"Ugh... today's test was hellish tough." The dystopian guy stretched his arms with a yawn.
The lecture hall descended in broad semicircular tiers, rows of curved desks and seats stepping downward toward the podium and projector screen at the front. Warm ceiling lights bathed the room in a subdued amber glow, reflecting softly from the polished wood panels lining the walls.
Only a handful of students occupied the vast classroom. They were scattered without any pattern—some alone near the front, others lounging in small groups farther back. A few stared at their phones, some chatted quietly, and one or two simply waited for the next lecture to begin.
Near the rear rows, Yohan sat slumped in his seat. Two other guys occupied nearby seats, loosely forming a small circle of conversation. Yohan's elbows rested on the desk, head lowered as though he hadn't slept properly in days. Without lifting his gaze, he spoke flatly to the dystopian-looking boy beside him.
"Same for me. I dunno how... it seems I am attending all the lectures but nothing is seeping in my head and somehow still passing the tests."
"Haha, it's actually the same for all of us." Another one laughed.
"No, it's not the same. I genuinely can't recall a single thing I've learned throughout this semester as if I I've been taught naught. Only empty pages that's all I can remember."
"Yet scoring the highest among all of us. What a load of crap." The dystopian guy scoffed. "Seriously, why do all toppers act like they never touch a book?"
Without raising his head, Yohan glanced sideways at him. "Maybe I should've chosen some other branch than Computer Science En—"
"Ugh... today's test was hellish tough." The dystopian guy said again, stretching his arms with a yawn.
Hein? Is this guy high again? Yohan closed his eyes. Must be a side effect of studying too much. Whatever, I should take a quick nap before the next lecture.
Damn this headache...!
...
—!
Hah... Hah...
He jolted awake, sucking in a sharp breath.
"...F*ck!"
His pulse hammered in his ears as he stared into the darkly lit room.
Did I oversleep? His gaze swept across the deserted rows.
Where is everyone? He was in his classroom... alone.
He stretched his spine with a long, deep sigh. Seems like they all left without me again.
He gathered his bag and made his way out, moving through dark, empty corridors and the vacant main hall of the building.
What's with this headache...ugh. What's the time already anyway? He pressed a hand softly against the side of his head as he reached the exit. There was no one at the gate. Beyond it, the sun was sinking beneath the horizon, the sky stretched wide in shades of clear gold and crimson.
Life has become almost perfect.
I've made friends. My studies are going well. My family seems happier than I remember. And yet, for some reason a strange feeling is deepening within me, It feels like ecstasy. an inexplicable ecstasy, accompanied by an equally inexplicable emptiness.
Turning his thoughts over without energy or direction, he made his way back along the same road he had walked that morning, retracing his steps to the metropolitan station. The underground entrance. A stairwell descending into the passage that led to the Urban Rail.
Strangely, the streets were nearly empty and barely a soul was visible all the way, even in the station compared to morning. However, Yohan didn't seem even slight bit bothered by this as if it was simply how things were at this time of day.
He waited apathetically at the serene platform for the metro to arrive with dark blank eyes staring on the floor.
I don't care if this world ever had any meaning but now... it feels even more meaningless.
Have I truly lost something...or I'm the lost one here?
Several minutes after the buzzing hum of the approaching rail reached his ears. He stepped inside as it halted.
I really hate this...why can't I escape it? Despite everything, I feel even more lonesome than I ever felt.
The rail was expectedly empty. A handful of passengers sitting at certain intervals almost systematically, although Yohan was indifferent to his surroundings. Lost somewhere inside his own thoughts, he sat down beside the door.
The f*ck I'm missing? A human? A dream? Or some what if possibility? There's something wrong either outside or inside me. I can't understand what exactly the hell I want!
What's the problem in living this current mediocre life that most people would be grateful for. So why does it feel like I'm suffocating inside it?
He sighed with exasperation and slouched back against the panel looking outside over his shoulder sluggishly, as the remants of dying sunlight reached inside the sombre bleached-out carriage.
Why hasn't the sun set yet? He frowned inwardly. Lately even time feels irregular, sometimes too fast, sometimes too slow... screw me.
After a while he sank deeper into his seat and stared up at the ceiling, phone hanging loosely in his hands as the train carried him forward through the dark.
The sunset... no longer looks beautiful.
