My new life was supposed to begin with the smell of the ocean.
That's the script, right? Girl leaves the smog and the ghosts of the city, finds herself by the sea, cue the inspirational montage. But as our family car finally rolled past a sun-bleached welcome sign for San Isidro del Mar, the only thing I could smell was the faint, plastic scent of the cherry air freshener dangling from the rearview mirror. My real life, the one that mattered, was still just a glowing icon on my phone, waiting for a ping.
"Behold!" Dad announced with the dramatic flair of a game-show host, gesturing grandly with one hand while steering with the other. "Casa de la Cruz 2.0! Now with fifty percent more sea breeze and seventy percent less traffic!"
My mom, ever the pragmatist, just sighed from the passenger seat. "Hon, watch the road. You're going to clip a hedge."
I leaned my head against the cool glass of the window, watching the neighborhood slide by. This wasn't the sleepy, provincial town I'd pictured. It was a modern coastal subdivision, a collection of pastel-painted houses with aggressively manicured lawns and identical white fences. It was clean, quiet, and felt about as real as a level in a city-building simulator. A wall of warm, humid air hit me as soon as I opened the car door, carrying the clean, briny taste of salt. It clung to my skin, a foreign sensation after a lifetime of breathing Quezon City's curated blend of exhaust fumes and street food.
I stretched, my spine popping in a satisfying series of clicks. The three years I'd spent cooped up in my room hadn't just been for gaming. They'd been for this. The girl staring back from the tinted window of our SUV wasn't the one who'd entered lockdown. She was taller, the last of my teenage growth spurt finally kicking in. The baby fat that had once rounded my cheeks was gone, replaced by something sharper, more defined. My hair, once a shapeless black mop, was now longer, falling in soft waves with caramel highlights that caught the afternoon sun. An upgraded avatar, maybe. But the player holding the controller was still the same, running on a decade-old operating system full of anxiety bugs and social lag.
"Big promotion, huh, Dad?" I said, grabbing my backpack from the backseat.
He puffed out his chest, beaming. "Regional Operations Director for Arkadia Interactive's new provincial hub. That's me."
Arkadia Interactive. The name sent a familiar jolt through me. The gaming giant behind some of the biggest gacha nightmares and MMORPGs in Southeast Asia. My dad's world of server maintenance and marketing strategies had always felt galaxies away from my world of jungle rotations and last-hitting minions. Now, his universe had physically dragged mine to a new corner of the map.
New place, new me, I thought, the phrase a hollow echo of a thousand self-help blogs. But still the same old nerves.
Our new house was straight off a minimalist Pinterest board. It smelled of fresh paint and wood polish, a clean slate that was both promising and intimidating. Polished concrete floors, wide glass windows that drank in the sunlight, and a sleek, open-plan kitchen my mom was already cooing over.
"I get the room with the balcony!" I called out, making a beeline for the stairs before my older brother, who was still in Manila for his summer internship, could somehow claim it via long-distance telepathy.
The room was perfect. Bigger than my cramped space in QC, with a sliding glass door that opened onto a small balcony with a sliver of a view of the distant coastline. This would be my new sanctuary. My new training ground.
Unpacking was a ritual, a process of rebuilding my identity in a new set of walls. The first box held my books, a mix of required school reading and dog-eared light novels. The second held the posters: a stylized landscape of Teyvat from Genshin Impact, a dynamic piece of key art for Valorant's newest agent, and a vintage-style poster of the classic anime I adored. They were windows into other worlds, familiar faces in a strange land.
Then came the gear. The pair of adjustable dumbbells, the worn-out yoga mat, the running shoes whose soles were molded to the shape of my feet. These were the tools of my reinvention, the artifacts of a silent war I had waged against my own reflection for three years.
Finally, the heart of the operation. My PC. I set it up with practiced efficiency on the built-in white desk, the dual monitors coming to life with a familiar hum. The RGB keyboard pulsed with a soft rainbow glow, casting colorful shadows on the wall. My throne. I plugged in my phone to charge, and as the screen lit up, my thumb instinctively hovered over the purple icon. Discord. A faint green circle glowed next to his name: Apollo. Online. My heart did a familiar, stupid little flip. He was probably in a match. I'd wait.
