Prince Of Mind Hallucinations

Chapter 3: Mirrors, Minds, and the First Bout of Madness

The mirror above the sink in the nurse's office was smudged and water-stained, but to Raditya, it was a gateway into a completely different dimension. He gripped the edges of the porcelain sink until his knuckles turned white. His breathing was heavy, fogging up the glass.

He pinched his cheek. It hurt. It was real. The skin that had always been bumpy and inflamed was now tight, smooth, and defined by a jawline sharp enough to cut cold butter. Raditya leaned in, staring intently at his own irises. They were deeper now, shining like obsidian dipped in gasoline.

"No way..." he whispered, but even his own voice sounded like a deep, resonant baritone echoing in a concert hall. It was worlds away from the squeaky, pathetic pitch of the four-eyed loser he was used to hearing.

"Rad, seriously, stop zoning out. You're creeping me out. You go from nearly getting fried by a lightning bolt to looking like you're posing for GQ," Ben chimed in from behind. He stepped closer, reaching out to clap Raditya on the shoulder, but Raditya deflected his hand with a reflex that was way too fast for a normal human.

It wasn't just his reflexes that had leveled up. Raditya's ears suddenly caught a frequency that should have been impossible to hear.

This is absolute bullshit! How does a guy almost die and wake up looking like a literal god? I only hung out with him for two years so I’d have someone uglier to stand next to. If he looks like this now, I'm gonna be his ugly sidekick forever. Dammit, why couldn't I get struck by lightning?

Raditya froze. Ben hadn’t opened his mouth. He was still just standing there with a dumb, awkward grin on his face. But the voice Raditya had just heard was crystal clear, echoing right in the frontal lobe of his brain, laced with a bitter, burning jealousy he could practically smell.

"What did you just say, Ben?" Raditya asked, his eyes narrowing.

Ben scratched his head. "Huh? Say what? I just said you're creeping me out staring at the mirror like that. Why? Did the lightning fry your ears?"

Raditya blinked. So... that was an actual thought?

Before he could process the sheer insanity of what had just happened, Nurse Davis stepped up, holding her stethoscope. She stood right in front of him, her face flushed as if she’d just run a 5K in the dead of summer.

"H-here, Raditya... Let me just check your heart rate. We don't want any residual arrhythmias from the electrical shock," she said, her voice trembling slightly. Her hands were visibly sweating as she gripped the chest piece.

But inside Raditya’s head, an audio track was suddenly cranked to max volume with zero warning.

Oh, sweet Jesus, his top button is undone... look at that chest. Is the AC broken in here or is it just him? Why are his forearms so veiny? If my husband had even an ounce of this kid's energy, I wouldn't be crying myself to sleep. If I wasn't his nurse, I'd drag him into the supply closet right now and...

Raditya's eyes widened in horror. His gaze accidentally dropped to Nurse Davis's chest, which was heaving with short, shallow breaths. His newly awakened, completely feral power seemed to trigger off the suppressed lust of the school nurse. A sudden, violent visualization exploded in his brain—it wasn't just an audio track anymore. It was a full-blown mental projection.

In the psychic hallucination broadcasted by Nurse Davis, Raditya saw himself—or rather, an aggressively dominant version of himself—shoving her back onto the examination cot. He watched his own large, rugged hands tear open her scrub top, popping the buttons off to reveal a black lace bra he never would have guessed she wore. The visual was absurdly explicit: he saw himself burying his face in her cleavage, smelling the sharp scent of alcohol wipes mixed with heavy perfume, while Nurse Davis moaned his name with raw, desperate desire.

He could feel the phantom sensations as if they were real—the damp heat of her skin, her erratic heartbeat, and the animalistic lust radiating from her. The mental projection grew even wilder, imagining Raditya's rough hands gripping her hair and forcing her to her knees right there on the linoleum floor.

"Holy—!" Raditya yelped, stumbling backward until he crashed into the glass medicine cabinet. The clinking of the pill bottles helped snap him out of the steamy, non-consensual broadcast.

"Raditya? What's wrong? Are you in pain?" Nurse Davis asked, her physical voice laced with concern, while her internal monologue screamed: Oh my god, please tell me he can't read minds. Please tell me he doesn't know I want to bite that sexy neck...

"N-no... I... uh, excuse me! I need the bathroom!" Raditya shouted in a blind panic. He grabbed the shredded remains of his shirt and sprinted out of the nurse’s office before Nurse Davis—or the naked phantom version of her inside his head—could completely short-circuit his brain.

Raditya burst through the door and straight into the hallway, which was still swarming with students wandering around due to the chaos caused by the lightning strike. The second his sneakers hit the corridor tile, the real assault began.

It was a sensory nightmare.

...gotta pay my car insurance tomorrow... ...did I wipe good enough this morning? Feels kind of itchy... ...Clara looks so hot today, I'd give anything to just grab her ass... ...screw this AP Calc test! I hope Mr. Higgins gets a stroke... ...I'm starving... why the hell did the cafeteria close because of the storm...

Thousands of thoughts from the people passing by swarmed him like a hive of rabid bees. It wasn't just voices; it was visual fragments, raw emotions, petty grudges, and above all else—lust.

