overlooking Fatima High while the rest of the world stood still.

The damage they'd wrought on the rooms, walls, and streets earlier slowly but surely disappeared, as though they didn't even touch anything.

Curious. Then again, this only affirmed Florante's stance that his supernatural actions originated from dreams. Perhaps extra-lucid dreams than normal, but dreams nonetheless.

Florante sat beside Pascual, with both doing the "Indian sit" or "Indian style" sitting position with their legs crossed underneath them, which was often linked to stereotypical portrayals of Native Americans.

It was also believed to be rooted on a meditation or yoga pose from India known as the "Lotus Position".

They shared a hearty laugh, with Isaiah stating, "Of course only you can come up with something as nerdy as making a Thunder Bolt be different from  a Lightning Bolt!"

Meanwhile, Florante himself protested, "You're the one to speak! You were the one who gave me the idea!"

Pascual blinked three times then tilted his head to the side. "I did? I don't remember."

"You totally did! That's why I made it a point to use a different kind of attack when doing a Thunder Bolt and Lightning Bolt!" said a grinning, nostalgic Galang. "You once brought the topic up to me."

"Maaan, I can't believe you've grown this strong already," said a wistful Isaiah while scratching his cheek. "I guess I should've expected it. You were among the first to awaken, weren't you?"

"…I guess? What do you mean by awaken, though?" Florante asked.

"Just what like it sounds like," Pascual said. "It's when you awaken your powers."

Oh right. It wasn't just him who awakened. There was also Gerry Jacinto. And Laura Reyes. And now, Isaiah Pascual. They all "awakened" to having their own superpowers along with Florante.

"Hey, Pascual," Florante called out, "you're an angel too, aren't you?"

"…Angel?" Isaiah repeated.

"That's what Jenny Tolentino called us," Galang continued, brushing his damp hair bangs back and heaving a heavy, asthmatic wheeze. "Angels. Demons. Either or."

"Demons, huh?" Pascual rubbed his shoulder. "Yeah, I guess you can call her that. Maybe even a monster."

"…Her?"

Pascual hesitated from revealing anything more. "Sooo how does Jenny know about all this?"

Florante replied, "She's one of us. She's also an angel."

Pascual smirked. "Isn't that just your crush on her talking?"

"What? No," Florante denied, but he has second thoughts. So far, everything tracked. Jenny confirmed they were angels then they fought against multiple demons.

She was telling him the truth, right? She must've told them the truth. He trusted her.

"I meant she has powers like ours and she awakened her powers long before we have, so I gave her the benefit of the doubt," said Florante.

Why shouldn't he trust the girl whose (alleged) back story of being much older than she looked, he found out for himself, without her prompting? He already did the background check himself!

A second later, he asked, "Wait, she hasn't talked to you about it?"

"No, it's the first time I've even learned she even has powers like us," said Pascual.

"That's strange," said Florante. "So you didn't know we're angels and demons?"

"Not a clue," said Pascual. "For all I know, we've become like the X-Men or something. Mutants who've awakened our superpowers, you know?"

"That also makes sense," said a wistful Galang. "We might be the next evolution of man. Deities. Or gods. Or heroes."

"Or villains. Or demons. Or monsters…" Isaiah trailed off.

"What happened?" Florante asked, sensing Pascual's foul mood. "Is something wrong?"

"I-It's nothing," Isaiah said, but then exhaled and shrugged. "It's about Regina…"

"Regina Mariano?" Florante repeated, remembering the girl as the one who said he had fetal alcohol syndrome.

He also remembered blasting her until she turned to ash in his fever dream.

"What happened to her?"

***

By the time Florante and Isaiah left the rooftop (via the staircase), everything went back to normal.

No hole in the wall. No broken glass windows. No interrupted traffic outside of the school. It was if they'd never fought.

Another reset or "Ctrl + Z" had happened, which made Galang presume that his fever dream was one of those resets. Nevertheless, he had to face facts.

He unfortunately did kill his classmates, but something occurred to "undo" the event, making it fade away like a dream. Was this the power of angels in action again?

Regardless, Isaiah gave Florante the lowdown on what happened to Regina. She had awakened her powers like Isaiah, Jennifer, and Florante did.

Long story short, Regina transformed into a mindless Ophanim or perhaps even a Minion. Like the crawling chaos or the spaghetti monster from before, she ended up becoming an out of control monster that Isaiah couldn't stop.

Come to think of it, Florante left out that little detail of him visiting Jenny's apartment in his dreams after seeing her name-alike in a yearbook at the library.

However, because of recent events, he had an inkling suspicion that his visit to the Tolentino abode actually happened. Like how his brief battle with Isaiah actually happened before their collective lucid fantasy disappeared right in their very eyes.  

God dammit all to hell. So he really did kill his classmates. He really did kill Laura.

He felt terrified and confused, but mostly ashamed by the fact.

A wave of guilt washed over him. What he thought was him releasing pent-up stress harmlessly was actually him harming his bullies as revenge. Like a school shooter run amok.

If everything hadn't reset back to normal with everyone still living and their school left in one piece, he'd be no better than the bullies he so hated.

No, he'd be worse than them. He'd be a murderer.

He turned what was supposed to be an eye for an eye revenge plot and instead took an arm and a leg as payment for his social humiliation.

Never mind, "An eye for an eye makes the world go blind". The term, "An eye for an eye" was created with people like him in mind: Vengeance seekers who went overboard with their revenge.

He didn't know what to feel.

On one hand, he felt horrified, guilty, and ashamed after realizing he had hurt his classmates for real.

On the other hand, shamed as he was to admit it, he felt a measure of Schadenfreude or catharsis for mostly, um, unleashing his frustrations on his tormentors back to them.

However, he wanted to crawl under a rock and die over the realization that he really did kill his former crush, Laura Reyes, as collateral damage for his mad killing spree. Ditto his teacher who merely got in his way.

They didn't deserve to die like his bullies. However, did even his bullies deserve death over humiliating him in school? Why couldn't he simply humiliate them in return? An eye for an eye?

Sure, everything went back to normal and everyone ended up alive, but he still felt dirty realizing he really did all those things. He wasn't so innocent after all.

No wonder Jenny kept acting so guarded and awkward around him. On top of him stalking her. Damn, he needed to have more self-awareness!

The more he thought about things, the more he realized he was screwed.

What he originally thought was harmless stress relief was now considered something beyond the pale. He felt like someone pulled the rug from under him.

What if he had no reset button? What if they stayed dead? He would have ruined their lives, the lives of their loved ones, and his own life forever.

He didn't mean to. He just wanted them to leave him alone. Even if they didn't end up friends or acquaintances in the end, just let him be. Let bygones be bygones, dammit.

***

The next day…

That breakfast, Florante ate his sandwich and drank his orange juice in a hurry.

For once, he felt somewhat excited to go to school. Not because he was some nerd looking forward to tests and quizzes or something.

He certainly didn't go there to meet up with any friends save for his Dead Kids acquaintances. No, if he was being honest with himself, he knew his eagerness to get to school was to see Jennifer Tolentino again.

No, no. Well, yes. He did want to see his crush again.

But aside from that, he was looking forward to using his powers for good instead of evil.

For once, he would used his dream abilities to help a (former) best friend in need save his new girl friend (not girlfriend, a friend who was a girl, Isaiah insisted) from herself.

If anything, this was his way of alleviating his guilt and shame over actually killing his classmates for real. He owed it to all the bullies he killed, even though they didn't stay dead.

Hmmm.

So if memory (of his vague dreams) served him correct, the angels who'd been chosen as candidates for the position of Archangel Gabriel was Florante, Isaiah, Regina, Gerry, and  Laura.

Maybe also Mark Zuniga? No, no. Mark only stabbed Florante. Gerry was the one who awakened his own powers, followed by Laura. In his "fever dream" that wasn't really a dream.

***

Back at Fatima High…

Regina Mariano appeared normal enough when she got to school. However, as Isaiah Pascual would explain later, she'd actually gotten mixed up with a "bad crowd".

If Florante could hazard a guess, she must've ended up being manipulated by another full-fledged demon avatar like Mammon.

They all attended classes like usual, with Isaiah giving Florante looks here and there to remind him of their plans to, uh, "save" Regina after school.

From how Isaiah described her transformation, her Ophanim/Minion form or biblically accurate angel/demon body was reminiscent of a geometric polygon. Or pyramids glued together at the bottom.

An object instead of an organism. An abstraction instead of something living.

Isaiah admitted he was no match against her and her growing power, but he thought that maybe with Florante's power and help, they could beat the sense back into his estranged girl friend.

Galang then told Pascual about how Ophanims were actually awakened with the purpose of becoming avatars of famous angels or demons like Gabriel or Raphael.

However, it hadn't quite sunk in that Isaiah, Regina, and Florante were bound to fight for the position of Gabriel's avatar sooner or later.

Florante wasn't too clear on how this avatar business worked himself. He made a mental footnote on asking Jennifer more about it later.

Oh right. Jenny. Should Florante end up facing off against her too? She was already the Raphael avatar, so it should be okay.

However, he ended up breaking his promise to her to forget about this angel and demon business.

He felt at times that Jenny acted too guarded around him. Even hostile at times. Seeing that he had every intention of breaking his promise to her, maybe her behavior was warranted.

No. He had to do this favor to Isaiah. To make it up for what he did to his bullies.

He'd apologize to Jenny later. For now, he had to concentrate on Isaiah's friend Regina.

Sure, Regina wasn't the most pleasant of classmates to Florante himself, but he really wanted to make up for the sins he committed that haven't actually been erased.

Some of his bullies actually remembered him killing them. Remembered his past sins.

His sins that actually happened and were real, despite them disappearing from reality like forgotten dreams.