Soon, without even realising the flow of time, he was already at the doorstep of his house. But before opening it he lingered for a while looking around. It was a peculiar feeling—as though he had spent the entire day yearning to return home, only to realize upon arriving that home was the very place he no longer wished to be.
The house stood quietly between taller buildings, a modest two-story structure squeezed into the urban sprawl like countless others scattered throughout Helid. Its exterior was plain and weathered by years of sun and rain, the pale walls carrying faint stains and discoloration that no one ever bothered to repaint. A narrow strip of concrete separated the entrance from the street, where several potted plants sat in mismatched containers, maintained just well enough to remain alive.
From the outside, the building looked almost disappointingly ordinary.
Metal railings lined the rooftop's edge, while electrical wires crisscrossed overhead between neighboring buildings. Air-conditioning units protruded from nearby walls, their constant humming blending into the distant noise of traffic.
Which genius is using AC in this weather?
It wasn't a place anyone would envy.
It wasn't a place anyone would remember.
Yet it was home.
"I am home..." He slipped inside quietly and whispered it to no one, the words barely leaving his lips.
"You're home." A tender voice came from the room across the stairs, and a moment later his mother walked out of it.
"...I guess."
"We were just about to have supper— you came at exactly the right time. Wash yourself up and join us, go to your room later." His mother spoke in a calm, gently hurried tone.
" 'kay." Yohan dropped his bag at the foot of the stairs and ducked into the bathroom beside.
Sometime later he was sitting at the dining table , his mother moving around it and serving warm, steaming plates. Yohan looked at the food in front of him with a quiet, directionless loathing.
While serving the food, his mother repeatedly called for his sister to come out of her room and eat with them. She refused every time, saying she would eat later once she felt hungry.
"You need something?" his mother asked, noticing his reluctance to eat.
"Uh, nothing..." Yohan replied as he began eating. After a brief pause, he added, "I've got a headache, so a cup of coffee should do the trick."
"Wait, I'll make you one shortly."
"No. I'll make it myself. Don't trouble yourself."
"It's nothing, just finish your supper. Your coffee will be ready before you know it."
"But I wanna drink coffee made by my own hands—"
She spoke in a gently playful tone, already taking milk from the fridge. "Don't you trust your mother? I'll make a really good one. You'll love it and ask for more but I won't let you."
"...Alright."
Wonder if doing well academically automatically disqualifies you from house chores.
Yohan felt his mother's behaviour subtly strange than usual.
Ever since he had enrolled in the new institute—or perhaps ever since he had returned from that bizarre ritualistic world—she had stopped letting him do even the simplest household chores. Cooking, washing, carrying groceries... she would always step in before he had the chance, especially whenever he went anywhere near the stove.
At first, Yohan dismissed it as nothing more than a mother's indulgence. Securing admission to one of the nation's better institutes had made her visibly happier, so perhaps she simply wanted him to focus entirely on his studies.
But the thought never quite settled.
His mother had always been adamant about the opposite. Whether son or daughter, she believed everyone should know how to cook, clean, and take care of themselves. There'll be daysyou'll have to live on your own, she often said. Depending on others for things you can do yourself is the quickest way to become helpless.
Yet now, without explanation, she refused to let him do any of it.
Still, Yohan eventually convinced himself that not every change needed a reason. People changed with time. Perhaps his mother had simply become more protective after his admission.
Besides, despite always insisting that every child—should learn to manage household chores independently, she had rarely let anyone else shoulder the work herself. Ever since he could remember, she had been the one cooking, cleaning, washing, and doing countless other things around the house. Perhaps this wasn't so different after all.
But there was something even more strange but also pretty ordinary. Ever since waking from that nine-month absence, dinner had been served unusually early. It wasn't suspicious in itself—families changed their routines all the time—but before those missing months, they almost always ate much later into the evening.
More importantly...
He couldn't remember seeing his mother cook even once.
Every morning the breakfast was already waiting by the time he woke. Every evening, regardless of when he returned from college, dinner had somehow been prepared beforehand.
Once or twice could be dismissed as coincidence but weeks of the same pattern could not.
Yet for some unknown reason he couldn't make himself to ask about this from his mother. On the rare occasions he did manage, she gave him concise unassailable answers that somehow left no room for another question and inexplicably losing the desire to continue asking.
"By the way...where's he?" Yohan asked, halting his meal, glancing at his mother who was stirring something, probably coffee in a mug.
"Who?" She turned toward him with a slight frown.
