Accidentally Became the Most Wanted Entity in the Multiverse

The city didn't feel like a city.

It felt like depression in building form. Everything looked like it had given up halfway through being built and just… stayed that way. Bleak high-rises that scraped the sky with boredom. Streets that smelled like they hadn't been happy in years. The air had this texture..thick, invisible, heavy. Like it wasn't meant for breathing, just existing.

Dae sat in the car, silent.

So did everyone else.

His mother drove like she was navigating an armored tank. No music. No small talk. Her knuckles were white on the steering wheel, like if she let go, they'd all crash into their repressed emotions.

His sister had already been dropped off. Her new prep school looked like a glass spaceship landed in the middle of urban decay. She waved them off like royalty, perfect smile, perfect hair, already surrounded by people she hadn't even met yet.

And then… it was Dae's turn.

Except no one waved.

No one said goodbye.

They just slowed the car, shoved his bag out, and kept rolling.

Like Amazon Prime, but sad.

Dae stood outside the building, blinking against the late afternoon sun. A rusted board above the gate read:

"Sunrise Hostel ~ Boys' Block."

Beneath it, someone had scratched the word "Help."

Art.

The building looked like a hospital that had lost funding halfway through a ghost story that every kid knows in the neighbourhood. Cracked tiles, half lit windows, a smell that couldn't decide between to kill or to escape.

He stepped inside.

The receptionist barely looked up. Guy had the energy of a sleep-deprived sloth.

"Room 3C. Fourth floor. Don't lose your key. We don't do spares."

"Cool," Dae muttered. "Customer service with a death threat. Love that."

He took the key and climbed the staircase alone. Every floor smelled different. One like bleach. One like someone's armpit was trying to declare independence. One like cheap incense and despair-flavored noodles.

When he reached 3C, he hesitated at what he saw.

The hallway lights flickered like they were trying to give him seizures. The bulb above his door turned on once, then decided life wasn't worth it.

He unlocked the door.

It creaked. Of course it did.

Inside: metal bed with a dented frame, wooden desk that leaned like it had opinions, a fan that spun with suicidal squeaks, and a cupboard that had clearly been in a fight and lost.

There was no roommate.

No welcome note.

Just him.

And the silence.

...….

The first few nights were… survivable.

If you ignored the nightmares.

But then came the knocking.

2:00 AM.

Always 2:00 AM.

Three knocks. Slow. Heavy.

Like the walls themselves were trying to remember he existed.

Dae lay frozen under his thin blanket. Sweat pooling. Eyes wide.

The next night, he heard the doorknob twist.

He hadn't locked it.

This time he scrambled out of bed and shoved the bolt in.

A pause.

Then laughter.

Low. Familiar. Cruel.

Like the walls were in on the joke.

After that, he kept the door locked. But it didn't matter. Every night, the footsteps came. Slow. Stupidly polite.

And then the voices started.

"Hey, Daycare. You forget how to talk?"

"Hey, Dae. You ever blink? Or do ghosts not need to?"

"Yo, ghostboy. What's it like being a glitch in real life?"

They never hit him directly. Too smart for that.

But there were shoulder shoves in the hallway. Random tripping on stairwells. A slap to the back of his head when no one was looking. Laughs like knives.

One day, he came back from class to find his books soaked. Another day, his locker smelled… wrong.

He opened it.

Regretted it.

It was human.

He vomited. Twice. On his own shoes.

The hostel warden, a bearded fossil with a gut and no empathy, shrugged. "Hazing. Builds character."

"Pretty sure it builds trauma," Dae muttered, wiping bile off his shirt.

"Same thing."

...

Dae stopped going to meals.

Not because of rebellion.

Just because hunger felt optional when anxiety ate first.

The hallway turned into a gauntlet.

The mess hall = an arena.

He didn't have the energy for either.

So he stayed in his room. Alone. Quiet. Small.

He'd sit by the window and watch the streetlights flicker like twinkling lost stars. Sometimes he would talk to himself, just to remember what his voice sounded like.

Most nights, he didn't dream.

And when he did… it was always An.

...….

An with his lopsided smile. An who knew the quadratic formula but still got lost on the way to tuition. An who once punched a kid for calling Dae "malfunctioning." An who swore aliens were real and would totally abduct them by age 25.

In the dream, they were walking home again.

Same jokes. Same sky.

Dae would laugh.

Then wake up.

Alone.

...

Two months passed like a slow leak in his soul.

He stopped keeping track.

He just floated through it all… school, hostel, nights of noise, days of numbness. The only evidence that time moved was his reflection: thinner, quieter, disappearing by degrees.

Then came the exam notice.

A printed slip handed to him like a death sentence.

"Don't be late," the receptionist said, not looking up.

He hadn't left the hostel in a week.

The sun felt illegal.

The bus ride to the center felt like exile.

He sat at the back, hoodie up, phone buzzing in his palm.

And then… something inside him moved.

A pull.

A memory.

A name.

An.

He tapped the call icon.

One ring.

Two.

Three.

Click.

But it wasn't An.

"Hello?" A man's voice. Older. Tired. Cracked.

"Um… Is An there?"

Pause. Sharp. Long.

"…Who is this?"

"I.. I'm Dae. A friend. From school."

Another pause.

Thicker this time.

"…You didn't hear?"

Dae's fingers clenched.

"What do you mean?"

The voice exhaled. "He's gone."

"No, that's… that's not…what?"

"He died. Two months ago. Jumped. From the school terrace."

A hole opened inside Dae.

"You're lying," he whispered.

"There was a note. Short. Said he couldn't take it anymore. That was it."

The voice softened, regret crawling in.

"If someone had just… noticed…"

The line went dead.

Dae stared at the screen.

No reaction.

Just white noise in his brain and the slow, suffocating tilt of reality.

...

He doesn't remember how he got off the bus.

He doesn't remember walking into the hall.

He just remembers the exam paper.

Blank.

And his hands.

Shaking.

The letters blurred. Became alien.

He tried to focus.

Tried to breathe.

Then came the tears.

Big, ugly ones. The kind that punch through ribs and drag everything out.

The invigilator approached, hesitant.

But didn't stop him.

No one did.

Some students laughed.

Some stared.

Some just turned away.

Dae kept sobbing.

For An.

For himself.

For everything they never said, and everything they weren't allowed to feel.

He whispered, again and again, like a spell.

"He's not gone. He's not gone. He's not gone."

And deep down… some part of him still believed it.

...….

That night, back in 3C, he didn't sleep.

Didn't cry.

Just lay there.

Eyes open.

Heart cracked.

And somewhere, in the silence…

He felt it.

A shift.

Like a thread in the fabric of the world had moved.

Like someone was reaching back.

Or maybe… had never left at all.

...….

[End of Chapter 2]

Next Chapter 3.