Later, as the sun began to dip below the horizon, painting the sky in fiery shades of orange and pink, I stepped out onto the balcony. The sea breeze was stronger now, carrying the distant sound of waves crashing against the shore. I leaned against the cool metal railing, looking at my faint reflection in the glass. A girl with a new haircut, in a new room, in a new town.
"So," I whispered to the reflection, the words tasting of salt and uncertainty. "This is home now."
For our first official meal as residents of San Isidro del Mar, Dad took us to a popular seaside eatery. It was a rustic, open-air place with bamboo furniture and a roof made of dried nipa leaves. The air tasted of grilled squid and garlic, a delicious, tangible piece of my new reality. The background noise was a symphony of local life: the clatter of plates, the cheerful chatter of families, and the intermittent roar of a passing tricycle, its engine whining like an angry mosquito.
"Wow, Thea, you're actually eating vegetables," Mom commented, her eyes wide with mock surprise as I took a bite of pinakbet. "Is this part of your new 'coastal living' aesthetic?"
"It's good for my stats, Mom," I replied without looking up from my phone, which was propped against a bottle of soy sauce under the table. My thumb was mindlessly scrolling through our Discord server's chat history, a long, running dialogue of memes, game patch notes, and late-night thoughts.
"The sinigang here is half the price of what we paid at that place back in Katipunan!" Mom marveled, already in full cost-benefit analysis mode. "And it's better! We're never moving back."
Dad, meanwhile, was on his second glass of iced tea and halfway through a lecture about his new job. "The fiber-optic infrastructure here is surprisingly robust. Arkadia wouldn't have invested otherwise. We're going to be the main server hub for the entire Visayas region. The latency will be a dream."
I half-listened, nodding at what seemed like the right moments. My attention was fixed on the little green dot next to Apollo's name. It had been there for an hour, but his status was set to 'Do Not Disturb.' Probably deep in a Valorant ranked match, the kind where one wrong move could cost you the entire game. I knew the focus it required. Still, a pang of something like loneliness, sharp and sudden, pricked at me. It was a familiar ghost, one that had followed me all the way from the city. Here I was, surrounded by my family in a beautiful new place, and the only presence I was truly waiting for was a digital one.
The halo-halo arrived, a glorious mountain of shaved ice, purple yam, leche flan, and a dozen other sweet mysteries buried underneath. As I took my first spoonful, the satisfying crunch of the ice momentarily drowning out my dad's monologue on server stability, my phone vibrated.
A new notification. Not from Apollo, but a system alert from the school portal.
LUMEN VERITAS ACADEMY: Senior High Orientation is in ten (10) days. Please review the attached campus map and student guidelines.
Ten days. The countdown had officially begun. The final boss of my 'new me' questline was waiting.
Over the next few days, I made it my mission to learn the layout of my new map. I'd go for runs every morning, just as the sun was rising, exploring the streets of San Isidro del Mar on foot. It was a town of charming contradictions. A neon-lit 7-Eleven stood next to a decades-old sari-sari store with hand-painted signs. Tricycles, the lifeblood of provincial transport, were customized with more LED lights than a high-end gaming rig, blasting the latest pop hits as they zipped past.
I ran along the seaside park, a paved path that snaked along the coast, nodding at the other early-morning joggers. I discovered a quiet, aesthetic coffee shop that smelled of roasted beans and burnt sugar, its tables already dotted with students hunched over laptops and textbooks. This town was more alive, more modern than I'd expected. It had its own rhythm, and I was slowly, cautiously, trying to find my place in it.
My running route always ended at the same place. I'd slow to a walk, catching my breath as I stood across the street from it.
Lumen Veritas Academy.
It wasn't a school; it was a fortress of glass and white concrete. The architecture was aggressively modern, a stark contrast to the laid-back coastal vibe of the rest of the town. A massive, stylized logo of a torch inside an atom was etched onto the glass facade. Banners hanging from the entrance boasted of its achievements: National STEM Olympiad Champions, 100% University Placement Rate, Fostering Global Leadership. It was the kind of place that didn't just educate you; it branded you.
It was intimidating as hell.
My new school. My new battlefield.