"What do you mean by 'who'?" Yohan raised an eyebrow. "I'm asking about father."
"Oh, your father." She blinked once. "What about him?"
Yohan pinched the bridge of his nose and glanced at her again with a weary sigh,"I asked where he is...and when he'll come back?"
She turned away again, setting the spoon against the rim of the mug,"Don't you worry. he'll back next week. I talked to him earlier today. He is missing you a lot."
She still didn't answer where?
He opened his mouth, intending to ask again.
"...Never mind."
Yohans stayed silent. By the time he finished his supper, several minutes had passed. "My coffee ready or not? You haven't even turned the stove on yet."
"You go to your room, I'll bring it to you in a minute."
"...I could've made it myself faster, but whatever..." He rose from the table, carried his plate to the sink, and made his way upstairs.
Now, he had nothing much to do before bed besides studying but he wasn't in a state or mood to even touch a textbook.
He simply sat at his chair. On the desk ten books lined in a row alongside his stationery, a pen holder, and a capless black-and-gold metallic pen resting near the base of the stack. From somewhere in the middle of the tower Yohan pulled out a black-covered notebook, and was just about to open it when his mother appeared at the doorstep with a steaming mug of coffee in hand.
"I just came into the room and your coffee is ready after barely a minute?"
His mother merely smiled. Setting the black-and-white ceramic mug onto the desk, she said, "Drink it before it gets cold," then quietly left the room.
Damn everything...! Yohan lowered his forehead into his palm, his elbow resting on the desk. I hate everything.
Lately, the headache wasn't the only thing worsening.
With each passing day, Yohan found himself growing increasingly irritable. The smallest inconveniences stirred an inexplicable frustration within him, while an unshakable lethargy clung to both his body and mind. His impulses had become harder to restrain, his emotions more volatile, and often having trouble sleeping during night despite the constant exhaustion weighing on him.
For reasons he couldn't understand, even his mother's calm and affectionate demeanor had begun to irritate him.
He drank the coffee anyway, wearing a bitter expression although it was surprisingly good.
Ironically, only a few minutes later after drinking it, he felt a deep sense of drowsiness. Thus, he collaped on his cot, half his body resting on the mattress while his legs still dangled over the edge. He fell into a deep slumber without realising.
...
...
scratch... drip... clang... whisper... tick... shhk... creak... buzz... crack...
"You forgot again..."
BLINK!
Yohan opened his eyes wide from the sleep gradually, his body feeling heavy along with his breathing as though he had slept beneath a mountain.
Argh... Grimacing, he slowly pressed a hand against the right side of his head. Am I having a migraine or...damn! Why's it only hurting on one side?
A sharp, throbbing pain pulsed through his right cerebral, each beat seeming to stab deeper into his skull.
He suddenly stiffened and sat upright, forgetting his excruciating pain for a moment and gazed straight to the doorway.
T-There was someone? Am I...ugh! Another throbbing pulse of pain cut through mid-thought, making him wince and sway slightly with hazy vision. He instinctively grabbed the edge of the bed to steady himself until the dizziness gradually subsided.
Did I have...a dream? When did I start having dreams again? It's been so long since I dreamt of anything I remember.
Yohan was feeling uncomfortably thirsty as well and even more irritated and agitated with his throbbing headache. And slightly craving to eat something...just something. Nothing specific.
He realised that it was still night, not morning. Though, he would usually wake up with this worsening headache during or after sunrise.
He went downstairs, one hand pressed against the side of his head and teeth clenched with a slight serene premonition creeping through him while continuously cursing inwardly.
Reaching the kitchen, he grasped the doorknob and pushed.
THUNK.
The door didn't budge.
He frowned and tried again, harder this time.
CLACK.
However it was...locked.
Locked...?
What? Why the f*ck? His agitation and restlessness grew even more that he almost started flexing his fingers repeatedly, as he unclenched and reclenched the fists and gripped hard his hair once...
THUD!!
...He punched the door sending a loud, resonant thud vibration through the silent house, and beyond the walls of it. Fortunately or unfortunately, it didn't break or crack, just shuddered violently.
"What are you doing at this hour? Have you gone mad?" His mother appeared behind himlike aghost.
He turned.
His fingers curled into a tense, claw-like shape near his chin without him noticing.
"Why is the kitchen locked?!"
"You're this furious over a locked kitchen? You need something?"