***

After dismissal time…

It rained particularly hard that afternoon, such that it took every ounce of the clumsy Florante's concentration to make it out of school without slipping on a puddle or getting the hem of his pants wet from wayward splashes.

He even managed to cling to the nearby chain-link fence of the school's entrance and exit to save himself from falling.

He shook his head, wishing the ground would swallow him whole. As amazing as he and Pascual probably looked earlier with their superhuman feats, he looked downright pathetic without his powers and with his actual clumsiness.

If he were a girl, perhaps he'd look more endearing instead of pathetic, like a cute klutz. As it was, he felt less of a man for being an uncoordinated goof with not a single athletic bone in his body.

It was times like this that made him doubt (perhaps hope) that his imagined sins or dark fantasies against his classmates remained as such.

Not that hoping for their misfortune subconsciously was any better, but at least it didn't really happen.

Anyway, Regina Mariano had been hanging out with these shady people after dismissal time and her friend circle—of which Isaiah was a part of—was getting worried about it.

Appropriately enough, she seemed like the poster child for an after-school special on wayward kids who hang out with the wrong crowd.

As typical of such specials, Regina was your average tomboyish girl next door who wore a ponytail haircut and sported a dyed brunette hair that stood out from her tan skin.

Regardless, Pascual insisted that her meetings with these questionable and suspicious persons had something to do with both him and her awakening their angelic powers.

So what was Regina's deal? Pascual alleged she got into contact with some talent agency and they were going to make her into a star. However, they instead awakened her angel self and turned her into an outright monster with their schemes.

Pascual attempted to save her, with the stress of her awakening also triggering his own angelic transformation, but she proved too powerful for him.

As her guy best friend, Isaiah followed her to their talent offices, feeling that something was afoot. From what Florante could surmise, Regina was a bit of a naïve country bumpkin and the agency was taking advantage of her and various other talents.

That was news to Florante, who only knew Regina for her mean girl antics with him whenever they came across each other.

Then things got weird from there.

For his part, Galang could only wonder if his other encounters with Ophanims or Minions involved such schemes.

The spaghetti monster seemed to fly out of nowhere at the school parking lot. Meanwhile, the indefinable shadow man was someone he and Jenny detected along with Mammon in the middle of Makati.

Jeez. Florante could only shake his head.

That American(?) white guy in a formal attire was Mammon? The infamous demon Mammon? Or at least an avatar of his. Wild. And Florante himself was supposed to be the avatar of the world-famous Archangel Gabriel to boot.

Or he would become Gabriel's avatar once he went past being an Ophanim and evolved into a Cherubim then a Seraphim.

Regardless, Florante skipped his school service ride home to (again) commute elsewhere, this time with Isaiah, to Ortigas on Isaiah's dime.

They considered using their powers to get there, but they decided against it to conserve their energy and use their powers on saving Regina instead.

***

The duo sneaked (snuck?) around the conference hall leading to an amphitheater where a seeming talent show took place. Some were on stage singing and dancing. Others served as the audience.

On the front row were some well-dressed judges, including a drop-dead gorgeous Caucasian lady who had the looks of a Hollywood actress.

She had blonde hair complimented by her blue eyes. She also wore a flashy blue gown and shoes that matched her dress yet seemingly decorated a closed heart.

At the back of the stage were various contestants with numbered sashes, among them was Regina herself.

What was all this now? A talent show? Star Search? Tanghalan ng Kampeon (Contest of Champions)?

Or perhaps it was a beauty pageant like Miss Universe or Binibining Pilipinas (Miss Philippines)? No, there were dudes there too.

'What are they planning?' Florante wondered. The setup seemed far too elaborate just to awaken the angel (or demon) within Regina. What was this supposed to accomplish?

Using Pascual's teleportation-like speed, they both got passed through the security guards and ended up at the back of the conference room's audience, with all of them none the wiser.

It was actually pretty packed in there. Standing room only. So Isaiah and Galang stood and observed what was happening.

In front of them was an ordinary talent show. They witnessed acts like an amazing male singer who sung a Whitney Houston song while sounding nearly exactly like Whitney with his impressive falsetto or female "head voice" range.

A minute later, there was a group of break dancers on stage. From there, a long-haired musician with an electric guitar did a three-minute guitar solo. Afterwards, another singer, a girl who was classically trained in opera, sung an operatic version of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody".

They even featured drag shows with male cross-dressers who could pass for women.

The pair of classmates stood there, mesmerized by the amount of talent before them. Applauding along with the rest of the audience.

Then it happened. Just like with Mammon's Minion, both Florante and Pascual felt the presence of their fellow angel. Or demon. Celestial being, perhaps.

The curtains parted and then they saw Regina arrive on stage. It was apparently her turn to sing in the talent show. However, instead of singing, she instead began to transform.

They then heard a high-pitched screech, like metal crunching on metal, that became fast and painfully loud.

Startled, Florante looked around him. He saw several things at the same time.

Nothing moved in slow motion the way it did in movies. Rather, his brain felt like it worked overtime due to an adrenalin rush, allowing him to absorb multiple scenes and have them register in his brain at once.

Maybe it wasn't the same case with the speedster beside him who stared at what happened before him with dilated eyes and an unhinged jaw. Florante couldn't tell.

Regina obviously stood out from the sea of faces staring back at her since she was at center stage in this talent show and all, with them wearing the same faces of horror that Pascual did. That Florante probably did as well.

The contestants of the talent show then glowed, as though they themselves had a halo of aura like angels would.

The tendrils of this bright energy got sucked into Regina's body, who herself begun singing a Regine Velasquez song that Florante couldn't quite place.

He also idly wondered if Regina was named after Regine, a famous Filipina singer.

Florante feared that the violently winding soundwaves from Regina's song would converge into a climactic ante, like rapids to a huge waterfall, but then it became a calm lake  that only produced ripples.

Just the purest song.

The fainter variegated spirit energy from the audience swirled along with the more vibrant multicolored auras of the contestants, all converging together into Regina's aura.

This made everyone act lethargic, with the seated viewers slumping down on their seats and the standing contestants plus stage crew crumpling down on the floor in a dead faint.

All of them did so except the two angels at the back—Regina's classmates—and the judges near the front of the stage. Particularly the pretty woman who looked like a Tinsel Town goddess.

"…Pascual?" Regina said, waking from her reverie and breathing into her microphone.

Her eyebrows then furrowed as she squinted and focused them on the person beside Pascual. "Wait. Is that… Florante Galang? Why is he with you, Isaiah?"

"Ay palaka! (Frogdammit!) She caught on to us! The jig is up!" exclaimed Pascual, which only pissed Florante off.

"Susmaryosep, Pascual! What's the plan now?" complained Galang. "You do have a plan just in case she noticed us, don't you?"

"I didn't think things through! Sue me!" said Isaiah. "Just… help me rescue her, okay?! Use your powers or something!"

The Hollywood beauty took a cursory look at the two high school students in uniform and then asked Regina, "Friends of yours?"

Regina stared back and forth between the svelte woman and her classmates then nodded, "They're my classmates, Miss Spelvin," she said aloud, through the microphone.

"Please. Call me Georgia," Georgia Spelvin do declared.

It was then that Florante realized that Miss Spelvin didn't open her mouth when speaking. Like with Mammon, she communicated telepathically. On a frequency only fellow angels and demons could listen to.

Daring to be brave and remembering his former best friend's request to save Regina from the influence of literal demons, Galang shot a Thunderbolt at Georgia instead of his other bully classmate.

The spellbinding Spelvin swatted the Thunderbolt away, which created an ear-splitting sonic boom that made the whole place rumble.

For his part, Florante had already covered his ears, but soon Pascual and even Regina followed suit and did the same.

The three then bore witness to Spelvin changing form from a beautiful blue-eyed blonde in a blue dress to a sultry red-skinned demoness with bat wings, fingernail claws, the wild hair of a harridan, and a black dress seemingly made of the darkest starless night.

An improvement from Mammon's squat gremlin form that Florante and Jenny got exposed to back in Guadalupe Church for sure, but still! Her true form was a She-Devil?

Georgia Spelvin's lips curved into a knowing smile. "Now who told you that's my true form, li'l boy?"

"Wait, you and Jenny fought another demon like her?" asked Isaiah, startling Galang. This telepathic communication between fellow angels and demons was more trouble than it was worth!

As Spelvin strode towards Regina, the two judges beside her turned to dust, which made the hairs at the back of Florante's neck stand on end while beside him, Isaiah turned blue in horror.

Georgia then told Regina telepathically without regard to the two angels who'd overhear, "Now's your chance to use the power you've absorbed from everyone in this talent show to take control of your Minion form."

And soon both Galang and Pascual saw clear as day the literal talent flow like neon tendrils of spiritual energy from the unconscious contestants to Spelvin's hand into a floating sphere of energy. Like an aurora borealis.

The demons had weaponized their passion and used it to their abusive advantage. How devilish of them to do so, but that was to be expected.

Quite a bit of the metaphysical ball of talent then got transferred unto Regina in the form of a seeming solar flare.

Then, like a ghost, the demonic Spelvin vanished and faded into existence.  

From there, Regina opened her mouth, resisted the urge to transform into her geometric self, and sung a song to end the world.

***

Dammit.

Why did it feel like the world was always at stake when Florante dealt with an awakening angel? Or demon?

Regina sang a lyricless hymn of the damned that warped their perception of reality. The sound waves from the song kept Florante's attempts at shooting her down with projectiles from hitting her. They kept missing or dissipating around her.

Meanwhile, on Isaiah's part, he didn't know what to do. He didn't want to hurt his friend and classmate. He certainly didn't wish to use that momentum-filled punch on her.

However, she might become even more powerful now than she was when she went berserk with her first awakening.