"Guess this is where everything begins," I whispered to myself, my breath fogging slightly in the cool morning air. The automatic glass doors slid open, and a group of students in crisp white uniforms spilled out, laughing and talking. They looked confident, bright, like they were born to walk these halls. For a moment, the old Thea, the one who made herself small to avoid being seen, felt a familiar tremor of fear. I quickly turned and started my jog home, the image of the academy's imposing facade burned into my mind.
The ping I'd been waiting for all week finally came late one evening.
Bloop-bloop.
The sound cut through the quiet hum of the air conditioner, a digital pulse that was more my heartbeat than my own. I had just finished a grueling HIIT workout in my room, and my muscles were singing with that sweet, electric ache of progress. I was sprawled on my yoga mat, sweat plastering my tank top to my skin, when my phone screen lit up.
Apollo is online.
I scrambled for my headset, my exhaustion vanishing, replaced by a jolt of adrenaline. I collapsed into my gaming chair, launched Discord, and joined our private voice channel. The green circle around his profile picture, a stylized golden sun, was a comforting sight.
"Hey," I said, my voice still a little breathless.
A low, warm chuckle came through the headset. His voice was my favorite sound in the world, a perfect mix of calm and amusement. "Yo. You sound like you just ran a marathon."
"Close," I panted, taking a long swig of water. "Gym life, boss. You should try it sometime. Might help you land your skill shots."
"Please," he scoffed playfully. "My precision is honed by countless hours of meticulous, intellectual effort. Nerd life is healthier for the brain, which, you may have heard, is the most important muscle."
"Tell that to my biceps," I shot back, flexing an arm I knew he couldn't see. The banter was effortless, a language we had perfected over three years of late nights and digital battles.
We fell into our usual rhythm, queuing up for a few casual games, not the high-stakes ranked matches we usually played. The conversation flowed easily around the gameplay. He complained about a summer coding project he was stuck on; I told him about a new light novel series I'd started. We never talked about the real world, not really. We had built our friendship in this carefully constructed space, free from the weight of names, faces, or geography.
But tonight, the real world was creeping in at the edges.
"So," he said, his voice a little more serious as we waited in a game lobby. "School's starting up soon."
My stomach tightened. "Yeah. Ten days for me."
"Same here," he said. "Senior High. Can you believe it? Feels like we were just kids flaming each other in Epic rank yesterday."
"I know, right?" I laughed, leaning back in my chair. "You nervous?"
"A little," he admitted, and the vulnerability in his voice made me lean forward again. "New place, new people. It's a pretty intense science academy. A lot of pressure."
My breath caught in my throat. "No way," I said slowly. "Mine too. It's this crazy STEM-focused place. Feels like everyone there is going to be a genius."
"Totally," he agreed, a hint of a groan in his voice. "I'm just hoping I can find a decent internet connection. It's a coastal town, so you never know. Probably have to deal with insane ping."
A strange, electric feeling zipped down my spine. A wild, impossible coincidence. "Wait. You moved to a coastal town too?"
"Yeah, my dad got a new job here a while back," he explained. "It's... nice, I guess. Lots of fresh air. Kinda boring, though. Nothing to do but study and game."
My mind was racing, trying to connect dots that couldn't possibly connect. It was a big country. There were hundreds of coastal towns, dozens of science academies. It was nothing. A funny coincidence.
"Well," I said, forcing a lighthearted tone. "Maybe we can complain about our insane homework load together."
"It's a date," he said easily, and the casual intimacy of the word sent a blush creeping up my neck. "Alright, game's starting. Let's carry these noobs, Nyx."
The game started, and we fell back into our familiar roles, our voices shifting to focused call-outs and strategic commands. But for the rest of the night, a single, ridiculous thought kept bouncing around in my head, a tiny spark of impossible hope.
After we finally logged off, hours later, the silence of my new room felt different. It wasn't empty. It was filled with a lingering echo of his laughter, with the warmth of our conversation. I walked over to the balcony and looked out at the dark, sleeping town, the distant sea a black mirror under the moon.
A new town. A new school. A new me.
The words echoed in my head, a mantra I'd been repeating for weeks. But as I stared at the faint glow of my phone screen, his name still visible in our last chat message, a different truth settled in my bones.
New town... same anchor.