The Moon Hiding at Dawn

Chapter 29: The Season of Cold

Time is a phantom that haunts our lives. Just as phantoms hate to be noticed, time stops at a complete standstill the moment we become aware of its presence. But as we ignore it and dive into the nothingness of our lives, time goes caffeinated: hyper-speeding every hour of every day that the next time you noticed it, hours, days, weeks have passed.

The same thing most likely happened to me. I've been repeating the same routine of waking up, going to class just to sleep, waking up once again only to crash on my bed once I get home. Just insert the usual meals at the usual hours with the usual alcohol and that's that. Living a life of a puppet who doesn't have a puppeteer. You can provoke me, question me, or whatever. But with no puppeteer, don't expect a response from me. Just a blank stare. My autopilot routine is not capable of thought: of various imagination of possibilities vacuumed from another realm.

All of these came to pass. I came to the school as per usual only to find myself stopped at the gate by the guard. That's when he informed me...

It's the start of the Christmas Break. It's already the 23rd of December.

I was at a standstill for what would feel like an eternity. My body kept prompting Error 404s as my mind can't form a decent command. Finally, my head did a hard reset and that's when all of reality dawned to me.

The last memory I had was trying to search for Kallen and chasing Clyde, assuming it really was him. Other than that? Poof! Gone. I can't remember what I did when working in subconscious. No conversations recorded, no significant tasks, no visual stimuli. Only the routine that was stuck in my head. I can't even recall if we were still complete during the times I was at school nor could I remember looking someone in the eye.

I don't know what to do from this point so I head home.

I played whatever was there and spent hours trying to place my attention at something so that these painful thoughts would deviate from my system.

I ended up finishing the campaign of Call of Duty Modern Warfare for the nth time in my life. I scrolled more trying to find another game and ended up playing God Eater, finishing the storyline and crafting every possible loadout in the game while farming all other items to maximum capacity. I had decent progress to begin with so it's nothing surprising. What time is it now? Roughly noon. About nine hours from the early morning short-circuit scenario from the school gate. Time came and I'm bored from all the games I had that I'm left with no choice but to crash on the sorrowful bed that I have.

I had to twist around and rearrange myself a lot. I don't know why but the bed seemed uneven. It's even a surprise that autopilot me was able to sleep on this state without batting much of an eye. Or maybe I did, can't really remember. I sat and removed my blanket only to find myself staring at the book Riz gave me. I do remember reading part of it. I don't remember if I finished it.

Riz...

I haven't even talked to her, much more apologize, ever since that time... I think? My memory is still in shambles. I still remember being an asshole though...

I ended up using her for answers, even if she agreed with it, then ended up shattering her feelings with my 'high and mighty' act on the concept of friendship. I...

Here I go again. Playing with fire in my thoughts and getting all worked up all of a sudden. I let out a sigh and held the book.

"Might as well..." I muttered as I started to read it from the very start.

It's quite tragic. Just as it says, we become satellites that forever rotate by the planet just to serve our purposes. No matter how much we long for earth, our purpose would stand in our way.