"Is the new normal beneficial or detrimental?"

Another notification popped up from the top of the shabby cellphone screen on your hand. "Make a narrative report about the latest movie you watched, the deadline is tomorrow at 8 AM sharp". You swiped the notification to the right and disregarded it together with 11 other activities and projects yet to finish. You continued cutting a piece of cardboard for the roof of a miniature cafe for an Entrepreneurship project.

While waiting for the glued cardboard to dry, you looked for the muriatic acid to perform an experiment but you can't seem to find it anywhere so you switch over to a pile of paper and started circling out mistakes with a red pen.

A ringing noise emanates from the phone indicating another notification from the school online portal: Another task was added to your burden. While typing swiftly on the laptop with some keys missing, working on a research paper, a tear dropped to your left cheek.

You glanced at a small cracked mirror and saw a disturbing image. A disoriented figure of a person with eyes filled with blood came to life and tried to reach for your face.

The mirror fell and another notification popped up on the monitor: "Finish your reflection paper tonight by 11:59 PM and proceed to the next task" a red-colored warning sign was right next to the bolded message. You frantically jumped to the other desk looking for a clean sheet of paper and started writing about a forgotten video clip that the teacher sent a week ago.

When you're just about to get the horrendous image in the mirror out of your mind, a screeching sound coming from the 'amakan' ceiling enveloped the room. You stopped for a second wondering what could possibly make that sound.

Although puzzled, you shifted back to the desk where dozens of crumpled papers are scattered chaotically. More tears are crawling up your tear ducts as you aggressively drag your purple inked pen across yet another disorganized paper trying to form a single sentence.

After an excruciating 20 minutes of essay making, another eerie sound surrounds the room. The loud ticking of an old and scruffy grandfather clock across the room didn't make the situation less creepy. You decided to play some revamped Taylor Swift music to ease the atmosphere and continued working on the, now dried roof, of the miniature restaurant.

After just a few minutes of cutting and measuring, the music stopped and the 'lampirong' window in front of you suddenly opened and a spine-chilling wind blew on your nape. The cold breeze dispersed the compiled papers making a mess in the whole room. Different paperwork from different subjects is now jumbled and everything is so disoriented that you don't know what to do first.

Your mind's now in a state of panic thinking how are you gonna handle this dire situation. The reflection paper that is due later is yet to be finished but now the paper's lost in a sea of disarray. The research papers are now mixed with the pages of an essay about '14 Reasons Why Filipino Teens Commit Suicide'. The stress that has been building up for the last few months has finally weighed you down.

More and more tears are now endlessly flowing down to the floor. Your head is aching so much that you feel like it's cracking. The tears on the floor shockingly formed a puddle. You never knew a cry could actually form a small pool but then it did.

Just when you're about to wipe the floor with scratch paper the lights went out and an image starts to rise from the puddle, forming a humanoid figure. Astound, you crawl to your back grabbing anything to act as a weapon. The figure is now more detailed. It has long, ragged hair, thin arms, and legs that look like it was about to snap, worn-out fingers that look like it was writing a book for 6 months straight, and worst of all, its eye sockets are empty and blood is gushing out like a faucet.

The demonic figure tried to reach out to you with its clammy hands but using a metal rod you swing it offensively but the rod is hitting nothing but air. You tried to run to the bathroom but your foot was caught by strings of wires that caused you to fell on the floor.

The unknown creature now stands beside you and you can't lay a hold of anything to defend yourself aside from a glue gun and uncapped pens that are lying on the floor. Desperate as you are, you just grab anything your hands can reach and threw it to the figure that is now pulling your hairs.

When there are no more objects around, you tried to fight back by punching at the creature but your hands are hitting nothing. The figure then pinned you on the wall with its bleeding mouth opened. It goes closer to your ears and you noticed that its face became clearer and more humane, in fact, it looks a lot just like you but weak and dead-like. "Die", "you're tired aren't you", " your parents will never understand how you feel", "just give up and let me handle the rest of your senior year", the figure continues whispering more disturbing and eerie words that left you speechless and your knees weak that they feel like they were made from jellies.

As your heart thump faster, your mind became fuzzier, no thoughts come to your mind. When you are about to pass out the lights suddenly came to life and a person emerged from the door wearing an orange pajama and a loose white tank top. " What are you doing in the middle of the night? And what is this mess? Do you want me to throw you out of this house you bastard?". The loud angry voice filled the room and you do nothing but face the floor.

Your mad mother then left the room and you anxiously walk to your bed abandoning loads of work still needed to be done. You feel so exhausted and you can't even comprehend everything that just happened. You just wanted everything to melt away, all the stress, the school projects, the world, everything.

As you cover yourself with the blanket you came face to face with the dreadful figure that haunted you earlier. Its bloody eyes are staring straight to your soul but instead of being frightened, you stared back at it. Its awful mouth formed a curve but you see its smile as somewhat comforting and caring. Its wrinkly hands embraced your waist and you placed your hand at its neck as you put your foreheads against it each other.

The creature then handed you a glass bottle labeled with a chemical formula 'HCl'. A notification once again popped on the cellphone, "NEW TASK: Prepare a report about the mental health of teen students." You smiled as you read the text.

You straightened your back on the bed, remove your head from the covers, and then emptied the HCl labeled bottle with a faint smile on your face.