So Mr. Pascual bravely ran away.

…What?

Regina took a break from her singing that rendered every energy projectile Florante shot at her into harmless heat and light. "What are you doing even here, you fetal alcohol syndrome baby?"  

"AH! You called me that again! Even after I told the teacher on you for bullying me!" exclaimed Florante, who doubled his efforts by shooting Lightning Bolts at himself and storing enough power inside his body to resist Regina's repellant sound waves.

"You're such a li'l snitch, you dork," Regina said with a roll of her eyes. "You're a wimp and a coward to boot. Shame on you."

She then started humming at a specific frequency that resonated with the rest of the building.

Florante considered asking her if she remembered him killing her in his fever dream, but he pushed such thoughts away before they could fully form into words in his head, fearing she'd overhear him telepathically.

The sound waves from her voice came at a shorter-wave vibrato, almost like a bird's trill, which echoed across the amphitheater then transmitted unto the rest of the structure, making its very foundations shake and dance to the beat of her wordless song.

And so the room and the building started to rumble and shake from the droning hum of Regina's powerful singing pipes.

Soon, all the glass panes and mirrors nearby broke or went on the verge of shattering. Deep faults and hairline cracks appeared from the windows to the plaster walls while the floor below them and the ceiling above them trembled like scared children.

Florante hesitated, with him second-guessing himself now that he realized his past dreams weren't dreams and he and everyone else could die for real if the whole building were to collapse upon them.

However, just in the nick of time, Pascual returned, blasting through the wall from behind Miss Mariano instead and pushing—not punching or striking—her forward.

It took the next second for Florante to realize Pascual might've probably run the entire block or even globe and back to produce enough kinetic energy to penetrate through Regina's melodic defenses with supersonic might.

Regardless, that momentous push did the trick. It stopped the building from crumbling to dust just in time.

However, to Pascual's horror, he went overboard and built up enough momentum to push Mariano away with the strength of a freight train.

"AAHH…! Pascual…!?"

"Oh no! GINA…! I'm SORRY!"

For a split-second, the sonic siren changed into the geometric object Isaiah described from before. She was hard to miss, with her occupying most of the amphitheater.

She probably shifted into that form for self-preservation's sake. Otherwise, she would've turned into a messy red stain of blood and guts on the ceiling and walls.  

Florante couldn't believe what he just saw. He also couldn't react in time before the geometric fallen angel did a banshee shriek that blew him away and shattered his eardrums.

"AUGH!" Galang cried out, and when he gnashed his teeth in pain, he felt the enamel on them crack as well, thus worsening his agony.

The supersonic screech of her Minion self lacked the controlled nuance of her human form's song for sure.

However, for Pascual's part, he couldn't be happier. He grinned and exhaled in relief. "Oh, thank goodness, Gina! You're not dea… URK?!"

Regina Mariano finally shifted back to her human form, her hands throttling Isaiah by his neck. "You almost killed me, you jerk!"

"Wait (cough), I-I didn't mean to…!" Isaiah choked out.

"Whatever. I'm going to control this power and become queen of this world. Just you wait and see," she said, dropping Pascual to the floor before she picked up the microphone and began singing again, her heel firmly stepping on Isaiah's face.

A half-conscious Florante thought, "Rule the world…?"

Huh. Why didn't he think of doing that when he first got his powers?

He was too shortsighted with this angel and demon avatar thing that he didn't realize the full implication of his gifts. He'd rather pettily get back at his bullies than aim at something higher. Like world domination.

But to be honest, why would he want to conquer the world? What good would that do? So he'd become President of Earth? A clueless teenager like him should have that responsibility?

Meanwhile, the compromised position Pascual had with him getting stepped on by Regina also made Galang's cheeks warm up.

Mariano kept Isaiah pinned down to the ground by stepping on his face, huh? Florante wished it were him instead.

He shook his head to wave off such sordid thoughts. He needed to set his priorities straight.

Galang attempted to get up and move, but the ground started shaking again. The building creaked and swayed, like a house of cards about to topple over.

What was he supposed to do now? Her singing served as her shield against 100 percent of Florante's myriad of projectiles. His own halo shield couldn't block off Regina's sound waves either. He was a sitting duck.

Also, if he didn't feel like killing the crawling chaos Minion from before, that went double or even triple for his classmate. Not that he could at this rate, but he definitely didn't want to.

Whatever rage he felt for his bullies back in his fever dream had faded away, replaced with shame and embarrassment after he realized he killed them for real back then.

He could only helplessly stare as the ceiling plaster cracked and buckled while bits of dust, rock shards, and debris fell on the unconscious contestants and audience.

They were about to serve as more collateral damage from the awakening of yet another (fallen) angel. Just like Laura Reyes.

According to Pascual, the people who died when he first tried stopping Regina's rampage the first time she awoke remained dead.

They didn't revert back to normal like with what happened when Jenny and Florante defeated the spaghetti monster and the living maelstrom.

Where was Florante's great power and creativity in using them when saving lives? Was he only useful against helpless people, like his powerless bullies before some of them discovered they too had powers?

He was so helpless against Regina that he might as well turn into an Ophanim himself to battle her full force. He didn't remember his monstrous gyroscopic and multi-eyed form having ears, after all. Just endless revolving eyes on fire.

"Wait, you have an monster form too?!" said Isaiah without thinking after hearing Florante's thoughts, as though forgetting (or not believing) Florante claiming they were angels with alternate, monstrous "true" forms.

Oh, right. Angels and demons could sense and communicate telepathically with one another. Florante should keep his thoughts to himself. Isaiah accidentally overheard his thoughts again.

Hold on a minute. He could project his thoughts to those two, couldn't he?

He got it all wrong. He had his priorities straight from the start!

So he stared and focused on his classmates while making his concrete thoughts known to them even as he, a socially awkward teenager, would normally have trouble expressing himself.

The two seemed unaware of how they looked, what with Regina stepping on Isaiah but hesitating to hurt him or finish him off while Isaiah himself didn't seem to mind it one bit.

Also, from the angle where Pascual lay, he could totally look up from under Regina's dress.

The two received the message loud and clear.

Regina screamed and covered herself up while an apologetic Isaiah reassured it wasn't what it looked like.

Mariano did a swift stomp at Isaiah's head that would've squashed it like a watermelon had he not stood up in time. "Manyakis ka! (You pervert!)" she exclaimed. "You're both perverts!"

"You really are a snitch, Florante!" shouted Pascual at his former best friend while backpedaling deftly across multiple unconscious contestants and audience members.

For that fraction of a second though, Regina left herself wide open. So Florante shot her full of light bullets to force her to change into her Ophanim/Minion form.

"LIGHT ARRAY!"

All ten of Florante's energy projectiles hit their target, with each going off like the electromagnetic pulse version of blockbuster bombs.

It wasn't the most honorable tactic, but it worked.

Also, Galang had the presence of mind to envelop himself in his electric wind halo sphere and push Regina backwards from the stadium through several walls up until they were outside the building to save the unconscious people inside the amphitheater from harm.

"Ah! Florante, you bastard…!" the backpedaling Pascual, uh, forward-pedaled towards the pair. "What do you think you're doing?!"

"What do you think I'm doing? I'm saving everyone before… AH!"

Then, from outside the venue, right in the middle of Ortigas, Regina Mariano began to change and shift forms herself. Like with the flying spaghetti monster, Regina's true angel/demon form towered over Florante and Isaiah like a gigantic geometric monument.

A floating blue pyramid that might as well be an alien ship. Or a tinted Star Destroyer from Star Wars.

'Now what?' thought Florante, which only made Pascual scream at him harder. 'Oh right. You can still hear me, huh?'

"Now it's you who hasn't thought things through!?" Isaiah screeched. He then saw images from Galang's memory flash before his eyes.

Of Florante killing both him and Regina.

She actually forced him to act because she was about to kill all those people back in the amphitheater herself.

With misty eyes and a sniffle, Florante said, "I don't want to kill her again, Pascual. Or hurt her any further."

***

To Be Continued…

The first incarnation of "Fantasy of Evolution" in my mind back in the early 2000s  involved Gabriel De Angeles (currently Florante Galang) ending up seeing his best friend J.D. (reminiscent of Isaiah Pascual) dying because of the War of Angels and Demons.

Also, yes. The Ophanim/Minion form of Regina Mariano is reminiscent of Ramiel the Geometric Angel from Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Fascinating how stories and creations change as you yourself develop into a person and as an author, huh?

Farewell, Abdiel

[gabriel-gabdiel]

【Draft】 Fantasy of Evolution Chapter 6: The Dream Journal of a Wimpy Kid

Man, this took quite long to write. Had to adjust my time table to accommodate this. 

I’ll still trying to get the hang of writing original characters as opposed to already established templates when I write fanfic.

This can make them nebulous in characterization. I also have to remember what I’ve established previously before adding anything to their history. 

You can also find more chapters of my original fiction here. Please enjoy.

Back in Fatima High School's science laboratory…

The Biology teacher of Florante Galang and Isaiah Pascual—the soft-spoken Miss Isabelle Del Mundo, known by the faculty by her nickname "Belle" a la the protagonist of Disney's "Beauty and the Beast"—looked over their shoulders to glance and their laboratory work.

After staring intently to check their answers, Ms. Belle Del Mundo said to Florante, "Mr. Galang, don't you think Mr. Pascual should get a chance at looking into the microscope?"

The two former best friends exchanged glances. Pascual was the first to speak.

"We're just about to finish up, Ms. Del Mundo," he said before taking the last slide and putting it onto the microscope so he could peer at it.

"Well," she said after a moment of deliberation, "then go ahead, boys. Remember, this is a cooperative exercise between lab partners, okay?"

She then walked away.