"What do you think I'd need from a damn kitchen?" Are you opening it or not?"
"Calm down first. I'm opening it." His mother spoke with a strange, unruffled composure, her features only vaguely legible in the dim glow of the night bulb burning in the vestibule.
She reached into her pocket, produced a small key, and unlocked the door. "I locked it because of the mices, nothing more."
Yohan looked at her with a pestered frown and opened the fridge. The kitchen lights were off, only the dim shadow of the vestibule bulb bleeding weakly into the darkness. He drank some cold water straight from the bottle, then grabbed a saucepan and switched on the small kitchen lamp in the corner, which threw a jaundiced yellow glow across the countertop.
"Are you done?"
Yohan didn't reply and set the pan on the stove.
" You want Something? You hungry?"
Again, he didn't reply. He reached into the cupboard, pulled out a bottle of cooking oil, and extended a hand toward the stove, but before he could turn it on or grab anything else, his mother gently caught his wrist,"What are you doing? If you want something just tell me. I'll make it."
She had to say this that Yohan lost his composure. He was already feeling too much frustrated and agitated beneath a worsening headache, and just now his frustration exploded as apoplectic impulse, as if he was holding back something unknowingly for a very long time.
He jerked his arm free so violently that she staggered half a step and yanked a knife from the knife block.
He turned to face her, eyes unhinged and ferocious. "What the hell do you want from me?!"
She stepped back, a clear, tense expression crossing her face. "What are you—"
"Why? What's your problem with me? Why are you watching me so closely all the time?!"
"Yohan! What happened? I was just worried...why are you acting like this all of a sudden?"
Yohan moved toward her the headache convulsing through his skull in waves, yet it felt as though his mind had gone entirely blank— overtaken by nothing but madness or instinct alone. But there was a thread of some inscrutable resistance.
"You're... you're hiding something, aren't you? His voice dropped, cracking at the edges. "Tell me..."
"What are you saying, Yohan! Calm down, why are you so furious out of nowhere?!!"
His mother's expressions became more grim,somber and apprehensive as Yohan couldn't stop his impulsive rage somewhat influenced by his headache and approached her, raising his knife in a reverse grip.
She didn't step back further as if ready to counter or hold Yohan.
"Tell me!" Yohan's voice became more hysterical and melancholic, grief and fury tangled together into something that had no clean category. "What's it you don't want me to know?"
He swung the knife down—
TCHK!
—a pained scream shrieked through the house.
It was Yohan's.
He had fallen to his knees, the knife embedded in his own palm — his other hand. He had driven it through himself.
A strained, husky groan escaped beneath his lowered head as his shoulders convulsed from the pain. "Yo-Yohan!"
His mother rushed forward in panic, dropping beside him, hands moving toward the wound and then pulling back, uncertain.
"What happened to you? You're not alright." Her voice came in a trembling whisper and tears welled her eyes. "Why are you acting like this? You were fine yesterday...you were fine. Did something happen? Who's evil eye fell on my son?"
She gently wrapped her arms around him, cradling his shaking body.
And then— through clenched, grunting teeth, beneath the lowered head, through all of it... A smile surfaced on his face.
"I'm sorry. I'm...sorry for all of this..."
Yohan whispered it in a cold, lugubrious tone, his right hand slowly continuing to twist the knife still lodged through his left palm.
A sharp tremor ran through his body. His breathing grew ragged, yet the smile lingering across his lowered face only widened and so the pain, trembling beneath tightly clenched teeth as he repressed every groan threatening to escape.
"Y'all treated me with so much care. You gave me things i could never have been grateful enough to even wish for. I felt emotions and a kind of happiness... I didn't know I would live long enough to experience. But..."
His smile remained frozen as he slowly began withdrawing the knife— every inch sent another wave of agony through his arm.
His jaw locked so tightly that blood seeped from where he'd bitten the inside of his cheek and his voice growing quieter and sombre. "... I've to leave. I'm sorry. But, I've to go now. Thank you... for everything you did for me."
"Wh—what are you saying, Yohan, my only son!" She pulled him closer, arms wrapping around him tightly, holding him the way a person holds something they are terrified of losing. "Everything will be be alright. You're not going anywhere. Did I do something to hurt you...? Why are you saying such things? I won't let—"
"Because..."
He almost drew the knife free from his palm and leaned weakly toward her —bringing his lips near her ear and whispered.
"...I have found the Essence."