One of the most feared men on earth had blatantly shown himself standing right beside a corpse. The photo had been sent online to antagonize the world. Others were too disgusted and squeamish to see what Sammuel saw.

A man in his twenties reached out for his mouse and enhanced the photo on his monitor. He didn’t see wrong. Even as the photo made him uncomfortable, he pushed on. “Sadin, you’ve made a mistake.”

After finishing up he sighed. Even the most wanted people eventually make mistakes. Though, it wasn’t easy to punish minuscule mistakes. If not for this young man’s perceptive eyes, he wouldn’t have seen it.

Walking outside his room, he was faced with his empty apartment. Except for a small plastic table and chair, it was empty. Going to the kitchen, he cooked himself a small meal that only took ten minutes to prepare.

Just another day in his life.

“It’s time for work.” Sammuel sluggishly pushed himself to walk 30 minutes to get to the convenience store where he worked as a cashier. He changed his attire to the store’s uniform and dully waited for customers to arrive.

Hours passed by, and everyone coming in had become faceless to him. He accommodated the rude customers and those whom he couldn’t calm down, he could only accept verbal abuse. It was a demoralizing job but it was one that paid the bills.

“Luckily, Elias made the economy a whole lot better.”

Thinking about the richest humanitarian on earth, Sammuel held great respect for the man. Using his own wealth to better society on all levels. If not for his intervention, it would’ve been difficult to survive now.

His political power was great, he proposed laws and plans to reduce corruption within the government. Despite not being officially in the government, his words were treated as such. It had come to the point that the population had blind faith in him. Those politicians who even showed any slight rejection of his ideas were immediately prosecuted.

The world is going to a better place with him leading the charge. It would’ve nearly been a utopia if not for a certain person.

Sadin, the same person who had publicly shown himself with a corpse by his side. A wide sadistic grin appeared on his face as he taunted the very world. This person was vehemently against Elias. Others only see Sadin as a complete maniac that only has brute force in his mind.

Sammuel saw otherwise, this lunatic was a complete monster. Escaping Elias’ grasp was nearly impossible to escape in this world yet Sadin had managed to do so. Sadin might have an extremely odd personality but he wasn’t an idiot.

If Sammuel had to give his take, Sadin was a person who acted based on his emotions. Making his actions look erratic from an outsider's point of view.

As Sammuel was pondering about the current state of the world, he overheard two friends talking about some rumors. They seemed to be in college.

“Did you hear? People have been disappearing. It’s so weird.”

“Woah, really? How many people have disappeared so far?”

“Like… a hundred.”

The other friend smacked him on the head. “What are you talking about? Even more people go missing by the day. Even Elias can’t do anything about that.”

“No, listen, I’ve heard about it online. It’s called the Warp Phenomena. One day they were minding their own business but suddenly they disappeared.” He placed the snacks and drinks on the counter. Sammuel tallied the total and received the appropriate payment.

“You’re online too much. That doesn’t make any sense.”

Those two people left with a plastic bag filled with all the items they purchased. After those two, a girl came up. It was the person that was going to take his place for the time being. Sammuel quickly changed his clothes.

She had dark bags under her eyes and was completely depressed. Sammuel saw that she didn’t want to be interrupted. Her pale skin showed that she had been struggling to get proper nutrition and sunlight.

Yet even with such an obvious social cue, Sammuel didn’t feel right letting this be. “If you want, I can take your shift for you. You can head back home and sleep it off.”

“Who are you? My Mom? Go away already.” She scoffed. Muttering under her breath as Sammuel left, “Disgusting. Like everyone is.”

He headed back home. The interaction with that girl had only been getting worse and worse but Sammuel didn’t take it to heart. She was struggling and he could see that.

Sammuel pondered about what those two customers were talking about. The Warp Phenomena. It was nothing more than a theory propagated by the imagination of the internet. This should’ve just been nothing but a conspiracy theory but Sammuel couldn’t help but notice something else.

Looking through the other conspiracy theories, Sammuel could easily pinpoint a flaw in their theory but with the Warp Phenomena, Sammuel had an odd suspicion about it. Taking a look at it at face value, there was nothing there at all.

