"What's happening to me…?" David muttered shakily, both hands pressed against the ground to keep himself upright.
He looked down.
His right leg was stuck in the ground.
He had been wandering aimlessly when it happened — one step forward, and his foot simply kept going, sliding through the pavement as if it were water.
He wriggled it around and could feel his leg moving, but there was no resistance at all — his muscles working, the sensation of movement clear, but nothing solid pushing back.
He pushed himself off the ground, dragging his leg out and standing on one foot. He tried to slowly put it down again.
It slipped straight through the pavement a second time.
Panic surged through him. He kicked a nearby pole, expecting pain, something, anything — but his leg passed right through it. He lost his balance and fell onto his back, landing hard while his right leg sank into the ground again like it had never left.
His breath grew more frantic, uneven, almost shaky. He turned toward a nearby shop window — and the absence of his reflection hit him like a reminder he had been trying not to think about.
He was disappearing. Literally.
He had always believed it wouldn't matter. That nothing would change if he vanished. That the world would keep turning exactly the same.
But now that it was actually happening… he wasn't sure.
He didn't want to disappear. Or maybe he did. He couldn't tell anymore.
The thought slid through him without weight, without shape — just another thing he couldn't hold onto.
Turning around, he scrambled on the floor like a dog, trying to run, trying to find somewhere safe. But could he run from reality?
Scraping his one working leg against the ground, he pushed himself upright and started to hop away.
The street he had wandered for the past week suddenly felt foreign. The animals, the breeze, the people walking by — everything seemed distant, wrong, as if the world itself had turned its back on him.
He kept hopping, erratic and unsteady, weaving between people, trying to reach anywhere that felt safe. And strangely, the farther he went, the safer the environment felt. He didn't know why. It just did.
He turned a corner — and a stranger appeared right in front of him, walking straight toward him.
He braced for impact, for the fall, for the jolt of pain.
Nothing happened.
The man walked straight through his left shoulder without slowing down, without reacting, without even noticing.
His mind lurched, spinning out of control. A thin, dizzying pressure built behind his eyes — hope, fear, confusion, all collapsing into a single, chaotic blur he couldn't separate anymore.
He kept hopping, fueled by a desperate hope he couldn't place. Maybe he just wanted to reach somewhere familiar. Maybe he wanted to end it all somewhere that felt safer. He didn't know. He couldn't think straight.
As the day dragged on and the light began to fade, the street grew emptier. At some point, he had stopped hopping altogether and started dragging himself forward with one hand on the ground. His entire lower body had slipped through the pavement, leaving only one arm still responding to him.
It wasn't pleasant — the cold scrape of concrete under his palm, the awkward pull of his shoulder — but it wasn't hard either. He didn't feel his weight anymore. Not for the parts of him that had already fallen through the world.
Then something shifted.
He didn't know why. He didn't know how. But a faint, stubborn hope flickered inside him, small and fragile, like a match in the wind.
He lifted his head.
And he recognized it immediately.
The orphanage.
Seeing the familiar sight — the warm light behind the windows, the silhouettes moving inside — something flickered in him. A thin, trembling thread of hope. He dragged himself closer, clinging to it.
He reached for the door.
His arm slipped through it like mist.
A cold shock ran through him, as if the world itself had poured ice water over his head. He wanted to feel the wood under his palm, the last solid thing tying him to this place, to these people, to anything. But there was nothing. No contact. No resistance. No world.
Despair surged up, raw and blinding. Using his chin, he dragged the part of his torso still above ground closer to the door. Every movement felt clumsy, desperate, but he kept going.
When he finally reached the entrance, he tried to push against the doorframe with his shoulder — but nothing happened. He had no leverage.
As his desperation grew, something inside him snapped into a frantic resolve. He gathered what little strength he had left and threw his head against the door with everything he could muster.
The door didn't move. Not even a tremor.
He tried again — still nothing. Again. And again. Each attempt weaker than the last, each one swallowed by the same unyielding silence.