After she left, Florante began doodling on his notebook.

"Florante," said Isaiah in an almost whiny voice. "I don't know what I'm looking at. Help."

With a sigh, Florante whispered, "The last two we haven't found are prometaphase and telaphase. Telaphase is easy because it's the cell splitting into two. If it's not split into two, it's probably prometaphase."

"How do you spell that, bro?"

"Come on, man."

The two exchanged glances again.

"I'm just kidding, Florante."

"Haha. Funny stuff. Can you spell it or not?"

"Yeah, of course. It's something like 'Pro' as in 'Pro-wrestling', 'Meta' as in 'Metabolic', and then P-H-A-S-E for 'Phase', right?"

"Yeah, something like that."

"The slide I got is probably the pro-something one, by the way. The cell hasn't split."

"Gotcha," said Florante as he took the slide and labeled it. "The last one's probably telaphase but look at it just in case."

"Yep, it's a split cell," Isaiah confirmed after changing microscope slides. "You saved my bacon, bro. Thanks," he added.

Florante harrumphed. "I saved the both of us. You're not going to drag my grade down with you."

And, just as Galang was about to wave off him hearing Pascual talk earlier about his fever dream of massacring students as his imagination running wild, his imagination apparently chose that moment to run wild again.

"You remember killing me, don't you?" said the pokerfaced Pascual in a deadpan monotone. "You blew my head off and did all sorts of nasty things to our other classmates."

Isaiah sounded like something out of a horror story. Thusly, Florante resisted the urge to scream, his blood running cold once again.

Was Galang going mad? This wasn't happening, was it? Or was he in a dream again? He hadn't gone off the deep end yet, had he?

He should check out his dream journal when he got home, just in case. It helped him differentiate when something was a dream and wasn't.

It was his sole tether to sanity and objective reality at this point.

***

Fantasy of Evolution

An Urban Fantasy Story by Abdiel

Who keeps dream journals of their nonsensical dreams as though they have any bearing with reality? Florante does, but his is a special case.

Disclaimer: This work may reference copyrighted material, the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. It is believed that this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the US Copyright Law. All copyrighted material referred to in this work belongs to their respective owners. All rights reserved.

***

Chapter 6: The Dream Journal of a Wimpy Kid

***

Sometimes, Florante Galang wondered if he got bullied because he deserved it.

Nine times out of ten, he'd say no. No one deserved to be bullied the way he got bullied. However, one of those ten times he might reconsider that maybe he got what he deserved because he did something wrong.

Like that one dentist who didn't recommend this or that brand of toothpaste even though nine others did.

His feeling of inadequacy and insecurity haunted him. Maybe he had it coming. Maybe he was asking for it.

Maybe nines times out of ten, he had a brief moment of self-awareness. He got bullied because he committed the grave sin of social ineptitude.

Maybe he just needed to fit in with his classmates better. Maybe even though they were mean to him, they were mostly excellent to one another, so maybe there was wrong something with him instead.

Maybe he should be the one to adjust to them instead of the other way around.

Maybe a large portion of his life leading up to this moment was a series of huge mistakes of which he learned nothing.

Maybe he should emulate their behavior except the part where they were being jerks to him.  

Or maybe he should be a jerk to other weirdoes while rewarding manly behavior exhibited the jocks and tough guys in his class. Find someone weaker than him to pick on so he wouldn't be the one picked on by everyone.

Maybe he simply needed to fit in with his bullies. Maybe he merely needed to grow up like his asshole classmates, who themselves were already having hookups, parties, and girlfriends.

Meanwhile, like a child, he couldn't even hold a romantic conversation with a girl his age, with him stuck in the Friend Zone for all of the girls he was actually in good terms with.

He might even have the E.Q. (emotional quotient) of a child too, or at least that was what his mother and teachers kept telling him. Arrested development, if you would.

Outside the Dead Kids, he simply couldn't find a niche or clique in Fatima School and its roughly 800 high school students, specifically the 200 or so students in his year.  

He rationalized that he couldn't relate to people his age. Despite what his mother suggested, he was friendlier towards people who were older than him, like college-aged students, teachers, or grownups.

However, even then he wasn't really all that close to anyone in school. Perhaps the truth of the matter was that he couldn't relate to people period and he was a gigantic weirdo or doofus.

He'd end up eating alone outside the cafeteria, near the boiler room, or under the mango trees with the circular concrete seats surrounding them again.

Anyway, at least he had an okay I.Q. (intelligence quotient). He sometimes made it to the Top 10 of the class. Sometimes. Bottom three, usually. So at least he wasn't completely pathetic academically.

He was back to his usual ritual of barely eating lunch and finding ways and places to hide himself in the school every recess and lunch break so he wouldn't look like (more of) a total loser to his peers.

Like eating inside the boy's bathroom or spending time at the computer lab or library instead of eating.

This was probably why Mark Zuniga—one of Gerry Jacinto's closest friends and right-hand man, also one of the guys Florante had difficulty killing in his oft-referenced nightmare—had always teased him of having the figure of a 9-year-old girl instead of a 14-year-old boy.

He was skin and bones practically. The wimpiest of kids. Certain girls in the varsity team could probably outdo him in athletics, he was so pathetic.

So it was probably this insecurity that led him to dream the dreams he dreamt. He had also called them nightmares because it involved him murdering his bullies.

However, if it were proverbial rather than literal murder—like him imagining their murder in his hands to let off some steam from their bullying without ever daring to do it for real—he'd understand how these dreams could be considered as the power fantasies of the powerless.

Like parents wanting to kill their misbehaving children without really meaning it.

Or maybe his being a terrible person who deserved all the bullying he ever got was just the dose of self-awareness he needed.

Maybe he should stop being so dependent on what other people thought. As long as he followed his own moral compass, they had no business dictating how he lived his life!

If he left them alone then they should leave him alone. Right?

As long as he didn't hurt anyone else (so again, he crossed his fingers that his dream murders were nothing more than dreams), he didn't need anyone's approval.

***

As the class returned from the lab to further discuss cell mitosis or whatever, Pascual played catch-up with Galang, walking beside him and asking him how he'd been doing.

Or more like Isaiah talked and Florante half-listened, waiting for the other shoe to drop in regards to them sharing memories of something that only happened in his, well, their dreams.

Maybe Florante misheard him the first time? He didn't know. He merely asked him for the time instead, wishing to change the subject.

"What time is it?" said Florante, who forgot to wear his watch.

"Let me see. It's skin thirty," Pascual said with a straight face while pointing at his bare wrist.

It took Florante a minute to "get it".

"Oh."

They then both shared a hearty laugh, with Florante laughing in spite of himself.

Dammit, Galang missed this. He missed talking his former best friend; this endearing guy and his sharp wit. Too bad their friendship went south in the end.

Pascual then told him about the rumors he heard about him.

How Florante had ended up with the infamous Dead Kids of the Fatima High School campus.

How he finally got his bullies to let up with their bullying by listing their names and sending them to his teacher. (A teacher actually did something after catching Florante's bullies in the act).

How he started wooing(!?) their classmate Jennifer Tolentino.

"I wasn't wooing anyone, don't be weird," Florante told Pascual off. "I just want to be better friends with her, that's all."

Or be friends again at all. They were supposed to be friends when they first met during the first day of school, but they then drifted apart. Kind of like the situation between Pascual and him, to be honest.

Florante avoided looking Isaiah in eye all this time out of embarrassment of being told a multitude of gossip, rumors, and half-truths about himself.

At the same time, he had to also avoid getting caught stealing glances at Jenny from time to time as she walked on ahead of them alongside Laura.

Her bespectacled face was such a distraction that he tried not to look at her as much as possible too, only to end up staring back at Pascual and his nonsense.

He didn't know where to look. The floor, perhaps? Or how about the ceiling?

There he was again, falling in love with another girl who gave him an ounce of attention. Or kissed him in his dreams.

Once back in the classroom, Florante returned to his seat and tried to listen to Ms. Del Mundo's lecture, who used an overhead projector to project transparencies onto the blackboard with the windows and shades closed.

He couldn't manage his thoughts. Was he hearing things with Pascual? Did he really say what he thought he heard him say?

***

For a change, as the bell rung and Biology class ended, Pascual continued talking to Galang. Usually, no one bothered to in their class.

As of late, before she went absent for a week, it had been Jenny, but only sometimes.  

"Jenny seems friendlier to you now than before," was the icebreaker he went with. "You even had lunch with her with your gang."

'Humph. My gang, huh?' Florante thought, with Pascual avoiding calling them their infamous name of "Dead Kids".

To Isaiah, Galang went with, "Yeah, I guess," while also wondering aloud, "I wonder why she was absent for so long."

"There's been a cold bug spreading. Must've been the change in weather."

"Yeah, that must be it."

Florante frowned, though it felt more like the petulant pout of a child. He looked away while resisting the urge to stick his tongue out childishly at Isaiah for good measure.

He couldn't focus on his former best friend's chatter as they grabbed their bags with their P.E. (Physical Education) uniforms and proceeded to P.E. class at the gymnasium.  

Mixed-gender volleyball at the gym didn't catch much of Florante's attention either. He ended up playing with Pascual and his friends though, which was a relief.

Usually, their P.E. teacher had to force one of the cliques or groups in Section St. Francis to include Florante with them.

Or he ended up with the rest of the social outcasts who couldn't find a group to team up with.

After doing warm-up exercises and partner drills, they had a simultaneous mini-tournament of sorts. Multiple five-member teams ended up doing a set of games until P.E. period was over.

Florante was in a team composed of four guys—two of them Isaiah and Florante himself—and one girl up against a team of three guys and two girls.

Naturally, Florante Galang sucked at P.E. in general and volleyball in particular.