But Sammuel wasn’t the kind of person to not think things through. He chose to take a look at the current victims of this so-called Warp Phenomena. There initially weren’t any patterns when taking a look at their profiles.

An old man who was nearing the end of his life was taken by the Warp Phenomena. In the same vein, an honor student in a very prestigious school had also disappeared. There was even a child in an orphanage who had been taken by this strange power. Sammuel couldn’t understand just what kind of pattern could ever emerge from this.

“There’s nothing obvious here but there has to be something. My instincts are screaming at me that there’s something here.” Sammuel continued exploring the internet even more to understand the hidden pattern.

“What if instead of looking at it this way… I try to find the underlying pattern?” Sammuel faced the three cases he had seen. “The old man’s nearing his life, he’s only waiting for death to claim his life. The honor student seemed to be extremely happy but my research shows that her parents are extremely strict. They always paraded their child’s perfect grades but the most recent timeframe showed that they didn’t post anything. As for the kid in the orphanage… I don’t even need to say it.”

“The theory is that they want to leave the world. That’s the only thing that makes sense so far.”

Sammuel had decided that this was enough work for today. He slept soundly and woke up to see the news finally come out.

“Breaking news, Sadin, the worst terrorist of the current era has finally been apprehended. Through some savvy detectives, Elias had been given a hint that eventually led to his arrest. So Sadin, any comment?” The news anchor actually managed to get an interview with Sadin.

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“I didn’t know someone like me existed out there.” Sadin snickered. He didn’t seem angry at all, or rather, it didn’t seem like he could. His body had been completely restrained and his mouth blocked. The only way they could communicate was through interpreting his brain waves as words.

“I’d love to meet the guy that sent me here.” Sadin closed his eyes and refused to answer any further. “Too bad I’d never get the chance to.”

Sammuel immediately ignored the news, he had done what he needed to do.

Sammuel went on a famous public forum and posted his research under his alias. He went in depth of everything that he had found so far. The first comments were all telling him he wasted his time on such an irrelevant conspiracy theory.

As expected, it wouldn’t have gotten any serious discussion for the time being. That is until a certain person commented.

“I’ll take a further look into it.” It was a very simple sentence, even inconsequential but it mattered solely because of the person who had just commented. It was Elias’ account. The very same person who held so much power in the world that he could essentially do anything he wanted.

Despite being such a prominent figure, he was willing to go and bring himself to interact with the masses. This further solidified everyone’s favor to him. He was already making so many positive changes to the world that people wouldn’t have minded for him to single-handedly rule the world.

With Elias’ comment, this suddenly surged in popularity, even to the point of making news. Sammuel had received countless private messages speaking to him in hopes of getting his thoughts but he vehemently rejected everything.

Except for one singular message, it had come from Elias himself. “Do you want a job? I’m quite impressed with your work.”

“I don’t think my Warp Phenomena theory deserves such praise.”

“It is an interesting piece of work but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about your help in apprehending Sadin.”

Sammuel’s felt his heart drop. He had made sure to not leave any traces, he was sure of it. He wasn’t going to get bluffed like this.

“I’d love to take credit but it wasn’t me.”

“Don’t bother hiding it. It took me a lot of manpower to scour the internet for any possible related works like the one you sent me. I’m not after you like what Sadin said. I need a person of your talent in my team. Are you interested?”

Such an opportunity from a dead-end job was extremely appealing for any normal person but Sammuel wasn’t completely normal. His current lifestyle was enough for him. Taking his skills on a grander stage wasn’t appealing to him.

“I’d rather not. I only did it because it interested me.” Sammuel needed to get Elias’ eyes off of him.

“Then I won’t push you. The offer stands for as long as I’m alive.” Elias said his piece and no longer continued. Sammuel never felt so pressured before. It made him stay in bed the rest of the day. Luckily, he didn’t have a shift for the day.

The following day, Sammuel continued building his Warp Phenomena theory and managed to unfold a few more cases that aligned with his theory. He didn’t selectively choose the cases but instead worked on anything that came up. With the rising popularity of the post, Sammuel managed to gain a lot of help from the community.

Sammuel finished up and went to his part-time job. Filling in his spot for the day, he waited for the girl to come up once again. He waited for around thirty minutes but she still didn’t seem to have shown herself.

