Found You

Klein jolted upright with a gasp, his frantic eyes looking around. No freaky, yellowish eyes in the bushes stared back at him. Instead, he found himself facing a wall littered with post-it note in different colors.

On the desk he had fallen asleep into, a Biology book was opened on a page that showed the canid family, particularly a picture of a gray wolf with yellowish brown eyes. The photo must have triggered the dream.

Or more like a distorted memory of his childhood. It looked similar to the ones in his dream, but that would be impossible since there were no wolves in the country he's living in. Only rabid dogs in the street.

How long has it been since he last visited his grandparents' house in the province of Laguna? Nine? Ten years? They already passed away a long time ago, so he didn't get to visit as often as he did when he was younger.

Klein rubbed the sleep in his eyes and stretched his arms above his head, letting his sore joints popped like firecrackers on New Year's Eve. He groaned at the persisting muscle strain on his left shoulder caused by passing out on top of his desk. He would need a topical pain patch for this!

Taking a glance at his empty bed, Klein squinted his eyes to see the time. The digital clock on the bedside table flashed 4:49 AM, which meant he fell asleep at around... twelve o'clock?

Honestly, he didn't know. When he got engrossed in reading textbooks, time seemed to pass by until his brain short-circuited and knocked him unconscious.

Studying was a pain in the ass. But it could be fun too if it involved animals and the viruses they carried. Viruses that can also affect humans.

After a contagious disease broke out that caused a global pandemic, the world had taken a massive health and socioeconomic impact. Only after a vaccine was created that the world started to recover.

For a developing country like the Philippines, the recovery was at a much slower pace. And people, being naturally superstitious, believed that this was only the beginning of something far more sinister—like a zombie apocalypse.

Klein could only roll his eyes at the countless conspiracy theories circulating on social media. He may have blocked dozens of online friends too, for bombing his messenger with chain mails of schemes that he graciously debunked.

Though he couldn't exactly blame them. People were stressed and paranoid or bored out of their mind. Even so, he wouldn't sacrifice his mental health by enduring their foolishness. They can go ahead and build a cult for all he cared, but he wouldn't take part in it.

The negative consequences of pandemic cemented Klein's interest in pursuing a career in medical research. He had always been interested in diseases, anyway. Especially those that didn't have a cure yet, which was only natural for a son of medical researchers such as himself.

His chair rolled back as he stood. It gave a low rattle that broke the silence in his room, filled with nothing but a library of science journals. Klein padded to his bed and dropped to the soft mattress. He still had a few minutes to sleep.

Ring!

With an exasperated sigh, Klein's arm shot up to turn off the alarm. So much for wanting to rest.

Begrudgingly, he pushed himself up to get ready for school, but paused upon noticing that the door to the balcony outside his room was open. He didn't remember going to the balcony before he fell asleep on his desk.

The continuous flutter of the flimsy blue curtain to a gust of morning air allowed Klein to catch a glimpse of a human figure outside the window, causing a sudden spike to his breathing. An indescribable chill ran up his spine at the ominous creak of the door.

Just like in his dream, he could feel eyes on him. Staring. Watching his every move, as if he's some prey they could pounce at any moment if he showed an opening.

With a visible gulp, Klein reached for the bedside table's drawer and grabbed a pepper gun because he's not going to check who was outside his balcony unarmed.

He crept to the door as silently as he could and peered through a small gap in the curtain. The tinted glass panel made it hard for him to see who it was, but he saw a portion of their white clothes.

Who in their right mind decided to break into someone's house wearing white?

After a count of three, Klein burst outside and aimed the pepper gun at the silhouette. He fired and a red substance squirted out of the plastic gun.

It hit the collar of the target—which was the white lab coat he just remembered hanging on the balcony yesterday afternoon to air-dry.

"Huh?" Klein managed through his disbelief.

Lowering his self-defense weapon, he looked around the balcony and found nothing else but the lab coat, dangling innocently on a cloth rack stand.

His shoulders slumped as a stifled groan reverberated out of his throat. Klein grabbed the lab coat and carried it inside. He felt like an idiot as he stared at the stain on the white fabric. Now he had to wash it again.

Why would he even think a burglar entered his room? His unit was on the 32nd floor of the condominium.

Maybe he was still half-asleep.

———

On top of a building across a well-lit condominium near De La Lune University, a lean figure of a man stood at the edge while looking down at a particular room. His eyes—cloaked under a dark hood—shone like speckles of gold in the early morning light.

As the rising sun cast its warm rays across the busy streets of Manila, the young man turned away and jumped down into safety. His open-vested grey and maroon varsity jacket fluttered in the high altitude wind, pushing its hood to reveal a spiky platinum blond hair.

"Found you," he said, grinning, before he disappeared into a door.