His volleyball returns resulted in shots that went outside and teammates that covered his position so he wouldn't bungle the shot.

However, strangely enough, both Isaiah and even Jenny (who played against another team at an adjacent net) cheered him on, leading him to surprise himself by serving the volleyball decently, even scoring an ace or two.

Sure, their team lost in the end, but at least the unathletic Florante was able to somewhat contribute when normally he couldn't.

Well then. The day ended up better than he expected!

***

At the locker room, while the class either changed back to their regular uniforms or just gathered their belongings to head out of the school for dismissal time, Pascual continued talking to Florante, making him self-conscious.

The introvert felt tired from all the talking—well, half-listening—he did for so long. His social "health bar" was spent.

To explain, introverts tended to shy away from social gatherings because being in such situations took a toll on their energy. They could only take so much before becoming anxious or nervous wrecks.

Even though Pascual and Florante were having mostly one-on-one (or rather, one-sided) conversations instead of a more open social encounter with multiple people, Pascual's sudden over-friendliness after they'd acted like strangers for so long had depleted Florante's tolerance for this very social situation.

"…Oh, I remember that one time, in the grade school playground, you were playing alone, pretending to be Rambo or something, tying a bandanna on your forehead…!"

"All right, ALL RIGHT! That's enough," said Florante, who now focused his full attention on his ex-friend Pascual. "I get the picture."  

By the way, his bullies caught him playing alone as a high school kid, since he spent his grade school in Makati.

"Sorry," apologized Isaiah. "You're not going to zap my brain to mush again, are you?"

This jolted Florante awake from any more random thoughts. He was hoping the earlier declaration from Pascual was just his imagination, but no such luck.

Galang's eyebrows knit together in concentration for the first time the whole day, like he just suddenly noticed that the things happening around him didn't make sense because he was merely dreaming.

Like someone between the verge of sleepiness and wakefulness.

He then exhaled, mumbled, "Susmaryosep," under his breath, and said, "No. I only have those powers when I'm dreaming, not in real life."

The daydreaming asthmatic didn't want to look like a fool and shoot nonexistent laser bullets at one of his bullies, thank you very much.

Isaiah gave him a quizzical look. "You can totally shoot your power beams or whatever right now."

Florante scoffed at the idea. "No, I can't. That's not how this works. I need to be dreaming in order for me to use those powers. Because none of it is real."

Pascual raised an eyebrow at that. "You sure about that?"

Galang also raised an eyebrow in kind. "What do you mean?"

So Isaiah clarified. "You don't need to dream to use your powers."

What. Now hold on a minute there!

"No, I can't. That wasn't real. That was just a dream," Florante dismissed the very notion until something else occurred to him.

"Hey, Pascual. How'd you know about my dreams?"

Although Isaiah had been talking up a storm since Biology class, Florante could now notice his hands gripping the edge of the bench they sat on in the locker with immense tension.

Like a squashed bed spring ready to uncoil.

Had Isaiah been acting this nervous around him this entire time? Was he talking nonstop to help calm his nerves?

Why was he so afraid of him…? Oh.

No please. Not this again. Not Florante questioning whether his dream happened or not again! Anything but that!

"Florante Galang," Isaiah Pascual said. "That wasn't a dream. You really did kill us all."

No. NO. That couldn't be. No, no, no. Shut up, Pascual.

Pascual continued. "Was that how you were able to cope with what happened? You waved off everything as a dream?"

"NO! What happened was a dream!" said Florante.

"You always had the power. It's as plain as the nose on your face," said Isaiah.

"But you can't see the nose on your face unless you look in a mirror," said Galang.

"Then let me be that mirror on your face. It wasn't a dream," said Pascual.

Florante was a good person. Or so he told himself. He didn't really kill all his bullies. He only imagined he did using the silliest and most childish of fantasies.

"Just because you were somehow able to reset everything back to the way things were doesn't mean you've completely undone what you did."

"SHUT UP!" Florante productively released his anger, malice, and frustrations in that dream because he was powerless in real life! Also, who had superpowers in real life? How absurd!

It was then that Florante noticed that Isaiah hadn't taken off his P.E. uniform yet even as the introvert himself immediately took those clothes off and changed into his school uniform.

"We remember everything. I remember everything you've done. And what a monster you were back then."

No no no nonono. Florante was not the monster Mammon accused him of! None of it was real! This wasn't real either! He was dreaming again, wasn't he?

Florante was bullied all his life and had never stood up for himself because he was scared that he'd get humiliated emotionally, tortured mentally, ostracized socially, or beat up physically.

The bullies in his life had always silenced him but the one time he struck back and silenced them instead, he was the bad guy?

How was that fair? He was solely responsible for losing control? For going werewolf? They could do whatever they wanted with him?

Before the asthmatic could let out a wheezy exhale, Isaiah disappeared from view then the whole world became a blur.

***

The drizzle of rain had become mist by the time they ended up suddenly in the streets, leaving a trail of devastation behind them.

It took a minute before Florante Galang realized that Isaiah Pascual had just pushed him from the gym lockers all the way through the soccer field, right past part of the high school building, to the back of the school wall, right into open traffic, with one hand to his chest.

They busted through wall, brick, concrete, and plaster like a bulldozer.

It all happened within a second. Or a fraction of a second. Before Galang's eyes could even blink or his mind could register what had happened.

Wait. So Pascual was actually an angel too? Or maybe even a demon? An Ophanim or a Minion? Like the spaghetti monster or the maelstrom man?

The impact should've caved in Florante's chest. Not to mention his bones broken and dislocated in 30 different places.

He might've even ended up like roadkill too, if not for his Ophanim halo that he learned to control back when he faced against the eldritch shadow man.

Thankfully, a combination of light energy and gale winds formed a protective vacuum cocoon around Galang's body that kept him safe from harm. His own halo effect, if you would.

Isaiah just looked at the untouched Florante, his palm outstretched, his jaw agape, before he gave him a sheepish grin. "Hehehe. Didn't expect that, did you?"

"You have superpowers?"

"Yep. See? And so do you… AH! Please don't blow my brains out!"

Isaiah flinched or perhaps even overreacted at Florante stepping towards him, with him unleashing a flurry of blows.

"I wasn't! OW! Stop punching me!" One of the fists hit Florante's nose before he could summon his light wind dome again and blocked the rest of the blows.

Something else then dawned to Florante as he surveyed how far they went out. "You… you almost killed me!"

He considered taking a swing at his former friend, but settled with attempting to catch him.

However, Isaiah disappeared the instant Galang tried grabbing his arm. Like a fly disappearing before the fly swatter could hit it.

By instinct, Florante jumped back into the sidewalk as a car beeped at him.

He then looked around. Several onlookers began gathering around the scene of devastation, particularly near what was left of what was once a wall and a planter's box.

Isaiah ran away and Florante was about to follow suit when he felt something coming at him from behind. 'What…?'

Instead of multiple supersonic punches, Galang got hit by a single spine-tingling punch that actually dented his halo shield and rattled him to the bones.

Then it hit him again. And again.

",..Can't catch me, Slowpoke!"

Multiple Pascuals kept appearing and disappearing, punching his weakening halo shield with a punch that came at Florante stronger and faster by the second.

What was this? In his panic, Florante figured what Isaiah did. He ran in a tight circle at supersonic speeds and incrementally increased the momentum of his punch until it reached an irresistible power at an unstoppable level.

Sneaky bastard.

The more time passed, the faster the momentous punch got and the harder it was for Florante's halo to resist it. Isaiah might actually break through his hallowed field. What was he supposed to do?

"…Lightning BOLT!"

Florante thusly summoned lightning from the drizzling skies just as the infinite mass punch shattered his halo vacuum field, which electrocuted Pascual while energized Galang.

This jolted and froze Pascual, but his forward momentum remained, which prompted Florante to finally dodge one of the continuous punches with the speed of racecar going through a racetrack that he'd been absorbing all that time with his halo.

The resulting blockbuster explosion blasted both of them thirty or so feet clear into the gray skies.

***

The next thing Florante knew, he'd landed on the roof(?!) of the Fatima High School Building. What the hell.

He looked around him to see where he was. He felt a tingling sensation travel across his extremities. His acrophobia (fear of heights) acted up again.

Or maybe that was the millions of volts of electricity he'd just absorbed before making Isaiah miss, resulting in a blast from his massive punch that jettisoned them from the streets of Mandaluyong to the rooftops of Fatima High.

It was times like this that convinced him that the time when he jumped from rooftop to rooftop in order to experiment upon his powers was just a dream.

An acrophobic would never do anything as crazy as that for real. Also, he had superpowers. Of course it was a crazy dream.

He looked around to make sure he was indeed where he was. That was when he noticed the still figure of Isaiah Pascual.

"Dammit, you weren't this powerful before," was what Florante thought Pascual murmured under his breath.

'Before…?' thought Florante. What did he mean by that?

However, as Galang braced himself for another assault, he realized Pascual's body still hadn't recovered from the electrocution.

Also, because they were on the roof deck of the building, his former best friend has less running room for his running punch.

Most importantly, Florante still had enough energy left from absorbing the millions of volts of electricity from the lightning strike. Perhaps 1.21 gigawatts of power. Perhaps even more than that.

A billion joules of electricity. Enough to power dozens of homes for a day. Or 10 million light bulbs at the same time. Maybe even a flux capacitor on a time-traveling DeLorean.

Should he do it? Should he test out whether this was a dream or not?

Should he hit him with his five-fingered Light Array bullets, which was now practically his finishing move? Or he could use both hands and fire all ten shots?

Nah. That was overkill. Instead, he elected to focus his accumulated power on one closed fist, cocked his arm back, and then shouted, "Thunder BOLT…!"