By the end, the lower part of the door was smeared with a faint red mark, and his vision had begun to blur at the edges. His strength drained out of him in uneven waves. He could no longer force himself forward; even lifting his head felt impossible.
He wasn't pushing anymore. He was barely touching the door.
At some point, his body gave out and he toppled onto his back, unable to move. The ceiling above him seemed to stretch, the doorway pulling away as if the world itself were drifting out of reach. He didn't know if he was hallucinating or if reality was simply slipping from him.
Then he felt it — the slow, cold slide of his torso sinking through the ground. Inch by inch, the pavement swallowed him, leaving only his head above the surface.
He couldn't move. He couldn't reach. He couldn't do anything anymore.
The orphanage door stood just a breath away, impossibly close and impossibly distant at the same time.
Then, footsteps.
Slow. Heavy. Deliberate.
They stopped right behind the door.
A voice — calm, official, almost bored — spoke from the other side.
"Keep me updated. If you find anything about the boy… David… notify me immediately. We need to talk to him."
For a moment, David didn't react. The words reached him, but they didn't land. His mind was too fogged, too fractured, too far gone.
Then something shifted.
A tiny spark. A flicker. A tremor of recognition.
David. They said his name.
His fading thoughts stumbled toward the sound, clinging to it like a rope thrown into the dark. He replayed the sentence in his head — slowly, clumsily — until the meaning finally pierced through the haze.
They were looking for him.
The thought didn't make sense at first. People didn't look for him. People didn't ask about him. People didn't even notice when he was there — so why would they notice when he was gone?
He tried to replay the words again, as if they were in a language he barely understood.
"If you find anything about the boy… David…"
They said his name. Out loud. Like it mattered. Like he mattered.
A strange, fragile feeling pushed through the fog in his mind — not hope, not exactly, but something close. Something he hadn't felt in a long time. Something he didn't trust.
Why would anyone want to find him? Why now, when he was barely even here anymore?
Then the voices continued.
"Of course, Sir. We'll reach out to you the moment we find anything about David," an older voice replied, steady but tired. "But it's… complicated. The boy comes and goes, but no one has actually seen him in weeks."
A pause followed — heavy, deliberate, the kind adults use when they're choosing their words carefully.
"He's not avoiding us," the older man added, softer now. "He's just… hard to catch. Hard to understand. I'm worried something might be happening to him. So if you can help him, I'll be grateful."
Another voice — the first one, firmer, younger — answered with a hint of frustration beneath the professionalism.
"We're not here to reprimand him. We just need to speak with him. Make sure he's alright. The reports we've received are… unusual."
Unusual. Worried. Looking for him.
The words hit David like distant echoes, muffled but unmistakable. Not angry. Not dismissive. Not indifferent.
Concerned.
Concerned… about him.
The idea felt impossible. Unreal. Like a memory from a life he never lived.
But the voices were right there, inches away. And something inside him — something small, fragile, stubborn — began to rise, pulling him back toward the world he thought he'd already left.
The door opened.
Light spilled out onto the steps, and a man in a dark suit stepped through it — tall, exhausted, heavy bags under his eyes. His polished shoe landed just above David's head, close enough that David could feel the faint vibration through the ground.
"Thank you for your time," the man said, his tone polite but drained. "I won't take any more of your evening. Have a good night."
David glanced at the old man as the door closed — the director. Seeing him, something shifted. He didn't know why, but the presence of that familiar figure made the world feel a little less distant, as if his connection to it were growing stronger instead of fading.
Meanwhile, the man in the suit pulled out his phone and made a call. As it rang, he walked toward a black car silently parked on the street.
A strong voice answered.
"Did you find him?"
David turned his head toward the man, the words hitting him like a jolt. Hope flared — sharp, sudden, impossible to ignore.
The agent's face tightened.
"Sorry, Sir. He hasn't been seen at the orphanage for weeks."
A low hum of displeasure vibrated through the speaker.
"I see."
A pause. Long. Heavy.
Then:
"Like we saw on the footage… he's probably invisible now. Cameras won't pick him up anymore."
