Chương 5: Maya De Souza

The next day. There was greater confidence inside me compared to the previous day. I had awakened. I was a skill user. And I wasn't in a dream. However, the damning reality was that even though I unconsciously got the Reading Bubble skill to work that one time in bed, I wasn't able to consciously activate it again after that. I had tried everything, from screaming "Activate!" in my head to screaming it out loud to hollering "Reading Bubble!" at the top of my voice. Nothing worked.

Thank God my mother wasn't at home at the time. I must've tried everything for at least five hours, since I struggled to speak in the morning and my voice was extremely croaky. At least my injuries had mostly healed, though. It must've been the system that healed the injuries for me. Night Hoppers did mention that the mana in the system allowed for gradual healing of the body and internal injuries over time. Magic did have a lot of good uses after all.

I now had a defensive skill I could use to defend against those notorious bullies. I could also show it off to Cayman to win him over and to gain his approval. My prayers from yesterday had been answered. At lunchtime, I sat down at the bench at the back of the school, which happened to be the place I was at yesterday when I got bullied. My usual spot was taken for the second day in a row. I sat down and took out my phone. But just before I could start reading Night Hoppers-"Help." Did I hear that right?

Was someone asking for help? Or was it just my psychotic symptoms acting up again? Why was everything trying to stop me from reading Night Hoppers in peace? I suppressed my passion for reading Night Hoppers and stood up. Whenever someone asks for help, you answer to try and help them. That was what I was taught many years ago.

"Hello? Did someone call for help?" My social anxiety almost completely disappeared as if it had just said goodbye to my brain and moved on. Like a bubble that had just burst.

"Help. Someone please help." I wasn't hearing things. This was a real person asking for help. This person seemed to be in a lot of pain, and they were also on the verge of tears.

"Where are you?" I called out.

"I'm here, behind you." It was a female voice. A voice which would usually be calm and soothing. A voice that should not be calling for help. I turned around. What awaited me was a young girl around my age laying flat on the floor. She was a mess. It looked like she had been crying since her eyes were blood-red. There were dead leaves in her tangled dark hair. There was dried blood coming out from her nostrils.

"Holy crap," I said, dumbfounded. She may have gotten an even worse treatment than what Theo and Ben gave me yesterday.

"Are you OK?" The girl shook her head, trying to hold back tears. I didn't recognise her; maybe she was in a different class for all my subjects. But that didn't stop me from deciding to help her.

"Listen," I said.

"I'm here to help you, not to hurt you. Tell me slowly. What happened to you?" Tears flowed down the girl's eyes like little waterfalls.

"It was my friends," she mumbled.

"They... They..." She began to sob extremely loudly. She couldn't say any more. Maybe it would take a while for me to get some answers from her, I thought. Maybe I should just get a teacher instead.

"Forget what I said," I continued.

"Let's get to know each other first. I'm Robert Ryan. What's your name?" I spoke as if the social anxiety had vanished from a cheap magic trick.

"Maya," the girl muttered.

"Maya De Souza."

"Ok, Maya," I said in a comforting tone.

"I'm not here to hurt you. I'll take you to a nurse if you need it. Please tell me what happened." Maya used a bloodied hand to wipe her tears away.

"It was my friends," she began.

"They punched me and kicked me and threw me to the ground without a care in the world." Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

"Friends, you say." I thought about it for a moment. What sort of person would treat their friend like absolute crap? Theo and Ben, maybe.

"They're not your friends if they did this to you," I replied.

"Friends don't hurt each other."

"You don't understand," Maya wailed.

"I've known them for more than ten years. They're my childhood friends. And now they're bullying me because I somehow know what's going on in their minds. Damn this stupid blue window of mine. Nobody else can see what I'm seeing!" Maya buried her face in her hands and let out loud, painful sobs. It was so painful to watch and hear. Wait a second. Stupid blue window? Something that nobody else can see? These weren't symptoms of a psychotic episode. Maybe it was real.

Maybe the blue dome I saw yesterday was real after all. If other people could see this as well... No. I didn't want to jump to conclusions so soon.

"Repeat what you just said," I said, wanting to know more about the system. Changing the subject was probably the best option to cheer Maya up, and maybe I could get more information about the system from her.

"What, about my friends being bullies?" Maya was slurring her words due to her sobs. I shook my head.

"The stupid blue window thing?" Maya continued asking. I nodded. The tears stopped flowing. Maya's facial expression changed from showing extreme sadness to showing extreme interest.

"Wait a second. You know something about this?" I nodded. Maya slowly sat up on the ground and ran her hands through her hair to remove the leaves.