It made sense. Even though the high school building had a narrow roof deck, Isaiah could still dodge. So Florante might as well shoot his thread-thin concentrated laser that cut through the air and produced a powerful "thunder" or "sonic boom" shockwaves with a wider destructive area.

However, he hesitated at the last minute when he heard Pascual ask, "Thunder Bolt? So what's different between that and that Lightning Bolt you shot earlier?"

Florante couldn't help himself. It had been his pet peeve ever since he saw "Thunder Bolt" and "Lightning Bolt" used interchangeably in anime, manga, action games, and RPGs.

"Well, obviously, a Lightning Bolt is the bolt of electricity. The thunder comes after the lightning bolt, correct? It's the rumbling sound from the shockwaves of a sonic boom. So to me Thunder Bolt is basically just making creating a sonic boom."

"Oh, I see. I never thought of it that way."

The two then just stared at each other for a hot minute, with Galang allowing his rivulets of electric might from his fist fade away as he relaxed his shoulders and stopped cocking back his fist.

Pascual himself finally relaxed his own stance, which looked like a runner who was ready to turn and bolt out of there.

***

The two former best friends sat down on the roof deck overlooking Fatima High.

Florante sat down beside Pascual, with both doing the "Indian sit" or "Indian style" sitting position with their legs crossed underneath them, which was often linked to stereotypical portrayals of Native Americans.

It was believed to be rooted on a meditation or yoga pose from India known as the "Lotus Position".

They had shared a hearty laugh, with Isaiah stating, "Of course only you can come up with something as nerdy as that!" while Florante himself protested, "You're the one to speak! You were the one who brought that up to me!"

Pascual blinked three times then tilted his head to the side. "I did? I don't remember."

"You totally did! That's why I made it a point to use a different kind of attack when doing a Thunder Bolt and Lightning Bolt!" said a grinning, nostalgic Galang.

The two pals then sat down while the rest of the world stood still. The damage they'd wrought on the rooms, walls, and streets earlier slowly but surely disappeared, as though they didn't even touch anything.

Curious. Then again, this only affirmed Florante's stance that his actions were from dreams. Perhaps extra-lucid dreams than normal, but dreams nonetheless.

"Maaan, I can't believe you've grown this strong already," said Isaiah with a scratch of his cheek. "I guess I should've expected it. You were among the first to awaken, weren't you?"

"I guess? What do you mean by awaken, though?" he asked.

"Just what like it sounds like," Pascual said. "It's when you wake up your powers."

So it wasn't just him. It was also Gerry Jacinto. And Laura Reyes. And now, Isaiah Pascual. They all "awakened" to having their own superpowers along with Florante.

"Hey, Pascual," Florante called out, "you're an angel too, aren't you?"

"…Angel?" Isaiah said.

"That's what Jenny Tolentino called us," Galang continued, brushing his damp hair bangs back and heaving a heavy, asthmatic wheeze. "Angels. Demons. Either or."

"Demons, huh?" Pascual rubbed his shoulder. "Yeah, I guess you can call her that. Maybe even monster."

"…Her?"

Pascual hesitated from revealing anything more. "Sooo how does Jenny know all this?"

Florante replied, "She's one of us. She's also an angel."

Pascual smirked. "Isn't that just your crush on her talking?"

"What? No," Florante denied, but he has second thoughts. So far, everything tracked. Jenny confirmed they were angels then they fought against multiple demons.

She was telling him the truth, right? But then again, Pascual seemed unaware of the origins of their powers as he was before he met up with Jennifer.

She must've told them the truth. He trusted her.

"Wait, she hasn't talked to you about it?" asked Florante.

"No, it's the first time I learned she even has powers like us," said Pascual.

"That's strange," said Florante. "So you didn't know we're angels and demons?"

"Not a clue," said Pascual. "For all I know, we've become like the X-Men or something. Mutants who've awakened our superpowers, you know?"

"That makes sense," said a wistful Galang. "We might be the next evolution of man. Deities. Or gods. Or heroes."

"Or villains. Or demons. Or monsters…" Isaiah trailed off.

"What happened?" Florante asked.

"I-It's nothing," Isaiah said, but then exhaled and shrugged. "It's about Regina…"

"Regina Mariano?" Florante repeated, remembering the girl as the one who said he had fetal alcohol syndrome. He also remembered blasting her until she turned to ash in his fever dream. "What happened to her?"

***

By the time Florante and Isaiah jumped out of the rooftop, everything went back to normal. No hole in the wall. No broken glass windows. No interrupted traffic outside of the school. It was if they'd never fought.

Another reset had happened, which made Galang presume that his fever dream was one of those resets. Nevertheless, he had to face facts.

He unfortunately did kill his classmates, but something happened so that it never happened and faded away like a dream.

Regardless, Isaiah gave Florante the lowdown on what happened to Regina.

She had awakened her powers like Isaiah, Jennifer, and Florante did. In Jenny's case, she awoke as an angel avatar many decades ago, in the 1960s.

Long story short, Regina had awakened as a mindless Ophanim or perhaps even a Minion. Like the crawling chaos or the spaghetti monster from before, she ended up becoming an out of control monster that Isaiah couldn't stop.

Come to think of it, Florante left out that little detail of him visiting Jenny's apartment in his dreams after seeing her name-alike in a yearbook at the library.

However, because of the nature of their powers, he had an inkling suspicion that his visit to the Tolentino abode actually happened.

Like how his brief battle with Isaiah actually happened before their collective lucid fantasy disappeared right in their own eyes.

God dammit all to hell. So he really did kill his classmates. He really did kill Laura.

A wave of shame washed over him. What he thought was him releasing pent-up stress harmlessly was him actually harming his bullies as revenge. Like a school shooter run amok.

If everything hadn't reset to normal with everyone living and their school left in one piece, he'd be no better than the bullies he so hated.

No, he'd be worse than them. He turned what was supposed to be an eye for an eye revenge and took an arm and a leg as payment for his social humiliation instead.

Never mind, "An eye for an eye makes the world go blind". The term, "An eye for an eye" was created with people like him in mind, who went overboard with their revenge.

He didn't know what to feel. On one hand, he felt horrified, guilty, and ashamed after realizing he had hurt his classmates for real. On the other hand, shamed as he was to admit it, he felt a measure of schadenfreude for mostly, um, unleashing his frustrations on his tormentors.

However, he wanted to crawl under a rock and die over the realization that he really did kill his former crush, Laura Reyes, as collateral damage for his mad killing spree. Ditto his teacher who merely got in his way.

Everything went back to normal and everyone ended up alive, but he still felt dirty realizing he really did all those things. He wasn't so innocent after all.

No wonder Jenny kept acting so guarded around him. On top of him stalking her! He needed to have more self-awareness!

The more he thought about it, the more he realized he was screwed.

What he originally thought was harmless was now considered beyond the pale. He felt like someone pulled the rug from under him.

What if there was no reset button? What if they stayed dead? He'd have ruined their lives and his own life forever.

He didn't mean to. He just wanted them to leave him alone. Even if they didn't end up friends or acquaintances, just let him be. Let bygones be bygones, dammit.

That breakfast, he ate his sandwich and drank his orange juice in a hurry. For once, he felt somewhat excited to go to school. Not because he was some nerd looking forward to tests and quizzes or something.

He certainly didn't go there to meet up with any friends save for his Dead Kids acquaintances. No, if he was being honest with himself, he knew he was eager to get to school to see Jennifer Tolentino again.

No, no. Well, yes. He did want to see his crush again. But aside from that, he was looking forward to using his powers for good for once—to help a (former) best friend in need save his new girl friend (not girlfriend) from herself.

If anything, it was his way of alleviating his guilt over actually killing his classmates for real! He owed it to all the bullies he killed.

Hmmm. So if memory served him correct, the angels who'd been chosen as candidates on the position of Archangel Gabriel was Florante, Isaiah, Regina, Gerry, and  Laura.

Maybe also Mark Zuniga? No, no. Mark only stabbed Florante. Gerry was the one who awakened his own powers, followed by Laura. In his "fever dream" that wasn't really a dream.

***

Regina Mariano appeared normal enough when she got to school. However, as Isaiah Pascual would explain later, she'd actually gotten mixed up with a "bad crowd".

If Florante could hazard a guess, she must've ended up being manipulated by another full-fledged demon avatar like Mammon.

They all attended classes like usual, with Isaiah giving Florante looks here and there to remind him of their plans to, "save" Regina after school.

From how Isaiah described her, her Ophanim/Minion form or biblically accurate angel/demon form was reminiscent of a geometric form. An object instead of an organism. An abstraction instead of something concrete.

Isaiah admitted he was no match against her and her growing power, but he thought that maybe with Florante's help, they could beat the sense out of his friend.

Galang told Pascual about how Ophanims were actually awakened with the purpose of becoming avatars of famous angels or demons like Gabriel or Raphael. However, it hadn't sunk in that Isaiah, Regina, and Florante were bound to fight for the position of Gabriel's avatar.

Florante wasn't too clear on how this avatar business worked himself. He made a mental footnote on asking Jennifer more about it later.

Oh right. Jennifer. Should Florante end up facing off with her too? He ended up breaking his promise to her to forget about this angel and demon business.

He felt at times that Jenny seemed so guarded around him. Even hostile at times. Seeing that he had every intention of breaking his promise to her, maybe her behavior was warranted.

No. He had to do this favor to Isaiah. To make it up for killing two of his bullies for real in his fever dream.

He hadn't quite figured out how their powers worked or why things went back to normal after one of them was defeated, but… he was totally doing this right now.

He'd apologize to Jenny later. For now, he had to concentrate on Isaiah's friend Regina.

Sure, Regina wasn't the most pleasant of classmates to Florante, but he really wanted to make up for the sins he committed that haven't actually been erased.

