In a dystopian Thailand, Ming is a haunted young man whose life has been shaped by a near-death encounter with an enigmatic figure from his past. As he enters a new chapter at Bangkok University, he's drawn into the unsettling world of Professor Joe...
The city of Bangkok was caught in a haze of destruction. The year 2000 had brought a strange mix of progress and despair, with the once-bustling streets now scattered with debris, the remnants of a recent blast that had torn through the heart of the city. The air was thick with smoke, dust billowing up into the sky, and the streets were filled with chaos. People screamed, others ran, but among them, a five-year-old boy named Ming lay crushed under the wreckage of a food cart, struggling for breath.
His chest tightened, and the world around him blurred as the life drained from his small body. Fear gripped him—he knew he was dying. The streets were silent now, only the soft moan of the wind and the distant sound of sirens could be heard. But then, through the thick haze of dust, he saw something.
A figure.
A tall silhouette, moving through the smoke like a shadow. Ming’s heart skipped a beat. His vision swam as the figure grew closer, its presence unmistakable—a being that seemed to belong to neither the world of the living nor the dead. The air felt colder with each step it took, and a strange, overwhelming feeling of dread washed over him.
He couldn’t tell if it was human, god, fairy, or demon—it was something beyond what his young mind could comprehend. But there was no mistaking the chill that followed in its wake, the heavy, suffocating sense of finality that filled the air.
Ming lay there, paralyzed, his wide eyes locked on the approaching figure. The stranger’s face was obscured by shadows, the hood of his cloak casting everything in darkness. As the figure knelt beside him, Ming’s heart seemed to stop. It was here, Death, in some form. And yet, despite the terror that gripped him, there was something else—something he couldn’t explain.
The figure reached down, its hand hovering just above his face, cold as ice, yet not touching. It was as if it were weighing the decision, a momentary pause before the inevitable.
But then, as if the being had made up its mind, it whispered softly, its voice like the rustling of dry leaves, "Not yet."
The words were enough to stop his racing heart, enough to make him feel as though time itself had frozen. The figure withdrew its hand and stood, turning away without a word. Before Ming could fully process what had just happened, the figure melted into the smoke, vanishing as quickly as it had appeared.
And then, the sound of rescuers—voices, footsteps—drew near, pulling him from the wreckage and away from the impossible. He survived. But as he lay there, staring up at the sky, he felt a deep, gnawing confusion. He hadn’t seen its face—only a vague shape, like a shadow that could never be fully grasped. Was it a man? Was it something else?
The days that followed blurred in a haze of pain and confusion, but the nightmares began almost immediately. Every night, without fail, Ming would wake in terror, drenched in sweat. In his dreams, he would see the figure again—tall, dark, and ominous—but its face was always shrouded, never visible, always just out of reach.
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He didn’t know what it was, or why it had spared him, but he could feel it watching him, waiting, every time he closed his eyes. The nightmares never stopped. The figure, forever vague, forever elusive, haunted him in the silence of the night. And no matter how hard he tried to forget, the sense of dread, the coldness of the unknown presence, lingered.
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Scene 2: Bangkok University – 2020
Two decades had passed since that fateful night, but Bangkok had changed little. The city now stretched into a vast metropolis, its gleaming glass towers cutting through the sky like cold, metallic fingers. Among them stood Bangkok University, an imposing thirty-story building with a curving, serpentine design that seemed to twist and stretch endlessly. The university’s maze-like halls often disoriented students, and the vast library nearby felt as though it contained an entire world of secrets waiting to be uncovered.
It was the start of the new academic year, and as students poured into the university’s vast courtyard, mingling and finding their way to their classrooms, one figure stood apart from the rest—a young man in a dark hoodie, moving with quiet detachment. His eyes, though seemingly focused on the ground before him, were distant, as if his thoughts were far from this world.
Ming had returned to this place, this city that had once witnessed his encounter with something beyond explanation. Now twenty-five years old, he had become a stranger to himself, haunted by his memories, the shadow of that night ever-present in his mind. The figure he had seen, or imagined, all those years ago—he could still feel it. The chill, the shadow, the cold presence that hovered near him in his dreams. He still didn’t know what it had been, and the uncertainty gnawed at him.
As he walked through the halls of Bangkok University, the cold weight of his past seemed to follow him, invisible but ever near. Students glanced at him, but none truly saw him, and that was how Ming preferred it. He wasn’t here to be noticed; he was here to bury the past, or at least to try.
The nightmares continued, but the face of the figure remained hidden, a phantom that could never fully be understood. Would he ever learn who—or what—it was that had come for him all those years ago? Or was it destined to remain a vague, chilling mystery, lingering at the edges of his mind for the rest of his life?
Authors Note:
"What do you think Joe is hiding? Let me know your theories in the comments below!"
