Red. Blue. Green. Yellow. Orange. White
.
The squared colors spun uselessly in Alphael's hands. His Rubik's Cube was a mess — like the test sheet on his desk.
C–. The mark glared at him in harsh crimson.
Not surprising. Passing by the skin of his teeth was tradition by now. But as laughter and smug chatter filled the classroom, the weight of his shoulders grew heavier than the grade itself. His throat dried. His chest
hollowed.
At least no one ever spoke to him. Silence was mercy.
He slid the paper and the puzzle into his bag and pushed through the school doors.
"I wonder how Mom will react to a C– instead of a D."
As if summoned, his phone buzzed. Caller ID: Mom.
Alphael sighed and answered.
"Sooo… how'd it go?!" her voice burst out, bright and unshaken.
"…C–. Same as always."
"Ah! I'm proud of you. You've been working so hard — we'll celebrate with a good dinner tonight."
He hung up soon after, stuffing the phone back into his pocket.
"…Right. Because a C– is something to celebrate."
Dragging his feet, Alphael let the date creep back into his mind. July 2nd.
The Binding.
Every six months, ten thousand people vanished. No bodies. No answers. Just gone.
Static filled the air. Strangers whispered it on the streets — half fear, half ritual. Morbid habit tugged at Alphael's fingers. Without thinking, he dug up an old video.
The footage was grainy, fifty years old. A mall crowd, laughing, living — until it happened. Roots and vines erupted from thin air, coiling like chains. Bones cracked. Screams ripped through the hall before the bodies were dragged into nothingness.
Silence.
Alphael muted the sound, jaw tight. He had always imagined people blinking away. But this… this was slower. Crueler.
Once, it was a tragedy. Now it was a number on the calendar. Nothing like this has ever been seen in the history of man.
Yet if it didn't affect anyone directly, why care? It was akin to a child learning about a creepypasta.
And Alphael, like everyone else, treated it the same way: with the dull apathy of indifference.
By then he had reached the park. His park.
An ancient tree dominated the center, bark scarred and roots sprawling like veins through the earth. Alphael always drifted here after bad days. Something about its vastness dulled the edge of failure.
And, as always, he wasn't alone.
On the far side sat a girl his age, green hair spilling like moss around her frail shoulders which were adorned by a white gown. Her face tilted toward the sun, her blind eyes unseeing.
Alphael lowered himself to the opposite side of the trunk. Their unspoken arrangement. Shared silence.
And yet… her smile, quiet and constant, made the world feel less sharp.
"Four years, and I still don't know her name. Am I really that afraid to ask?"
The thought slipped out of him before he noticed.
"Well, whenever you feel brave, I'll be here."
His body jolted. His head cracked against the bark.
"What?! I didn't—" He slapped a hand over his mouth, ears burning.
A giggle floated through the trunk.
Defeated, Alphael sank lower, hiding his face in his arm.
Above, the sun looked swollen. Too bright. Too warm. Like a dying star, flaring before collapse.
He pulled his puzzle from his bag and began to work on it, like he had done for as long as he could remember.
Each face shifted and changed continuously until Alphael had given up.
"How is it even worse than before?! At least in class the colours were arranged nicely!"
He shoved it back into his bag and closed his eyes. Another wasted day. Another half-failure. The summer breeze brushed through his untidy gray hair. And the blazer he wore around his hoodie acted as a soft blanket.
His failures were inevitable and foreseen but they still made his back heavy and his eyes sore.
All he could do now was wallow in self pity and then sleep crept in.
That's when the dream came.
Something touched his arm. He couldn't move. Couldn't open his eyes. The sensation coiled and multiplied, wrapping his limbs, tightening around his chest, his neck.
Crushing. Strangling.
It was excruciating, his body was collapsing into itself, like he was a piece of paper being crumpled up and thrown away.
His mind would follow next.
Then—cold.
Alphael gasped awake. White fog spilled from his lips.
And then he saw them.
People. More than he had ever seen in one place. Thousands. Tens of thousands. Suits, swimsuits, uniforms, costumes. All nations.
All ages. Every face was drawn in the same expression: confusion.
His stomach dropped.
"What the—" His voice cracked to silence.
The dream. The tree. The date.
The dots lined up too perfectly.
Alphael wasn't in the park anymore.
He had become part of the number he always ignored.
A statistic.