Some of his bullies actually remembered him killing them. Remembered his sins.

His sins that actually happened and were real, despite them disappearing from reality like forgotten dreams.

***

After dismissal time…

It rained particularly heavily that afternoon, such that it took every ounce of the clumsy Florante's concentration to make it out of the school without slipping on a puddle or getting his pants wet from wayward splashes.

He even managed to cling to the nearby chain-link fence of the school's entrance and exit to save himself from falling.

He shook his head, wishing the ground would swallow him whole. As amazing as he and Pascual probably looked earlier with their superhuman feats, he looked downright pathetic with his actual clumsiness.

If he were a girl, perhaps he'd perhaps look more endearing instead of pathetic, like a damsel in distress even. As it was, he felt less of a man for being an uncoordinated klutz with not a single athletic bone in his body.

It was times like this that made him doubt (perhaps hope) that his imagined sins or dark fantasies against his classmates remained as such.

Not that hoping for their misfortune subconsciously was any better but at least it didn't really happen.

Regina Mariano had been hanging out with these shady people after dismissal time and her friend circle—of which Isaiah was a part of—was getting worried about it.

Appropriately enough, she seemed like the poster child for an after-school special on wayward kids who hang out with the wrong crowd.

As typical of such specials, Regina was your average tomboyish girl next door who wore a ponytail haircut and sported a dyed brunette hair that stood out from her tan skin.

Regardless, Pascual insisted that her meetings with these questionable and suspicious persons had something to do with both him and her awakening with their angelic powers.

So what was Regina's deal? Pascual alleged she got into contact with some talent agency and they were going to make her into a star.

However, they instead awakened her angel self and turned her into an outright monster with their schemes.

Pascual attempted to save her, with the stress also triggering his own angel self, but she proved too powerful for him.

As her guy best friend, Isaiah followed her to their offices, feeling that something was afoot. From what Florante could surmise, Regina was a bit of a naïve country bumpkin and the agency was taking advantage of her and various other girls.

That was news to Florante, who only knew Regina for her mean girl antics with him whenever they came across each other.

Then things got weird from there.

For his part, Galang could only wonder if his other encounters with Ophanims or Minions involved such schemes.

The spaghetti monster seemed to fly out of nowhere at the school parking lot. Meanwhile, the undefinable tall shadow man was someone he and Jenny detected along with Mammon in the middle of Makati.

Jeez. Florante could only shake his head. That American-looking white guy was Mammon? The Mammon? Or at least an avatar of his. And Florante himself was supposed to be the avatar of the Archangel Gabriel to boot.

Or he would once he went past being an Ophanim and evolved into Cherubim and Seraphim.

Regardless, Florante skipped his school service ride home in order to commute with Isaiah to somewhere in Ortigas on Isaiah's dime.

They considered using their powers to get there, but they decided to save their energy and use it on saving Regina from herself instead.

***

The duo sneaked (snuck?) around the conference hall where a seeming talent show took place. Some were on stage singing and dancing. Others served as the audience.

On the front row were some well-dressed judges, including a drop-dead gorgeous Caucasian lady who had the looks of a Hollywood actress.

She had blonde hair complimented by her blue eyes. She also wore a flashy gown and shoes that matched her shoes yet seemingly decorated a closed heart.

At the back of the stage were various contestants with numbered sashes, among them was Regina herself.

What was all this now? A talent show? Star Search? Tanghalan ng Kampeon (Contest of Champions)? Or perhaps a beauty pageant like Miss Universe or Binibining Pilipinas (Miss Philippines)?

'What are they planning?' Florante wondered. The setup seemed far too elaborate just to awaken the angel (or demon) within Regina. What was this supposed to accomplish?

Using Pascual's teleportation-like speed, they got through the security guards and ended up at the back of the conference room's audience, with them none the wiser.

It was actually pretty packed in there. Standing room only. So Isaiah and Galang stood and observed what was happening.

In front of them was an ordinary talent show. Like an amazing male singer who sung a Whitney Houston song while sounding nearly exactly like Whitney Houston with his impressive falsetto or female "head voice" range.

A minute later, there was a group of break dancers on stage. From there, a long-haired rocket with an electric guitar did a three-minute guitar solo. Afterwards, another singer, a girl, who was classically trained in opera and sung an operatic version of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody".

The pair of classmates stood there, mesmerized by the amount of talent before them. Applauding along with the rest of the audience.

Then it happened. Just like with Mammon's Minion, both Florante and Pascual felt the presence of their fellow angel. Or demon. Celestial being, perhaps.

The curtains opened and they saw Regina arrive on stage. It was apparently her turn to sing. However, instead of singing, she instead began to transform.

They then heard a high-pitched screech, like metal crunching on metal, that became fast and painfully loud. Started, Florante looked up, startled.

Galang saw several things at the same time.

Nothing moved in slow motion the way it did in films. Rather, his brain felt like it worked overtime due to an adrenalin rush, allowing him to absorb multiple scenes register in his brain at once.

Maybe it wasn't the same case with the speedster beside him who stared at what happened before him with wide eyes and an unhinged jaw. He couldn't tell.

Regina obviously stood out from the sea of faces staring back at her since she was center stage in this talent show and all, with them wearing the same faces of horror that Pascual did. That Florante probably did as well.

The contestants of the talent show started glowing, as though they themselves had a halo of aura like angels would.

The tendrils of this glowing energy then got sucked around Regina, who herself begun singing a Regine Velasquez song that Florante couldn't quite place.

Florante thought the violently winding soundwaves from Regina's song would converge into a climactic ante, like rapids to a huge waterfall, but then it became a calm lake  that only produced ripples. Just the purest song.

The energies from the audience swirled along with the brightness of the auras of the contestants, but they were weaker comparatively weaker.

This made everyone act lethargic, with the seated viewers slumping down on their chairs and the people standing crumple down on the floor in a dead faint.

All of them did so except the two angels at the back—Regina's classmates—and the judges near the front of the stage. Particularly the pretty woman who looked like Hollywood actress.

"…Pascual?" Regina said, waking from her reverie and breathing into her microphone. Her eyebrows then furrowed as she squinted and focused her eyes on the person beside Pascual. "Wait. Is that… Florante Galang? Why is he with you, Isaiah?"

"Ay palaka! (Ah frog!) She caught on to us! The jig is up!" exclaimed Pascual, which only pissed Florante off.

"Susmaryosep, Pascual! What's the plan now?" complained Galang. "You do have a plan just in case she noticed us, don't you?"

"I didn't think things through! Sue me!" said Isaiah. "Just… help me with her, okay?! Use your powers!"

The Hollywood beauty took a cursory look at the two high school students in uniform and asked Regina, "Friends of yours?"

Regina stared back and forth between the svelte woman and her classmates then nodded, "They're my classmates, Miss Spelvin," she said aloud, through the microphone.

"Please. Call me Georgina," Miss Spelvin do declared.

It was then that Florante and Pascual realized that Miss Spelvin didn't open her mouth when she spoke. Like with Mammon, she communicated telepathically. On a frequency only fellow angels and demons could listen to.

Daring to be brave and remembering his former best friend's request to save Regina from the influence of literal demons, Galang shot a Thunderbolt at Miss Spelvin instead of his other bully classmate.

The spellbinding Spelvin swatted the Thunderbolt away, which created an ear-splitting sonic boom that made the whole place rumble.

For his part, Florante had already covered his ears, but soon Pascual and even Regina followed suit in covering their ears as well.

The three then bore witness to Spelvin changing form from a beautiful blue-eyed blonde Hollywood actress in a blue dress to a a sultry red-skinned demoness with wings, fingernail claws, the wild hair of a harridan, and a black dress seemingly made of the darkest starless night.

An improvement from Mammon's fat gremlin form that Florante and Jenny exposed back in Guadalupe Church for sure, but still. Her true form was a She-Devil?

Georgina Spelvin's lips curved into a knowing smile. "Now who told you that's my true form, li'l boy?"

"Wait, you and Jenny fought another demon like her?" said Isaiah, startling Galang.

This telepathic communication between fellow angels and demons was more trouble than it was worth!

As Spelvin strode towards Regina, the judges beside her turned to dust, which made the hairs at the back of Florante's neck stand on end while beside him, Isaiah turned blue in horror.

She then told her telepathically without regard to the two angels who'd overhear, "Now's your chance to use the power you've absorbed from this talent show to take control of your Minion form."

And soon both Galang and Pascual saw clear as day the literal talent flow like neon tendrils of spiritual energy from the unconscious contestants to Spelvin's hand into a floating sphere of power.

They'd weaponized their passion and used their love to their abusive advantage. How devilish of them to do so, but that was to be expected.

Quite a bit of the metaphysical ball of talent then got transferred unto Regina in the form of a seeming solar flare.

Then, like a ghost, Spelvin vanished. Fading into existence.  

From there, Regina opened her mouth, resisted the urge to transform into her geometric self, and sung a song to end the world.

***

Dammit.

Why did it feel like the world was always at stake when Florante dealt with an awakening angel? Or demon?

Regina sang a lyricless hymn of the damn that warped their perception of reality. The sound waves from the song kept Florante's attempts at shooting her down with projectiles from hitting her.

Meanwhile, on Isaiah's part, he didn't know what to do. He didn't want to hurt his friend and classmate. He certainly didn't wish to do that momentum-filled punch on her.

However, she might even be more powerful now than she was when she went berserk with her first awakening.

So Pascual ran away.

…What?

Regina took a break from her singing that rendered every energy projectile Florante shot at her into harmless heat and light. "What are you doing even here, you fetal alcohol syndrome baby?"  

