The backpack was already on his shoulders before his mind caught up.
Lumayon stood in the narrow hallway of the house—Mom's house, his body corrected—and his hands were fastening straps he didn't remember learning. The bag was small. Bright blue. Covered in stickers of cartoon characters he didn't recognize. His fingers moved with certainty, muscle memory older than the boy wearing it.
"Ready?" Mom called from the kitchen.
"Yeah," he heard himself say. The word came out natural. Easy. Like a lie his body had been practicing for years.
He grabbed the door handle. His feet knew the way down the concrete steps before his eyes could register them. Left turn at the corner. Past the neighbor's house with the barking dog—his body flinched at the sound, but not from fear. From *recognition*. He'd heard this dog before. Many times. In another life.
The jeepney stop was three blocks away.
He didn't remember the route, but his legs carried him there anyway. The morning was already hot. Sweat pooled at the base of his neck. His uniform—white shirt, blue shorts, white socks pulled up to his knees—felt like a costume. Too small. Too bright. Too *innocent*.
A boy with a red backpack was already waiting.
"Lumayon!" the boy shouted, waving. "Dude, where were you yesterday? We were gonna cut class!"
His arm waved back before his brain could process the question. The smile came automatically. "Yeah, sorry. Was sick."
The lie tasted like the scrambled eggs.
"Sick?" Another boy appeared—taller, with a gap between his front teeth. "Or did your mom lock you in your room again?"
Lumayon didn't know. His body laughed anyway. "Maybe both."
Three more kids arrived at the stop. They greeted him like he was part of something. Like he belonged. His mouth moved through the motions—"Hey," "What's up," "Did you see the game?"—while his mind watched from behind glass, cataloging every interaction like evidence at a crime scene.
The jeepney arrived in a cloud of diesel smoke.
It was painted in garish colors—bright yellows, black, and with a written school bus. Roosters and saints and religious phrases covered every surface. "God is Love," one side declared. "Bless This Journey," another promised. The driver hung halfway out the window, smoking a cigarette, waiting for passengers.
Lumayon climbed in with the others. His body knew to duck under the low roof. His feet found the bench seat without stumbling. He sat between Red Backpack and Gap Teeth, squeezed tight with five other students and an old woman carrying a basket of vegetables.
The jeepney lurched forward.
"So," Red Backpack said, elbowing him, "did you finish the Math homework?"
Lumayon's stomach tightened. He didn't know what Math homework was. But his mouth said: "Yeah, some of it."
"Some of it?" Gap Teeth laughed. "Dude, you're gonna fail. The Math teacher is gonna destroy you."
"He destroys everyone," another kid offered. "Last week he made Ricky cry."
"Ricky cries at everything," Red Backpack said. "Remember when he cried because his crush didn't like him back?"
"Who's his crush?" Lumayon asked. The question came out before he could stop it.
All three boys turned to look at him.
"Bro," Gap Teeth said slowly, "are you feeling okay? You've been asking weird questions all morning."
His body tensed. His mind scrambled. This is how you do it. Smile. Nod. Say 'yeah.' Don't ask why you're here. Just… be here.
"I'm just messing with you," Lumayon said, forcing a grin. "I know it's Maria. Everyone knows it's Maria."
The boys laughed. They believed him. They wantedl to believe him.
The jeepney rattled through the streets. Through his window, Lumayon watched the city blur past—vendor stalls, schoolchildren in uniform, dogs sleeping in the shade. And a black heaired boy pushing a tricycle bike with his father, it has two floor on it, on second floor it's full of items that can be purchased. Everything moved too fast and too slow at the same time. His body was here. Present. Solid. But his mind was still somewhere else, in a place with white walls and the smell of ozone and a watch that didn't tick.
/Note: It's supposed to be a tricycle but just a bike. I don't know what's called. Comment on this if you know.
"Hey, did you hear about what happened Friday?" Red Backpack was saying. "During English class?"
"What?" Lumayon asked.
"The English teacher was writing on the board, right? And she turned around and her skirt was tucked into her underwear. Like, completely tucked in. And she was walking around for like five minutes before someone told her."
The boys erupted in laughter. Lumayon laughed too. It felt wrong. It felt right. It felt like both at the same time.
The school appeared suddenly—a concrete building with a faded blue gate and a flagpole in the courtyard. Students swarmed everywhere. Hundreds of them. Thousands maybe. All wearing the same uniform. All looking the same. All blending together into a sea of white and black.
If you looked closely — really looked — you'd see them.
Not all of them. Not at first.
But during the morning flag ceremony, when the national anthem played and the students stood in neat rows under the baking sun, their hands pressed flat against their chests — not in salute, not in prayer, but in something quieter, more deliberate — you'd notice.
Some had their eyes fixed straight ahead. Not at the flag. Not at the teacher. Not at the sky.
At the plaque.
The one mounted on the wall beside the flagpole. The one no one ever read aloud. The one listing names from decades ago — students who vanished, teachers who retired, events no one talked about.
Their fingers twitched. Just slightly. As if trying to memorize the texture of the metal through their palms.
Their lips moved. Not singing. Not whispering. Just… forming words they didn't remember learning.
And if you watched long enough — if you dared — you'd see one or two of them blink… and for a fraction of a second, their eyes weren't children's eyes anymore.
They were older.
Wiser.
Well, not all of them, but few aren't.
Worse.
Then the anthem ended.
The hands dropped.
The eyes looked away.
And the school returned to normal.
Except it wasn't.
It never was.
His feet carried him through the gate.
The hallway smelled like pencil shavings and sweat and something else—something chemical. Cleaning solution maybe. Or fear. His body breathed it in and found it safe. Boring. Real.
The first class was Math.
The Math teacher—no name, just a thin man with glasses and a permanent scowl—wrote equations on the board. Lumayon stared at the numbers. They made sense. They shouldn't make sense. He was a child. He shouldn't understand calculus. But his mind—the part of him that wasn't a child—recognized the patterns immediately. He could solve every problem on the board.
He didn't raise his hand once.
Instead, he copied answers from the boy next to him, getting half of them wrong on purpose. Blend in. Don't stand out. Don't let them see.
During English class, the teacher—a woman with kind eyes and a tired voice—had them read a story about a boy who lost his memory. Lumayon's throat went dry. He didn't listen to the words. He listened to the sound of his own heartbeat, thundering in his ears like a clock counting down to something.
"What do you think happened to the boy?" the English teacher asked the class.
Hands shot up. Students offered theories. He was in an accident. He was cursed. He was dreaming. Broken heart.
Lumayon said nothing.
By lunch, his body was exhausted. Not from physical exertion—from pretending. From smiling at jokes that is funny yet can't be laugh at. From nodding along to conversations about crushes and games and which teachers were the easiest to cut class from. From being a child when every fiber of him screamed that he wasn't.
He sat alone in the cafeteria, pushing rice and viand around his tray.
A puddle had formed on the floor—probably from someone spilling water. Lumayon stared at his reflection in it.
For a moment—just a moment—he saw two faces.
The child's face. Round. Soft. Innocent.
Then a foot splashed through the puddle, and both reflections shattered.
He walked home alone after school.
The sun was warm. The birds sang. The streets were alive with the sound of vendors and traffic and children playing. He didn't remember any of it. But his body did. His feet knew the way. His lungs knew how to breathe this air. His skin knew how to feel this heat.