Prince Of Mind Hallucinations

Chapter 21

The scent of stale hallway dust and lemon-scented floor cleaner provided a dull backdrop for Raditya as he shut his locker door with a soft thud. His head was still buzzing—a static symphony of the shallow thoughts of passing students. Some were thinking about discounts on running shoes, others were anxious about a pimple on their backside, and of course, the majority of the female students who crossed his path radiated waves of admiration for his new face that bordered on aggressive.

"Hey, Thunder Prince."

The deep, raspy voice broke Raditya's concentration. He turned to find Leo, the President of the Absurd Paranormal Club, leaning against the wall in a self-consciously mysterious pose. His oversized trench coat—worn despite Jakarta's sweltering heat—made him look like a failed detective character from a 90s noir film.

"Leo," Raditya replied curtly, tightening his backpack straps. "What is it now?"

Raditya tried to focus his "antennas." He strained his brain's circuitry to pierce through Leo's skull. However, instead of clear voices, he caught a frequency that screeched like an old radio searching for a signal in the middle of a storm.

Static... Anomaly... 440 Hertz... This kid really is the epicenter... God, his looks aren't just an I*******m filter, it's a molecular structural change, Leo's inner thoughts murmured into Raditya's ears with an obsessive tone.

Leo stepped closer, his sunken eyes staring at Raditya with an uncomfortable intensity. "I need you, Rad. Not just to be a display piece on the school's bulletin board, but because you are the 'primary subject' of all the theories my club members and I have been building."

"I'm busy, Leo," Raditya countered, trying to walk past him.

But just as he passed Leo, his radar suddenly picked up a sharp "explosion" of libido from behind them. The signal came from Maya, one of the popular girls who had apparently been watching Raditya from a distance while pretending to fix her lipstick in a classroom window.

Because Maya was in her ovulation phase and triggered by the visual "masculinity" that now stood out prominently beneath Raditya's uniform, Raditya's brain was forced to pull in that mental transmission like sucking a 4K resolution p**n video directly into his central nervous system.

Instantly, the reality of the school corridor melted away. Raditya stumbled, bracing himself against a cold metal locker as his world transformed into a brutal and highly explicit mental projection from Maya's mind.

In that telegraphic hallucination, Raditya saw himself—a savage, dominant version that knew no rules—cornering Maya on a dusty Biology lab table after school hours. The scent of sweet female sweat and the strawberry aroma of Maya's perfume invaded Raditya's inner sense of smell. 

Raditya saw himself in Maya's mind, ripping her white uniform open with a single, violent jerk, letting the buttons fly across the tiled floor with a clear 'ting' sound. The Maya in that fantasy did not resist; instead, she screamed in her inner lust as Raditya invaded her mouth with a rough, saliva-filled kiss.

His hands—Raditya's muscular and veined hands—were seen cupping Maya's breasts, which swelled perfectly behind her black lace bra. Raditya felt the fullness of that flesh, squeezing it fiercely until Maya's nipples hardened and reddened under his hungry suction.

The visual projection moved even further: Maya imagined Raditya lifting her legs, tearing her thin panties until they shredded in the prince's hands, then penetrating her already-soaked core with one powerful, deep thrust.

Plak! Plak! Plak! 

The sound of skin hitting skin loudly in Maya's mind echoed throughout Raditya's head. He felt as if that fictional heat was flowing into his groin; his own member behind his uniform pants hardened stiffly, providing a sensation that was both deliciously painful and disgusting.

He saw Maya throw her head back in a deafening mental climax, her nails clawing at Raditya's shoulders until they bled while their bodies united in a savage sexual rhythm on the lab table.

"Ugh..." Raditya groaned physically, cold sweat drenching his temples. The lingering libido shock from Maya's "broadcast" left him breathless, barely able to support his own weight.

"Rad? You okay? You look pale as hell," Leo said, grabbing Raditya's shoulder to keep him from falling.

Raditya squeezed his eyes shut, pulling the plug on Maya's brain circuit which was still broadcasting the "ending" of her fantasy. He brushed Leo's hand away, trying to regulate his explosive breathing.

"I'm fine. Just a sudden dizzy spell," Raditya lied, though he knew Leo didn't believe him.

