Mutagen

"Hmmm?"

Woken up by a rather hard shake of his shoulder, Mark raised his head slumped on his desk.

With his blurred vision returning, Mark looked forward. In front of him was a pair of large whiteboards with one filled with the basic codes of the C++ programming language.

Mark stared at the familiar yet unfamiliar sight, confused. He felt he slept for too long and had a very long dream.

"Dude, are you okay?"

The familiar voice entered Mark\'s ears, making him remember that he was woken up by someone. Looking to his right, Mark saw the woman nine months older than him who he looked up to like his older sister, though she definitely did not know of it.

She was the one who influenced him about Otaku culture the most ever since a year ago.

"Why are you staring at me like that? Are you still asleep? Is your head still hurting?"

The woman asked Mark.

"No, I\'m fine... Ugh..."

Mark tried to say that he was fine, only to feel half of his head throbbing in pain.

"Look\'s like you\'re still not." The woman said with a sigh. "Luckily, Sir Arnell is understanding. You fell asleep after lunch. Sir Arnell let you sleep through his class when we said you have an awful headache. I woke you up since class is over."

"Class?"

Mark asked, finally looking around.

The white-walled classroom and people wearing school uniforms were what his eyes saw.

"What\'s wrong with you, dude? Did your headache damage your brain or something?"

The woman asked, looking at Mark in confusion.

"Is something wrong? You two don\'t want to go home yet?" A man approached the two and asked since they were still sitting on their chairs. "Your head still hurting?"

Mark was really confused. But then, he did not understand where the confusion was coming from.

"Did you have a bad dream? You\'re sleeping rather deeply."

The man asked, seeing Mark\'s strange look.

​ "Dream..." Mark murmured. "It seems I did. A very long one."

"Hoh? What dream?"

The woman asked in curiosity.

"I don\'t really remember. It just felt like it."

Mark replied.

"Heh... What a bummer. I must be something interesting if it can make you act like that."

The woman said with a pout of her slightly chubby cheeks.

"Carren! Markron! Mark!" A man with short curled hair called from the door. "You three not going home yet? Wanna hang out in the internet cafe?"

"Sorry, Mar. Mark\'s not feeling well, so well pass."

Carren replied.

"I see. Then I\'ll head out first!"

Mar said before storming off with a short goodbye.

Slowly, the people inside the classroom thinned out, with most of their classmates beginning to go home. Their college course was the one with the least number of students, in the first place. And since the school was only open for two years, the number of students in the whole college was not comparable to others.

"Can you go home properly? You\'re going to walk home as always, right?"

Carren asked Mark.

"If you want to, we can escort you at least at the Queens Row gates. If your house is not too far away, we might escort you all the way."

Markron proposed.

Mark stared at the two with a strange expression.

"Don\'t be such worrywarts. I didn\'t know you two are like this." Mark said, picking up his recycled laptop bag as his school bag and standing up. "I can handle myself. In the worst case, I can just stop at the tricycle terminal in Camella and wait for my father. You two also have other things to do, right? And Carren, you\'ll get scolded by your mom again if you went home late."

"I\'m always getting scolded by Mudra, anyway. But if you say so, it also works."

Carren nodded in agreement.

"Well, okay." Markron also compromised. "I also have to go home early to man my aunt\'s internet cafe."

With the three of them the only ones left inside the classroom, they left.

Mark walked through the familiar hallway, with Carren and Markron accompanying him on both sides.

Walking out of the gates, the two said their farewells.

"We\'ll go the opposite way," Markron said. "Go home straight, alright?"

"Be careful on the way home."

Carren also chimed in.

"Y-yeah. You two also."

Mark responded awkwardly, not knowing how to reply to their worried words.

The two waved their hands as Mark responded with his own, watching the two as they went the opposite road outside the gates of the college.

Mark watched his two friends vanish from his eyes as they turned into the corner of the main road. He then turned to the gates of the college, observing it, not minding that he was in the middle of the road and was obstructing the students going out of the gates.

Fortunately, none of the students bothered Mark, who was behaving weirdly.

"Hey! Mark, what are you doing there?"

A boisterous voice entered Mark\'s ears, making him look at the fishball stall nearby.

In front of the stall, a few of Mark\'s male classmates were eating with a rather tall but heavy man in the lead. That very same man was also the one that called Mark.

Mark approached the group. He was very familiar with them. After all, he was also kind of a lackey of this tall man.

"My head is just aching, Glenn."

Mark said to the tall man.

"Oh, right. You even slept through Sir Arnell\'s class." Glenn nodded. "Want some fishball? My treat as always."

Mark stared at Glenn and his other classmates. As always, Glenn was treating them with food. He was a pretty rich guy in the class, after all.

"Next time," Mark shook his head. "I\'ll head home and rest."

"If you say so."