David's whole body shook — or tried to. Invisible. They knew. They weren't guessing. They weren't dismissing him. They were tracking him.
And for the first time since he began slipping out of the world, hope didn't just flicker.
It burned.
Seeing the man walk away, David tried to drag himself forward with his chin, but he had no strength left. With only his head still tangible, he couldn't do anything. The world was right there — and he couldn't reach it.
The agent continued speaking, voice low, professional.
"Well… it seems we won't be able to find him using regular means. You can leave and file your report. I'll assign someone else to look for him."
David felt a spark of warmth. They were still looking. They hadn't given up.
But then:
"If we still can't find him… we'll just file that he disappeared."
The words hit him like a plunge into ice.
Disappeared. Filed away. A line in a report. A name crossed out.
A life erased without anyone ever knowing he was still here.
Panic surged through him — not the frantic kind, but a deep, primal refusal. No. Not like this. Not now. Not when someone finally cared enough to look.
He watched the agent's silhouette move farther down the street, heading toward the car. Every step felt like a countdown. Every second, the distance grew.
If he didn't act now, he would lose everything. His chance. His voice. His existence.
Something inside him snapped into place — a desperate, furious will to live.
His chest tightened. His torso strained. And slowly, impossibly, the ground began to release him.
First his shoulders. Then his upper body. Then his arms — one, then the other — regaining weight, regaining presence, regaining reality.
He dragged himself forward, faster than he should have been able to, fueled by nothing but raw instinct and the terror of being forgotten.
Ahead of him, the agent lifted his phone again.
"Yes, Sir. I'll file the report tonight—"
David's hand shot out.
And he grabbed the man's leg.
The agent stumbled, caught off guard — but only for a heartbeat. Training took over instantly. He twisted away from the grip, dropped low, and rolled back to his feet in one smooth motion. One knee braced against the pavement, he steadied himself, hand hovering near his holster as his eyes swept the empty street.
His breathing sharpened. His posture tightened. He was ready for an attack.
But there was nothing. No assailant. No movement. Just the quiet street, the parked car… and the faint echo of his own pulse.
He scanned again, slower this time, confusion creeping into his expression.
Something had grabbed him. Something close. Something he couldn't see.
I really need to get back to training… stumbling on flat ground like that, he thought, embarrassed, glancing at the spot where he'd felt the grip.
A few steps away, the phone he'd dropped lay face‑down on the pavement, screen still lit, call still active.
"What happened?" the voice asked through the speaker.
The agent didn't answer immediately — he was still checking the shadows, still trying to understand what had touched him. He took a cautious step toward the phone.
"Nothing, Sir," he finally said, raising his voice slightly. "I just stumbled—"
A sharp interruption.
"Who are you?"
The agent froze mid‑step.
That wasn't for him. The tone was wrong — focused, probing, like the superior was addressing someone else entirely.
"Sir?" the agent tried. "It's me. I dropped the phone, that's all—"
A beat of silence.
Then the voice spoke again, calm and certain:
"I see. You're David."
The agent blinked, stunned. He hadn't said anything that could be mistaken for that. He hadn't even reached the phone yet.
But David — propping himself up above the phone, mouth still open from speaking — froze.
A tremor ran through him.
The superior wasn't talking to the agent.
He was talking to him.
Because through the phone… David's voice existed.
"You… you can hear me?" David whispered, the words trembling out of him like something fragile and impossible.
"I can hear you, David," the voice replied, steady and composed. "I presume you're not used to that."
David's whole body shook. Tears gathered instantly, blurring his vision.
"Young man…" the superior continued, tone softening.
David's entire being focused on that voice — the only anchor he had left in a world that kept slipping away from him.
"We can help you."
The words hit him like a tidal wave.
Tears spilled freely, rolling down his cheeks and dripping onto the pavement beneath him. His breath hitched, his throat tightened, and something inside him cracked open — something he had kept locked away for years.
He answered with a shaky voice that broke into a raw, desperate cry:
"Please, sir… help me!"