‘Um…’ Oliver cleared his throat and hopefully he’d get rid of his anxious, before he began. ‘Alter Reality is a condition of a phenomenon whereby someone will experience another memory that the person may think exist, but not for the others. Dated 1765, a German psychologist Dietrich Lewin had wrote an article on this phenomenon about his patient who came to see him and claimed that he saw and had visions about the early signs of the Doomsday. He also professed that he heard voices even when no ones were around. He said it was a gift from God but later, he was found drown at the beach. Dr. Dietrich said his last note found in his patient’s pocket said that he was trying to flee from a terrible catastrophe, only there was none…”
Oliver stuttered. ‘D-does this mean that I’m going to be crazy too…?’ He uttered, as his voice began to tremble so horribly that he couldn’t pronounce his next words. His face looked pale, and his heart plunged as the words he read earlier kept hitting him like falling bricks.
‘Don’t be silly.’ Sarah suddenly nudged him on his shoulder.
‘It is there… but it’s not exactly there...’ She read a small phrase at the lower left of the page. The phrase wasn’t typed like the other sentences, but it was a scribble made by a very sharp pen, judging from the almost tear page. Inky black, it was clearly made by someone who had read it before.
At that moment Sarah suddenly took the book away from him, keeping it neatly on her laps with both of her palms covering it. She didn’t think Oliver saw the words. ‘I don’t think you should believe all this crap. You’ll be fine.’ She said, her voice emphasizing the last word. At the edge of her voice Oliver could obviously noticed the guilty lilt, probably because she thought she’d made him felt worse than before. She tried to gesture a gentle smile, before she proceeded with a soft, guilt-ridden laugh. Oliver must’ve thought that there’re must be an explanation or rationalisation to everything that happened.
‘It’s okay. Of course I’m not buying all of these stuffs, but I just want to read them.’ He forced himself to a smile, and let out a heavy sigh as he offered his hand to Sarah, signaling her to pass the book back. Reluctantly, she did so after curving her lips to a pout.
‘You’re…‘high’ again, buddy?’ Out of a sudden Tyler said, before yawning in his bleary face after he woke up. Stretching his arms out, he drowsed for a while before as he slowly opened his eyes to see the male in front of him was sending him a death glare. Judging from his statement he must’ve heard about Oliver’s hallucination. ‘I AM NOT HIGH!’ Oliver declared word by word, hopefully clear enough for Tyler to register it in his dysfunctional brain.
But unfortunately, it was loud enough for Marcie and Halen who were sitting at the next table to hear him and then cupped their mouths with their hands, probably starting a new gossip or maybe trying to compete who can come out with the best negative saying about him. And when they started to giggle, Oliver knew he was right.
Now about half of the library was watching the three of them, wide eyed. Just when the thing was about to get even worse, the school bell rang. And of course, as predicted, everyone hollered, grabbing their bags and ran for the exit, just like the thing they do when they heard the principal was running amok in the school hall with a new whip. Well, hypothetically.
The books were left on the tables, and from Oliver’s seat he could see Mrs. Liu, the school librarian teacher on duty looked miff. He bet the teacher had imagined she was choking the students to death until they were willing to admit wrong for behaving towards books like that.
Sarah closed up behind the male beside her after she saw the teacher grabbed any student she could reach and unluckily, it was a student who just crumpled a paper and threw it on the floor. She gave him a lethal glare, and she was more than ready to swallow the poor student alive.
And Oliver came to notice that the sign of his class teacher wasn’t around. Without Sarah and Tyler noticing, he deftly slipped the book into his backpack, zipping it close. In about less than 2 minutes later the library was already empty, and everything was in disorder, a total mess. The books were left in clutter, not to mention the chairs weren’t slid back into their places. Had to say, the students got their nerves on several occasions only, like the starting of school’s holiday.
But the truth was that the chaos helped them to forget what Oliver had said just then. By now he could let out a sigh of relief, but it wasn’t for long. He had to crack to mystery or find out about the thing happening to him, otherwise he’ll get crazy. Or he believed so.
‘Let’s go.’ Tyler said, sliding his backpack over his shoulder. He worked himself to a right swerve of the library, taking the other exit.
Once they were out, Oliver scuttled among the crowds, leaving Sarah and Tyler behind.
‘Oliver, wait up!’ Sarah yelled from the hordes but she lost him.
As she was about to pace up to find him, someone grabbed her hand. She spun around to see Tyler was holding her elbow, before he slightly shook his head.
End of chapter 1
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