"AH! You called me that again! Even after I told the teacher on you for bullying!" exclaimed Florante, who doubled his efforts by shooting Lightning  Bolts at himself and holding enough power inside his body to resist Regina's repellant sound waves.

"You're such a li'l snitch, you dork," Regina said with a roll of her eyes. She then started humming with a specific frequency that resonated with the rest of the building.

Florante considered asking her if she remembered him killing her in his fever dream,  but he pushed his thoughts away before they could fully form into words in his head.

The sound waves from her voice came at shorter-wave vibrato, almost like a bird's trill, which echoed across the amphitheater room then transmitted to the rest of the structure, making its very foundations shake and dance to the beat of her wordless song.

And so the room and the building started to rumble and shake from the droning hum from Regina's powerful singing pipes.

Soon, all the glass panes and mirrors on the amphitheater cracked and went on the verge of shattering. Hairline cracks appeared everywhere while the floor below them and the ceiling above them moved.

Florante hesitated, with him second-guessing himself now that he realized his past dreams weren't dreams and he and everyone else could die for real if the whole building were to collapse on them.

However, just in the nick of time, Pascual returned, blasting through the wall from behind Miss Mariano and pushing, not punching or striking, her forward.

It took the next second for Florante to realize Pascual might've probably run the entire globe and back to produce enough kinetic energy to penetrate through Regina's melodic defenses with supersonic might.

Regardless, that momentous push did the trick. It stopped the building from crumbling just in time.

However, to Pascual's horror, he went overboard and built up enough momentum to push Mariano away with the strength of a freight train.

"AAHH…! Pascual…!?"

"Oh no! GINA…! I'm SORRY!"

For a split-second, the sonic siren changed into the geometric object Isaiah described her as. She was hard to miss, with her occupying most of the amphitheater.

She probably shifted into that form for self-preservation's sake. Otherwise, she would've turned into a messy red stain of blood and guts on the ceiling and walls.  

Florante couldn't believe what he just saw. He also couldn't react in time before the geometric fallen angel did a banshee shriek that blew him away and shattered his eardrums.

"AUGH!" Galang cried out, and when he gnashed his teeth, he felt the enamel on them crack as well, thus worsening his pain.

The supersonic screech of her Minion self lacked the controlled nuance of her human form's song for sure.

However, for Pascual's part, he couldn't be happier. He grinned and exhaled in relief. "Oh, thank goodness, Gina! You're not dea… URK?!"

Regina Mariano finally shifted back to her human self, her hands throttling Isaiah by his neck. "You almost killed me, you jerk!"

"Wait (cough), I-I didn't mean to…!" Isaiah choked out.

"Whatever. I'm going to control this power and become queen of this world. Just you wait and see," she said, dropping Pascual to the floor before she picked up the microphone and began singing again, her heel firmly stepping on Isaiah's face.

A half-conscious Florante thought, "Rule the world…?" Huh. Why didn't he think of doing that when he first got his powers?

The compromised position Pascual had, with him getting stepped on by Regina also made Galang's cheeks warm. Mariano kept Isaiah pinned down to the ground by stepping on his face, huh? He wished it were him instead.

He shook his head to wave off such sordid thoughts. He needed to set his priorities straight.

He was too shortsighted with this angel and demon avatar thing that he didn't realize the full implication of his gifts. He'd rather pettily get back at his bullies than aim at something higher.

But to be honest, why would he want to conquer the world? What good would that do? So he'd become President of Earth? A clueless student like him would have more responsibility? Who'd want that?

Galang attempted to get up and move, but the ground started shaking again. The building creaked and swayed, like a house of cards about to topple over.

What was he supposed to do now? Her singing served as her shield against 100 percent of Florante's myriad of projectiles. His own halo shield couldn't block off Regina's sound waves either. He was a sitting duck.

Also, if he didn't feel like killing the crawling chaos Minion from before, that went double or even triple for his classmate. Not that he could at this rate, but he definitely didn't want to.

Whatever rage he felt for his bullies back in his fever dream faded away, replaced with shame and embarrassment after he realized he killed them for real back then.

He could only helplessly stare as the ceiling plaster cracked and buckle while bits of dust and debris fell on the unconscious contestants and audience.

They were about to serve as more collateral damage from the awakening of yet another (fallen) angel.

According to Pascual, the people who died when he first tried stopping Regina's rampage the first time she awoke remained dead.

They didn't revert back to living like with what happened when Jenny and Florante defeated the spaghetti monster and the living maelstrom.  

Where was his power and creativity when saving lives? Was he only useful against helpless people, like his bullies before some of them discovered they too had powers?

He was so helpless against Regina that he might as well turn into an Ophanim himself to battle her with full force. He didn't remember his monstrous gyroscopic and multi-eyed form having ears, after all. Just endless revolving eyes.

"Wait, you have an monster form too?!" said Isaiah without thinking after hearing Florante's thoughts, as though forgetting (or not believing) Florante claiming they were angels with alternate, monstrous "true" forms.

Oh, right. Angels and demons could sense and communicate telepathically with one another. Florante should keep his thoughts to himself. Isaiah accidentally overheard his thoughts.

Hold on a minute. He could project his thoughts to those two, couldn't he?

He got it all wrong. He had his priorities straight from the start.

So he stared and focused on his classmates while making his concrete thoughts known to them even when he, a socially awkward teenager, would normally have trouble expressing himself.

The two seemed unaware of how they looked, what with Regina stepping on Isaiah but hesitating to hurt him or finish him off while Isaiah himself didn't seem to mind it one bit.

Also, from the angle where Pascual lay, he could actually look up from under Regina's dress.

The two received the message loud and clear.

Regina screamed and covered herself up while an apologetic Isaiah reassured it wasn't what it looked like.

Mariano did a swift stomp at Isaiah's head that would've squashed it like a watermelon had he not stood up in time. "Manyakis ka! (You pervert!)" she exclaimed. "You're both perverts!"

"You really are a snitch, Florante!" shouted Pascual at his former best friend while backpedaling deftly across multiple unconscious contestants and audience members.

For that fraction of a second though, Regina left herself wide open. So Florante shot her full of light bullets to force her to change into her Ophanim/Minion form.

"LIGHT ARRAY!"

All ten of Florante's Light Bullets hit their target, with each going off like the electromagnetic pulse version of blockbuster bombs.

Also, Galang had the presence of mind to envelop himself in his electric wind halo and push Regina backwards from the stadium through several walls up until they were outside the building to save the unconscious people inside the amphitheater from harm.

"Ah! Florante, you bastard…!" the backpedaling Pascual, uh, forward-pedaled towards the pair. "What do you think you're doing?!"

"What do you think I'm doing? I'm saving everyone before… AH!"

Then, from outside the venue, right in the middle of Mandaluyong, Regina Mariano began to change and shift forms.

Like with the flying spaghetti monster, Regina's true angel/demon form towered over Florante and Isaiah like a gigantic geometric monument. A floating blue pyramid that might as well be an alien ship. Or a tinted Star Destroyer from Star Wars.

'Now what?' thought Florante, which only made Pascual scream at him harder. 'Oh right. You can still hear me, huh?'

"Now its you who didn't think things through!?" Isaiah screeched. He then saw images from Galang's memory flash before his eyes.

Of Florante killing both him and Regina.

With misty eyes and a sniffle, Florante said, "I don't want to kill her again. Or hurt her any further."

She actually forced him to act because she was about to kill all those people back in the amphitheater herself.

"Florante, look out!" a voice from behind them said.

Their world went topsy-turvy again, and Galang wasn't sure if the Minion form of the demonic and geometric pyramid Regina was responsible.

The next thing he knew, he saw darkness just before he heard the shattering crunch of a car folding around a truck bed. He then realized he'd been wrapped in a cocoon of vines from head to toe.

The green tendrils receded from his person before he attempted breaking free of them. He then got up in time to see Jennifer Tolentino entangling Pascual with those same vines, a trickle of blood flowing from her forehead, her signature glasses missing.

"Jenny…!" blurted out a confused Florante, not knowing what to say.

"You broke your promise, Flor," whispered Jenny, the words filling Galang with shame. "We'll talk about this later."

Then, from right beside them, Florante saw double. Two Pascuals.

"Wha…?" Galang trailed off, at a loss for words. The second Pascual, he realized, was the one who asked him to watch out. So who was the first Pascual…?

The vine-entangled Isaiah Pascual smirked and changed back to the Hollywood beauty from before. Miss Georgina Spelvin, if Florante recalled correctly.

He didn't have the chance to notice anything else when he realized a van was headed their way. The geometric form of Regina had started singing again, and things beyond Galang's ken started happening all around them.

The vehicle spun and slid, on the verge of colliding with them all—Florante, Jenny, and the two Pascuals.

Without looking, Jenny

"Asmodeus," was what Jenny called the Pascual imposter instead. The imposter who could do somehow also mimicked the real deal's abilities.

The fake Isaiah cackled then shifted form back to the gorgeous blue-eyed blonde from before. "Raphael. I've heard you're in town from Mammon."

"What are you doing with my classmates?" Jenny the Raphael avatar demanded.

Spelvin smirked a spellbinding sneer. "I'm doing to them what you should've done a long time ago. I'm rousing them from their slumber, Raphael."

One thing was for sure. It was about time Florante took a second look at that dream journal of his.

***

To Be Continued…

The first incarnation of "Fantasy of Evolution" in my mind back in the early 2000s  involved Gabriel De Angeles (currently Florante Galang) ending up seeing his best friend J.D. (reminiscent of Isaiah Pascual) dying because of the War of Angels and Demons.

Also, yes. The Ophanim/Minion form of Regina Mariano is reminiscent of Ramiel the Geometric Angel from Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Fascinating how stories and creations change as you yourself develop into a person and as an author, huh?

Farewell, Abdiel