Maids VS Apocalypse

Riding the subway without his earbuds proved to be a nightmare. Compared to the whispers he was forced to hear ever since he was ten years old, the chatter filling the crowded carriage was no less annoying.

After just a few minutes, Mark gave up and launched his usual heavy metal playlist.

With the chaotic music shielding his ears, he began to notice something strange. A lot of people were staring at him, some whispering among themselves.

He looked down at his clothes and saw nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, he was looking much better than usual, having had the peace of mind to take care of his appearance before going out.

He glanced to his left and saw Lara sitting right beside him, looking ahead with an expressionless face, and realized that the people around him must be seeing something completely different.

Mark began to worry that his mental illness was visible to everyone else beside him. It wouldn't be strange if he was imagining other things, considering he was hallucinating a fictional character of his own creation.

'I'm not naked right now, am I?'

He tried to ignore the nervousness gnawing at the back of his mind and act as normal as he could.

It was quite embarrassing when he thought about it. He never cared about how others saw him before, but for some reason he felt awfully self conscious right now. Did his lack of sleep help him ignore a lot of things before?

The train eventually reached his stop and Mark hurried to get out. Thankfully the looks he was getting decreased quite a bit, but they didn't disappear.

Things got worse when he reached the campus. People were starting to take photos. They ruined the good mood he was in, causing his stress to build up once more.

"Hey." He stopped in front of a chubby guy who was holding his phone up. "Who said you can take photos?"

Mark himself was surprised by his own voice. It sounded a bit deep and tinged with anger.

The chubby guy went blue in the face and apologized a second later, tapping frantically on his phone while saying he would delete everything.

University grounds were a public space so Mark had no right to tell people not to film him, no matter how annoying it was. That didn't mean he couldn't show his displeasure toward their actions.

With all the attention he was getting, Mark guessed it was only a matter of time before someone called security or the police. Nevertheless, he was somehow able to make it to the lecture hall without a problem.

'What in the world is going on here?'

The lecture was about the start but he was still the center of attention. The seats around him weren't the only ones empty; no one sat in the rows to the front and the back.

The other students kept some distance between him and them, some still holding their phones up with their cameras pointed his way.

'Could it be... no way...'

He glanced at the seat beside him where the silver haired maid was sitting. She seemed unperturbed by the crowd that had formed around them, but he knew for a fact that she was a nervous wreck right now. That's how he wrote her, after all.

"Hey Bed Marks!"

Mark wasn't a fan of the nickname given to him because of all the time he had spent sleeping in class, but he never bothered to show displeasure so it quickly stuck.

He preferred Mr. White as it was less annoying, but he wasn't dumb enough to go around telling people what nickname they should use when talking to him. He rarely talked to anyone anyway.

The one who had approached him was a jock whose name he never bothered to remember. From his raised eyebrows and the smile on his face, it was clear that he had seen something that caught his interest quite a bit.

Mark prepared himself for the wave of ridicule that was about to arrive, but to his surprise the jock leaned on the table and spoke in a strangely friendly voice.

"Say, who's your girlfriend?"

Mark was confused for a moment, raising an eyebrow at the jock. Just from looking, it should've been easy for people to guess that he wasn't in any kind of relationship. He didn't understand where the question came from, but then he noticed the guy turning to look at his left, his tone carrying some excitement as he spoke.

"You lucky bastard," said the jock. "My girl would never wear something like this at home, let alone in public."

Mark's confusion increased even further, but then it suddenly clicked. In an instant, he jumped from his seat, backing away several meters with a horrified look on his face.

His eyes fell on the silver haired maid who was gazing back at him with a startled expression. He then turned to the crowd and saw that they were staring at him, all of them confused by his sudden reaction.

Twisting around, Mark found a girl looking up at him, unable to back away because of the crowd behind her.

Without saying anything, he snatched the phone from her hand and, ignoring her reaction, he faced forward and pointed the camera at the maid sitting a small distance away.

'No way...'

The phone had been recording for two minutes already; faking something like that in such a short time wasn't possible.

He quickly navigated to the Gallery and checked the recent photos, and to his surprise, most of them were of him walking around the campus with the maid following right behind him.

Looking up from the phone, he met the ruby eyes of the silver-haired maid. His mouth flapped open then closed, but no words came out.

Eventually, he managed to say something, but even if he were to receive an answer Mark still wasn't sure he could believe what was happening right now.

"You... you're real..."