Raditya pushed past a group of junior girls. As soon as he was in range, his "thought-radio" vibrated violently.

Wait, who is that? Is that Raditya? The mega-nerd? Holy crap, what kind of sorcery is this? Look at the way he walks... oh my god, is that bulge in his jeans seriously that big?

Once again, a mental projection hijacked his vision. This time it came from a popular cheerleader named Tanya. Inside Tanya's mind, Raditya watched himself get backed into a quiet corner by the gym lockers. Tanya imagined him sliding a hand up her short cheer skirt, ripping her thin underwear right off in one swift motion, and taking her right there against the metal doors while she muffled her own screaming against his shoulder. The imagery was hyper-detailed, drenched in sweat and rough, rhythmic hip thrusts.

Raditya nearly tripped over his own feet. His face was burning up. He felt like he was being strapped to a chair and forced to watch 4K VR p**n with the surround sound blasting directly into his eardrums.

"Crazy! Everyone in this school is out of their damn minds!" Raditya gritted his teeth.

He kept running, ignoring the awestruck, wide-eyed stares of the students he passed. The problem was, those stares carried audio. The world had no mute button. The gym coach fantasizing about the biology teacher, the quiet bookworm harboring a dark rape fantasy, the bullied kid visualizing blowing up the cafeteria—they all piled up inside his skull.

Every accidental eye contact was a dial-up connection. Every physical proximity was a suffocating file transfer of raw human depravity. Raditya felt like his head was going to split open. This psychological pressure was infinitely more agonizing than the actual lightning bolt that had struck him.

He spotted the 'Men's Room' sign at the end of the hall. Without thinking, he shoved the heavy wooden door open and lunged inside. Thankfully, it was empty. The sharp stench of urinal cakes would normally make him gag, but right now, that smell was a million times more "honest" than the chaotic hurricane of human minds outside.

He bolted into the farthest stall and locked the door with violently shaking hands. He collapsed onto the closed toilet lid, gripping his buzzing head, trying desperately to block out the "noise" still leaking through the walls from the students in the corridor.

"I'm not crazy... I'm not crazy..." he rasped, his voice breaking.

Slowly, the overwhelming roar faded to a dull hum as the crowd outside dispersed for their next periods. In the damp silence of the bathroom stall, Raditya began to process his new reality. The mirror hadn't lied. His new, flawless face was real. And those disgusting, unfiltered voices... the mental image of Mr. Vance's tight blue underwear he’d caught a glimpse of passing the teacher's lounge... all of it was the very real, very leaked mental data of other people.

"I'm telepathic?" he whispered to the graffiti-covered stall divider.

A god-tier power had been forcefully downloaded into his brain through a near-death experience. But what he hadn't anticipated was how utterly absurd and filthy the human mind actually was. Beneath Clara's sweet smiles, beneath Principal Higgins's strict demeanor, and beneath Coach Baker's tough exterior, they were all just a bunch of monsters driven by lust, cheating, and petty envy.

Suddenly, he heard the heavy squeak of the bathroom door opening. Solid, confident footsteps. Raditya held his breath, trying to mentally "close" his brain so he wouldn't catch whatever sick signal this guy was broadcasting.

It was useless. The signal bypassed his firewall instantly.

Relax, breathe... the Student Council cash is safe in my backpack. Only Dika knows about it, and I can buy his silence with a fifty-dollar PSN card. As long as nobody audits the prom fund...

It was the Student Council Secretary—Raditya recognized the mental voice even before he saw the kid's face. The footsteps stopped at the sink. The sound of running water echoed.

And oh my god... that loser Raditya. How the hell did he get a glow-up like that? If he makes a move on Clara, my spot as the top guy in this school is totally screwed. I gotta figure out a way to plant a vape or some weed in his locker. Make it look like he's dealing. His new pretty-boy face can't be a threat if he's expelled.

Raditya smirked in the shadows of the stall. The raw terror that had gripped him just moments ago was slowly evaporating, replaced by something entirely different—the sweet, intoxicating taste of absolute power.

"Ooh... so the golden boy Ryan wants to play dirty, huh?" Raditya murmured under his breath.

The voices in his head were no longer just a chaotic nightmare. They were raw data. They were weapons. They were the master keys to dismantle the perfect, fake personas of the people who had treated him like worthless garbage for years.

Raditya stood up, dusting off his jeans, which now clung tightly to his newly muscular thighs. He stared at the stall door, his eyes narrowed, feeling as if he could see straight through the cheap metal partition and directly into the dark, insecure heart of the preppy kid outside.

He might be a former loser who got deep-fried by the sky. But today, Raditya's personal apocalypse had ended, and a brand new dawn had broken. A dawn where no secret was safe from him. A dawn where the school nerd wouldn't just steal the spotlight—he would steal the dignity of every single hypocrite at Merdeka High School by weaponizing their darkest thoughts.

His inner radar flickered again as another student walked into the bathroom: Oh man, I'm touching cloth here, whoever's in that stall better hurry the hell up!

Raditya chuckled darkly. His power might be embarrassing, noisy, and totally ridiculous. But it was his. He took a deep breath, steadied his posture, and prepared to face the millions of other insane thoughts waiting to be dissected.

The hunt had officially begun.