Campus in Trick and Threats

I've always had a fascination with being submerged underwater.

Bright blue color shining above the firmament: I gazed upon the second skies. Ultramarine eyes peered down and there's the failing human about to be swallowed. Miss Undercurrent whispered, "Stay…" as she caressed my ears. Mikhail Salazar, who freshly survived the mystical conflagration of a blaming witch, listened to Mother Nature's alter ego.

I stayed for a while.

Suppose you're in high school and the lesson for phys-ed is swimming.

Rather than be in the band of competing classmates, I'd sink until I reached the floor and be there for as long as I can hold my breath. Most of the time, I'd be reprimanded─so I must have picked stealth as another talent. Maybe that's only because I didn't like being around real people.

Pretty sure the skill was worthless.

Until I found myself ripping through water.

As though wartime officers mistook played bullies to another level─and used a human as their torpedo.

Glub, glub, glub! I saw more bubbles rise, and I can taste the saltwater. I don't want to rise yet. I'd prefer sinking down to the seafloor where I won't be disturbed. I'd spare myself from the trouble, earliest in the chess game I don't know which piece I've been assigned.

I'm not any suicidal as you think I'd be: being edgy would be an innate trait, but I'd draw a line when it comes to death.

I think better when I'm underwater─and I'd be keen enough, using the given opportunity to ponder upon the implications of acting recklessly.

"Wake up, Mika!"

Gasp─and so, Mikhail Salazar was roused awake by his little sister's soothing voice.

Kris? No, she wasn't anywhere on sight nor was I asleep in the first place. I must have been daydreaming again.

Leaves swirled from below as I stepped forth.

Everywhere I go…

"Liberation System alert: threat detected, Level 5."

Encounter: Gwyneth Mendoza | Status: Asleep

Troides hypolitus

"Liberator refuses to awaken this subject. Period since first encounter: 2373 days ago."

"Liberation System alert: threat detected, Level 11."

Encounter: Felicia Alcantara | Status: Asleep

Argynis paphia

"Liberator refuses to awaken this subject. Period since first encounter: 2373 days ago."

"Liberation System alert: threat detected, Level 4."

Encounter: Jeanne LeBeau | Status: Asleep

Argynis paphia

"Liberator refuses to awaken this subject. Period since first encounter: 2373 days ago."

"Liberation System alert: threat detected, Level 6."

Encounter: Hakuno Kazamatsuri | Status: Asleep

Ornithoptera aesacus

"Liberator refuses to awaken this subject. Period since first encounter: 2373 days ago."

"Liberation System alert: threat detected, Level 2."

Encounter: Eli Yolanda, 18 | Status: Asleep

Polygonia c-album

"Liberator refuses to awaken this subject. Period since first encounter: 2373 days ago."

"Liberation System alert: threat detected, Level 2."

Encounter: Emma Pagada, 40 | Status: Asleep

Celastrina argiolus

"Liberator refuses to awaken this subject. Period since first encounter: 2373 days ago."

"Liberation System alert: threat detected, Level 9."

Encounter: Eyvine Dulnuan, 16 | Status: Asleep

Polygonia satyrus

"Liberator refuses to awaken this subject. Period since first encounter: 2373 days ago."

"Liberation System alert: threat detected, Level 1."

Encounter: Tristan Page, 18 | Status: Asleep

Polygonia c-album

"Liberator refuses to awaken this subject. Period since first encounter: 2373 days ago."

…I see these prompts─and an endless sea of butterflies.

Upfront was the dreaded South High School, a campus entwined in nature, as the pathway sloped gently upwards, bordered by meticulously trimmed hedges. I'm but a lonely figure─I was eyed on by all the other students, braised in their silent judgment amidst the carefully manicured landscape. Whose eyes, their eyes peering through the darkness, born into the lower realm as, "Mika!"

"Liberation System alert: threat detected, Level 51."

Encounter: Primrose Avery, 17 | Status: Asleep

Vanessa Atalanta

"Liberator refuses to awaken this subject. Period since first encounter: 1 day ago."

Huff, huff, huff! Primrose dashed towards me, her long, caramel hair whipping in loose waves with each stride.

