Radical Links

chapter i

"Pare."

"Sta. Maria!"

"M-Mark.."

Fuck

Mark sits up abruptly, the sudden movement rendering him disoriented for a moment before being able to proccess what was going on. Shit, it's happened again. The dream, the familiarity, that voice. This was the third week in a row, when will this stop?!

The dream was so engrained in his memory, unlike others that fleet and gone the moment one wakes up. It was probably because it had happened so often that he cringes at the idea. If he would, he could describe it in detail; a voice that rings in his mind and it sounded so familiar yet he hadn't even heard of it before. It calls him three times, the first one being a tone that would come from a complete stranger, then after it would sound like a close friend, then the last one, the strangest. It brings a shiver down his spine, calling out to his name breathlessly in a tone that urges a pit of something primal in his stomach.

It was a male voice too.

A male voice.

A feeling crawls in his nerves, then followed by fear.

No, no, stop. Tangina mo Mark tumigil ka.

He stands up from his bed, occupying his thoughts with the assignments due the next day that he planned to work on in the school library during lunchtime. Yeah, that'd usually work to ease off the queasiness that would weigh on him. He hopes it's indestructible enough to buy time in exterminating what he sees as the most rotten part of himself.

•~•~•

"Mark?"

He runs to the shade, the same place where he was sitting on the roots of the narra tree. The summer sun shone, burning brightly in the cloudless sky. He remembers: skin, hair, eyes, nose, lips.

"Mark uy! Napapatitig ka nanaman!"

His friend laughs at him, the sound resonating and his smile contrasting with shape and color of the tall blades of grass and bushes sorrounding the area. It was like opposites of a color wheel.

"Ah, sorry."

•~•~•

He was hyperfocused on the way his own hands wrote with the pen. He feels hypnotized, engrossed in his own movements, yet fully aware of what he was supposed to be writing down while his ears pick up chunks of information from the history prof speaking infront, something about communism and the Spanish Civil War. Too easy, he thought. If there was a prize for multitasking, he'd already won that.

"Alright so may bago kayong assignment, a literary review regarding "Homage to Catalonia" by George Orwell. I will be assigning your partners kaya makining kayong mabuti, di' ko na to uulitin."

His mind drifted elsewhere. He doesn't care who he's gonna be paired up with. Wait no, he does, only when it turns out to be Chuck or maybe someone like Yssa. He hoped to get paired up with Janina, he feels safe around her, like a canopy around him or something. He liked being around her.

The sound of his name pierced through his haze like a bullet, and it would be a lie if he said he didn't hold his breathe before the prof announce who would be partners with him.

"Charles Blanco."

He didn't know whether or not to sigh in relief or swallow it back. He looks back to see the man in question, staring back at him. He turns back quickly, his thoughts lingering momentarily at the eyes boring at the back of his head. There's that weird feeling in his gut again, and he tries to avert his attention from it by twirling the pen his hand. The bell rings and the whole class simultaneously stands to pack up.

He suddenly feels a hand on his shoulder, looking up to see his partner looking at him with the same gaze.

"Mark? Sta. Maria?"

Wait, what?

He gulps down and nods at him, scribbling digits on a thin piece of paper then handing it to him.

"Yeah, ako 'yon. Eto number ko, itext mo nalang ako para ma-save ko number mo. Dun nalang natin pagusapan kung kailan tayo magkikita para magawa natin 'to."

Blanco nods back at him, pursing his lips in a thin line, "Sige pare, salamat." He pats his shoulder twice before leaving the emptying classroom. The feeling in his stomach gets heavier.

That voice.. his voice.. it's him?