Glenn replied before bidding farewell to Mark, who began to walk away. Their other classmates did the same.

Leaving the school, Mark traversed the familiar road. There was no way that he would not be familiar with it. He had been walking through the same path since he was seven every single weekday after class. After all, his preschool/kinder, Elementary School, Highschool, and Colledge, were technically in the same block.

Going to school, his father would always bring him. But when going home, he always had to walk depending on the situation. When he was little, it was just a bicycle cab. After he reached the third grade in Elementary school, they managed to afford the downpayment for a tricycle, although it took years to pay.

While walking through the streets filled with people, the sky began to darken. However, Mark did not realize as he was walking blankly. His mind was elsewhere.

Mark was sure he dreamt of something. However, he could not recall it. Not even a single detail of it. Although not a vivid dreamer, Mark could recall dreams if he knew he had one. However, he could not recall it at all. Even so, he could only try to recall as he felt that it was somehow important.

He continued to walk blankly, not realizing he arrived at his destination.

Was it his house?

No. It was a wall.

Their family was a caretaker of this private land since he was five years old. At first, there was only a barbwire fence encircling the private land. However, the adjacent land was bought and turned into private suburbs. The private land they cared for was isolated and walled off. Because of that, if Mark\'s family wanted to go in and out of the land they lived in, they had to climb over this wall.

It was inconvenient. Fortunately, they were allowed to do so by the home owner\'s association without problems. It was not like there were no other ways out of the private land. However, aside from this wall, the others would lead them out adding more than half an hour of walking for Mark. And the furthest one actually leads to a different municipality since it was at the border of Bacoor City.

Climbing on the wall, the grass-filled land was the only thing Mark could see. The tall bladed grass that was taller than him blocked the view the moment he jumped down.

It was already nighttime. Walking in a tight path surrounded by nothing but tall grass was something scary than serene. In a minute or two, Mark reached their house.

A concrete house with windows blocked off by rusty metal sheets. It was a house that did not even have a ceiling.

This house was not actually something they built. It was already here way before they came to this land.

Mark approached their yard, the barking of the dogs ensued. They were living in the middle of nowhere. Having dogs was a must for their family. Who knows who would sneak into this place in the middle of the night, after all.

Still, who would have more than ten dogs? Even Mark thought that it was too many. However, it was hard to find anyone who would adopt puppies without imported breeds, and they had no choice but to raise those that remained.

Mark had no choice but to pacify the dogs as their barking made his head hurt even more.

Approaching the door, Mark realized that there was no one home.

"They probably went out."

Mark murmured, and he tried to feel his pocket to check the time.

He then froze.

"What am I thinking. I don\'t have a watch, not even a phone. Hah... Second-year college and did not even have a phone. I\'m probably the only one in the entire school."

Mark sighed.

"I wonder if they already replaced the batteries on the wall clock."

With those words, Mark twisted the knob of the door hard. With a click, the lock was undone and he opened it without problems.

"We should really replace this doorknob. Its lock had been broken for years, already. That is if we had money to buy one."

Mark entered the door. The front door immediately leads to the kitchen. It was not like they designed it. It was already like this when they occupied this house. It had another door which could actually be the right front door. However, it had a smelly canal in front of it and was not fit to pass through every time. This house sure had a poorly thought design.

Putting his things down, Mark sat down on the monoblock long chair in the living room. The living room was quite empty. The only valuable thing here was their cheap colored TV that was already several years old and the DVD player that they bought when he was in first-year high school.

Looking at the wall clock, Mark sighed. It was still stuck at six. The time this morning when it stopped ticking.

Mark stood up and turned on the TV. The TV was an old one, after all. It was a model without a remote.

The tune entered Mark\'s ears. He was in time for the start of the newscast. There, he saw the time at the bottom left corner of the screen. It was a few minutes past six-thirty in the evening.

"Michael\'s class will end in eight, so they probably won\'t be back until nine. As usual, we will have a late dinner." Mark complained. "Ugh, my head hurts. I want to sleep. But I better cook some rice first if I don\'t want to be scolded."

With another sigh, while rubbing his temple, Mark went to the kitchen and washed a few cups of rice. Picking up the charcoal-covered pot, Mark went outside.

They did not have a stove or could afford to buy one. Thus, their family cooked outside using the firewood they procured from the woody areas of this private land. Sometimes, they would buy trashed coconut shells. It was way cheaper than an LPG tank, after all.

"Ah, right. I should change my clothes first. I only have two polos for the whole week."

Putting down the pot, Mark went into one of the two rooms of the house. He took off his clothes and donned his old house clothing. The shirt had a few holes, but it did not bother Mark. He was used to wearing this one. After all, most of his casual clothing were hand-downs from the friends of his father that were about to be thrown away.

Mark successfully cooked the pot of rice, though its bottom was a bit burnt. He then fell asleep immediately after cooking.