Leo narrowed his eyes. The old compass in his pocket began to spin wildly. "I know what you just experienced. I don't know what the content was, but I felt the wave of 'worship' in this corridor suddenly explode the moment you walked by. The frequency of the female students' lust here, if combined, could wreck my equipment, Rad."

Leo pulled a worn black envelope from his coat pocket. "I won't take up much of your time now. Just come to our meeting room tomorrow afternoon on the fourth floor, the old west wing. During break. No teachers, no garbage noise, just the 'silence' you've been looking for."

Raditya stared at the envelope. He felt the "invitation" with hands that were still trembling from the remnants of that fictional passion. "Why should I come?"

Leo leaned in, whispering something directly into Raditya's ear—a whisper that couldn't be caught by any other physical ear in that corridor. "Because only in my club can you learn how to turn off those 'voices' before you die insane from an overdose of other people's filthy imaginations. And I know you're starting to get scared of what you're seeing in their brains, aren't you?"

Leo's thoughts radiated again: I saw the lightning 'radiation' on your forehead yesterday. You didn't just become handsome; you turned into a walking antenna. And if an antenna isn't given a filter, its cells will burn out one by one. Come, Rad. This isn't an invitation; it's a warning for your own soul's safety.

Raditya stood frozen. He watched Leo walk away without looking back. Every one of Leo's steps felt like a knock synchronized with Raditya's still-wild heartbeat.

He turned back toward the corridor. In the distance, he saw Maya still standing frozen with a flushed face, her mind now radiating a mix of embarrassment and disappointment because she realized Raditya had just looked at her with a "strange" expression. 

Why did he look at me like that? Is my lipstick messy? Or... does he somehow know I was just imagining him pulling off my panties with his teeth?! Ah, there's no way! Maya's inner mind shrieked, still clearly readable by Raditya from ten meters away.

Raditya clenched his fists inside his shirt pockets. The information from Leo just now stung his ego. It turned out the paranormal club had indeed been watching him since the first day he was struck by the blue light from the sky. His secret security was compromised, but the promise of being able to "turn off" those voices was far more tempting than anything else.

He resumed walking toward the gate, but his ears were relentlessly bombarded by fragments of other people's lives that—for once—felt a thousand times more disgusting because he had just been forced to feel fictional sexual gratification from someone he hadn't even physically touched.

I really want to feel how those muscular hands would hold my thighs... I managed to snag the Chemistry cheat sheet from Mr. Johan's bag while he was staring at Radit... God, his shirt is so tight, I really want to help him undo those buttons...

Raditya punched a concrete pillar when he reached the parking lot. The noise in his head was no longer a game; it was a parasite slowly chewing away at his sanity.

He splashed his face at the sink in the school's public restroom, staring at his reflection in the tarnished mirror. This face was no longer his own. It was a blessing that doubled as a gateway, allowing the demons of other people's thoughts to visit uninvited.

"Fourth floor... the old building," Raditya murmured softly.

Perhaps that club—a gathering of oddballs, zodiac worshippers, and conspiracy theory junkies—was the only place that could offer him some semblance of sanity. Amidst the suffocating screams of libido and the social pretenses of Merdeka High School, he needed an oasis of silence, even if that oasis was guarded by someone as eccentric as Leo.

That night, inside his sweltering bedroom where the ceiling fan was on its last legs, Raditya couldn't sleep. In the distance, through his window, he felt as if he could catch the lingering "noise" from his neighbors' psyches, but his mind kept drifting back to one person.

Bianca.

What was her connection to all of this? Why was her head so empty? Could Bianca be part of the same "experiment" Leo had mentioned?

Clutching the black envelope Leo had given him, Raditya gazed at the night sky through the bars of his window. There was no lightning tonight, yet the storm of information inside his head showed no signs of subsiding.

The prince of mental hallucinations took a deep breath, bracing himself for tomorrow, when that secret invitation might change his status—from an observer of madness to a subject of an experiment far larger and more dangerous to his fate.

His first step as an absurd mental detective had yielded results; he was no longer merely prey to his own ability, but a potential soldier for a power he didn't yet fully comprehend.

"Okay, Leo. Let's see just how 'absurd' you all are tomorrow afternoon," Raditya whispered before allowing himself to be swallowed by a dream that, ironically, felt far quieter than the reality of his life at school.