Heels pivoting slowly, our eyes met.

I didn't heed her call, and let her rush her way in.

And suddenly, her slender hand reached out, not just to hold mine, but to grasp them firmly.

Bedeviled to a process of strangulation where they'd break any minute now. Glazed by a surge of heat, the kind a handshake would bring─but the prickly unease of an insect scuttling across your skin.

Careful now, Mika─with a shift barely noticeable to any onlookers, I gently dislodged her grip.

"Oops, my bad!" Her playful apology lacked the expected giggle. "Hmm, still, I think there's something unique hidden under your hand."

Going for the right hand first thing in the morning.

How subtle of her, and yet strangely blatant.

She straightened her form, a predatory glint flashing in her bespectacled eyes.

"So you're running early today too, huh?" She said as she smirked. "I wouldn't be too lenient if I were the problem child."

"That isn't what I'd like to hear," I answered, slightly regretful now that I'd be embroiled. "Yeah, a problem child is a problem child so I should be more problematic."

First of all, her statement was flawed: Primrose only entered the school yesterday for her to judge how lenient I am as a student.

Although, there's no rebuttal about being a problem child.

She gave a mischievous grin. "So, what now? Walk to class together?"

"Sure," I answered, willingly as per yesterday's agreement: I'm her guide to our vast institute.

I wasn't against it, nonetheless. Like, I sought for a change of pace in a long time, it doesn't hurt to have company once in a while. Needless to say, it didn't make the way to school less familiar. Same old morning walk, tweaked in a scenario where a collision course to the abnormal skyrockets to the six trillionth.

"So, Mika!" Primrose began, tilting her head slyly, "You're a little famous around here, aren't you?"

Famous was an exaggeration. "More like infamous," I grumbled.

"Oh come on," Primrose laughed, a light tinkling sound that didn't quite match her sly grin. "Don't tell me you haven't heard the rumors."

"What rumors?" I played dumb.

"They say you have powers," she continued, her voice dropping conspiratorially. "That you can do things no one else can."

"You sound like Haruhi Suzumiya," I denounced, a wry chuckle escaping amidst a brawl of iridescent butterflies.

Well, I'm not interested in ordinary people," Primrose chained, her grin taken to be infectious. "So if you are an alien, a time traveler, or an esper, then I'm interested in you. And you're an esper!"

"They talk about anything nowadays," I muttered, trying to deflect.

And no, I'm not an esper. I'm beyond them, for better or for worse, and the people I awakened are the true espers. I merely awaken them and they become Homo sapien superiors. Wait, is it limited to espers? Meh, I'm not interested to know.

Her smile widened. "Like what? That you can fly? Talk to people without words?"

Mm-hmm, and I think the list can go on as long as one can speculate.

"Or move things with your mind?" Primrose finished, her voice almost a taunt now.

"Mm-hmm, what is it that Primrose Avery wants?" I asked, as I stopped dead in my tracks.

We were almost at the school gates. Students milled around, a sea of uniforms and gossiping faces.

None of them mattered at that moment.

Only Primrose, and her eyes gleaming with an excitement that bordered on hunger.

I have to commend her control of emotions.

Who would have thought?

Maybe if I wasn't the kind of person she knows, I would have been plunged to oblivion.

Yet, I know she's not being true to herself at all.

Her graceful butterflies that once adorned her soul now carried a hint of unrest, their wings fluttering with a newfound intensity. Simmering anxiousness coursed through her veins, seeping into her essence as a human. And─she can no longer contain them.

"Yeah, it's simple, really," she chirped, stepping even closer. A glint of something desperate flickered in her eyes, a stark contrast to her playful grin. She glanced down at her hand, and for an instant, the butterflies swarming in my mind surged in agitation. She looked back up, her gaze unwavering. "I want you to wake me up."

Yeah, somehow, I realized all of this─the proposal, the desperation, the shrieking butterflies─is really about her escaping boredom. 

Yesterday.

I should have recalled what happened yesterday.

"Mikhail!" Loud, almost cracking: whose voice, I didn't know nor found any interest as opposed to her sanctuary of admiral butterflies. "I like you! Please, go out with me!"