"How come?"

"I saw something similar yesterday," I replied.

"Yesterday?" That was when I froze. It was when Maya sat up on the grass that I realised how pretty she was. If you remove all the blood and leaves and dirt from her face, she would definitely have looked flawless. A princess. A true beauty.

"Y-yes," I said, embarrassed that my social awkwardness was returning after a night out in someone else's brain.

"It's strange. Did you get a message saying 'Congratulations, you are now a skill user'?" Maya nodded.

"Yes, that's the same exact message I received. Strange, isn't it." It really felt like the sadness of being bullied by her childhood friends had left Maya in the same way my social awkwardness did a few minutes ago. Changing the subject of the conversation had worked like a charm.

"I thought I had schizophrenia and that my life was ruined," Maya continued, "but I'm glad I'm not the only one suffering from this." Suffering? Seriously? Being a skill user had benefits as well, Maya De Souza! Read Night Hoppers to understand!

"So when you saw that message, did you click to view your profile?" I asked. Maya nodded.

"On second thought, now that I think about it, maybe the system is quite cool. There's so much you can do on it. Maybe I can get used to it after all."

"What's your main skill? Is it mind control? Or mind reading?" I remembered Maya talking about knowing what goes on in her friends' minds. Surely that was something that normal people didn't have. Maya sighed.

"I can read people's minds," she grumbled. It was clear she didn't want to be reminded of her experience of being bullied by her friends.

"It's a skill I don't like. I wish I started with a different skill, like teleportation or the ability to fly. It makes people think I'm a stalker." I agreed with her. Currently skill users on earth were a minority, so they were sure to experience some discrimination from others.

"Do you know that you can message each other in secret using this thing?" Maya asked me, whispering it into my ear.

"You've managed to help me a lot and cheer me up, so how about it? Lend me your user ID." What? My face turned red. It may have been the same colour as Maya's eyes after she got bullied. This was the logical equivalent of a girl asking a boy for his number. That was when I realised I didn't know how to access the system's user ID. I didn't even know there was one. There was never any mention of a user ID in Night Hoppers. I had to ask Maya to know.

"How do you get this user ID thing?" I asked Maya, actively overcoming my fear of social situations.

"I thought you would never ask." Maya's mood had changed completely from what she was like just seven minutes ago; instead of whining and crying about being bullied by her friends, here she was acting like she had found a new boyfriend. Maybe I wasn't bad at social situations after all.

"It's like on social media. At the top right corner, there's three dots. Click the three dots." I did as Maya said.

"You got it?" It seemed as though Maya couldn't see my system window, and that she was relying on me actively doing what she said. Oh well. That's fair though, as it prevents other people from seeing one's private information about their skills and level. I nodded. What I saw in front of me was a window that listed details about me, as well as the settings. Somehow they had even managed to get a picture of me.

"Click on your name," Maya said. I clicked on my name.

"See it?" Maya asked. There, below my name, was a mix of characters that presumably represented my very own unique skill user ID.

"Good. Now whisper it to me so no one else hears." My fingers were twitching as I leaned in close to Maya and whispered the characters of my user ID. Despite being covered in dirt and leaves, Maya's hair still smelled extremely pleasant, like peach blossoms.

"Got it," Maya said eventually.

"I've sent you a friend request. Go on and accept it!" So this was exactly like a game. Friend requests and the ability to send direct messages to other players was a prominent feature in so many mainstream games. I stared in awe at my screen. There it was. A friend request. [Skill user Maya De Souza wants to be your friend! Do you wish to accept? Yes/No] I clicked on 'Yes'. A message log popped up. [One unread message] [Maya: Hi!] I sent her a message back. [Robert: Hey.] I looked at Maya.

"I'm guessing you don't need to go to the nurse's office anymore." Maya gave me a wide smile, beaming.

"Nope!" she exclaimed.

"I feel much better already!"

"That's good to hear," I replied, not thinking about my social anxiety.

"Remember to keep in touch with me," Maya said.

"I'll be free any time in the afternoon!" I smiled.

"That'll be fine." I couldn't believe it. Was I in a dream? I had made a friend. A real-life friend. Not from frequently leaving comments in the comments section of online novels, but face-to-face, in school. One that I could talk to regularly. Regardless of whether the person was a boy or a girl, and regardless of how other people viewed the situation, I had made a friend. This was something I never thought I would ever do. I checked my messages again. [One unread message.] [Maya: you are my new BFF!] I blushed.

I felt like I had accomplished something in life. Mission success! Make a friend.

"What do we have here?" I sighed. The mood suddenly turned sour. I looked up. Here we go again.