"Mh, it's really not going away."
Munching on the snacks he had received from a hostess a few minutes earlier, Alessio- Well, Noah now, appeared to be focused on the screen in front of him.
An old comedy from the early nineties was not the least bit amusing in his opinion, but his attention wasn't on that for the time being.
His eyes were glued to the strange panel hovering in front of him, floating between his face and the screen.
In a smooth gesture, he clicked the screen to turn down the volume a bit, but his real target was the strange panel.
His hand passed right through the center of the squarish-shaped blue window.
'Not a hologram, my hand isn't touching, but it's also not casting a shadow on it.'
That was the first thought that had come to mind when the strange panel appeared.
But after repeatedly checking, he seemed to have been wrong.
Was someone playing a prank on him, perhaps?
Trying to look as natural as possible, he turned his body halfway to remove his hoodie as he scouted for any hidden cameras.
But that also yielded no results.
Why wasn't he just touching it directly, looking around suspiciously, or asking anyone else if they saw it too?
Well, he didn't want to look weird, and his brain functioned differently from normal people's anyway.
If he did ask, and he was the only one seeing it, he couldn't play it off as a joke, even if he wanted to.
He would probably just accidentally start lying about how he was affected by a disease that made him see ghosts or stuff.
So he just decided to keep his mouth shut to avoid spewing any bullshit.
"What a hard life."
He mumbled.
Luckily, the young woman beside him was already too caught up with a movie to hear him.
Was he really going insane?
'Was I even considered sane in the first place?'
Putting those thoughts aside momentarily, he couldn't help but comment:
'Well, this is another level of dogdung though.'
Not in a good mood because of the unfunny joke life had brought him, he tried to close his eyes and sleep.
But as if to mock him, when he closed his eyes, he didn't see the usual nothingness, but a floating panel with the same words written on it.
Maybe it was just his mind playing tricks on him, but he really wasn't having it.
'Yeah, I'm poor, alright? But there's no need to do this to me.'
His brows furrowed, and he started to feel a bit hot even without wearing his black hoodie.
He let out a silent sigh.
No film or sleep for him, alright, he'd just stare into nothingness listening to music then.
But after a few minutes, he couldn't take it anymore.
It wasn't enough to get diagnosed as a 'compulsive liar.'
Now he started seeing things too.
Man, this airplane air must've gotten to his mind or something.
Desperate, he intensely stared at the words written on the screen.
Maybe, like in a dream, they would dissipate if he looked close enough.
But the closer he looked, the more it all seemed real.
He read it again, more out of desperation than acknowledgment.
It went:
"Congratulations on awakening the compulsive liar system!"
And then, beneath that, it said:
"Congratulations on lying on purpose for the first time!"
One line further down:
"You have told your first casual lie, calculating character relevance… calculating character involvement… calculating lie's weight."
"Congratulations!
You have earned a total of 18,46$"
'Rewarding me for lying… maybe a mind reader heard my thoughts earlier and decided to mock me.'
That didn't sound too far-fetched, considering there was literally a screen floating in the air in front of him that no one else seemed to care about.
It also moved as he turned around, making it impossible to look elsewhere.
'Alright! I get it! Message received. Now disappear.'
As if following wishes, the strange phenomenon suddenly flashed into nothingness, disappearing completely.
"Huh?"
He was pleasantly surprised that his brain had stopped malfunctioning.
So they weren't lying online when they said you have to hold a tight grip on your mind, or you might just lose your sanity.
With the problem out of the way, he closed his eyes and slowly drifted into deep sleep.
It was his first time on a plane, but he slept like a baby for hours, unbothered.
He only woke up when a familiar tap reached his shoulder.
Before he could even open his eyes, he heard a faint voice through the chaos in his wireless earphones.
It was muffled and not clear.
Noah quickly rubbed his eyes open before stopping the music.
He then turned towards Sophia.
"They're coming with dinner, I figured you'd want some."
It took his muddled mind a few seconds to connect the dots.
He then replied briefly:
"Thanks, I thought they would wake me up for food, but I guess I was wrong."
"It happens sometimes that they don't, and even if they do, they usually just ask the other passenger to wake you if you have the window seat.
I figured I could spare you from ordering as soon as you woke up.
Here's the menu. I took yours, too, since you were sleeping.
A soft yawn escaped his lips before he chuckled.
"Thanks a lot, I would've gone hungry if it weren't for you."
"It's nothing really, I hate it when it happens to me."
Scanning the uneventful menu, he carried on the conversation:
"You seem quite familiar with flights."
He heard a desperate sigh.
He could tell the emotions she expressed even without looking at her face.
"Yeah, don't even get me started on it.
I want to return home and just rot all day after this one."
Given the tone, it was clear she wasn't that happy about traveling, in that case…
"Were you abroad for work?"
"Yeah, Tokyo first, then Beijing and Milan, now even the West coast… I've been assigned all four of them in a single month."
"Marketing?"
"Yeah, in a pharma."
"Must be tiring."
His reaction was mild, but he couldn't help but be surprised.
This woman traveled so much.
She looked to be in her mid-twenties, but she probably already held a considerable position in a pharmaceutical company…
'She really belongs to a different world.'
Maybe the only reason she spoke to him in the first place was that their ages were not that far apart.
Noah quickly glanced around, noticing just now that most passengers were already middle-aged, except for a couple of children.
Well, the ticket was quite costly indeed.
He had spent all his money and even went into debt just to buy the economy one.
He didn't even dare look up the price of a business seat.
Well, what was done was done.
"What about you?"
Sophia put down her menu as she looked at him.
"First time coming to America?"
She spoke as if they had already landed, even though they still had more than nine hours of flight.
His mouth curled into an amicable smile.
But just as he was about to reply, his tongue froze in place.
'Yes, it's my first time, I have never even been on a plane.'
That was what he wanted to answer, but his body had other plans.
The words escaped from his lips smoothly.
It was the same as when he spoke in his first language… after all, he knew English just as well.
"Haha, no, I've been a few times already."
That was a straight lie.
Why had he even done that?
A faint headache began to form in his mind.
That damned tongue of his.
To make it worse, he was met with two answers.
One from the 'System panel' which appeared again, saying:
"You have told a casual lie, calculating character relevance… calculating character involvement… calculating lie's weight."
"Congratulations!
You have earned a total of 9,77$."
And the other from the young woman, who immediately asked with near-sparkling eyes:
"Really? Where have you been?"
If one listened closely enough, they could probably hear the rusty cogs in his mind turning.
But on the surface, he still looked composed and uncaring.
"A bit here, a bit there, I've been to New York and Chicago a few times, Las Vegas too.
I haven't visited the West Coast as much, but I've been to all the important cities.
"Whoa, really? You've visited more of America than I have!
Well, which one did you enjoy the most?"
"You have told a casual lie, calculating character relevance… calculating character involvement… calculating lie's weight."
"Congratulations!
You have earned a total of 14,21$."
"Considering I risked getting bitten by a shark in San Diego, I enjoyed New York and the like most."
"You have told a casual lie, calculating character relevance… calculating character involvement… calculating lie's weight."
"Congratulations!
You have earned a total of 19,21$."
"Right? right? east coast for the win…"
Noah's mouth spouted bullshit while his head started to hurt more and more.
The woman and the strange panel didn't help at all, making him even more stressed.
If he could, he would tape his mouth shut right there.
That, however, didn't show on his face in the least.
He let out a long sigh inwardly as he gave up and just went with the flow.
'This is gonna be a hell of a long flight.'
He couldn't help but complain.
"Warning: all casual lies this person can believe have been exhausted.
You must wait at least six days before extracting belief again."