Sammuel started to get worried. If she was going to take a break then she would’ve sent a text to their manager by now. He waited for another thirty minutes but she still hadn’t arrived. Sammuel talked to their manager and called her.

Sensing something odd, Sammuel’s head had been filled with the Warp Phenomena theory. He excused himself and went to his colleague’s home. Taking the bus, to a nearby apartment complex, Sammuel entered it. He rushed up to her exact apartment, B24.

He knocked on the door but there wasn’t any response from inside. Feeling something terrible had happened, Sammuel ran back down, talking to the owner of the building and explaining the situation. He was initially suspicious but after hearing that she had been acting strange, he quickly acted.

Bringing his master key, he opened up the apartment door. The door was still locked and a padlock was still visible from the outside. Sammuel didn’t like making matters more complicated than they were. He had no other choice but to bring out his lockpicking skills to use.

The owner was a little surprised that Sammuel was actually skilled enough to unlock the padlock with relative ease. Entering the messy apartment, they could see it completely filled with trash. Countless takeout food and stained clothes filled the floor. It was difficult to take a step inside without hitting something.

The stench inside was completely offensive. Sammuel had to bring his shirt up to cover his nose. Such living conditions were terrible.

The owner pointed at where the bedroom was and they went there. After kicking away a few items on the floor, Sammuel finally reached the door. He didn’t smell any blood coming out of the door but it could’ve been overwhelmed by everything else.

He gritted his teeth and opened the door. To their surprise, the door was completely empty. There wasn’t anyone here at all. Sammuel looked around the room and didn’t see her.

“Is there any other way to leave the apartment?” Sammuel had desperately hoped for the owner of this building to say yes.

“There isn’t. Yeah, now that you mention it, it’s really weird that the door’s been locked from the inside.”

“Warp Phenomena.” Sammuel rubbed his eyes, for this to suddenly happen to someone he knew, it was quite a terrible feeling. It had only been strangers before but now, it had affected him.

The worst part of this is that… this further gives even more solid evidence to my Warp Phenomena theory. Sammuel felt wrong. Wrong that he was going to use this scenario to improve his theory.

“Yeah… that one that’s been on the news, right? Even Elias gave it some credit. I’ll go call the cops.” The owner started dialing on his phone.

Sammuel had to wait until the cops arrived. He waited in the doorway. A few other residents asked around what happened but Sammuel didn’t feel like answering it. As such, the owner was the one who answered them.

For things to become so personal, Sammuel didn’t expect it to come to this point. He knew that her coworker had been struggling but he wasn’t close enough to be considered as her friend. Other than a few exchanges here and there they never really spoke.

Now that she had disappeared, he didn’t exactly know where she went. All he knew was that she wasn’t coming back.

Sammuel’s mind slowed down. It was a terrible day for him.

Attachments were what hit Sammuel the most. No matter how insignificant.

In the following days, he had put his mind off it, the troubles that came along with her disappearance were tragically barely anything. Her slot had simply been replaced with another young man earning to fund his own education. No one even bothered to mourn for her.

Sammuel could’ve stuck his nose into learning more about her but he had decided against it. Tragedies like these weren’t something he had any power over. Instead of trying to go out of his way to understand everything, he just closed his eyes and looked over it.

Entering the park, he felt the burden of these past few days slowly ease up. A new place to think and relax. Seeing people casually walk and jog without any worries about the world eased him.

Sammuel sat on the bench without anything but his thoughts. He mindlessly watched the environment around him and sighed. It was relaxing.

Standing up, he had decided that it was enough time to gather his thoughts.

“Yeah, that’s it.” Sammuel had made his decision.

He left the park and walked over to the bus station. Traveling for a little while, he dropped off on the entrance of a mountain. He brought his phone and a small bag. Walking up to the very peak, he had trouble due to his athletic body. Once he reached the top, he watched over the sunset.

Opening the small bag he brought, it contained the girl’s work clothes. He had no other memorabilia for her other than this. Her room had nearly all broken items, nothing was worth burying.

Digging out a small hole, Sammuel placed her clothes inside and covered them up. He took out a relatively large piece of stone and placed it on top of her grave. He didn’t know whether her parents or relatives cared enough to look after her but he wanted to do this.

Sitting down on a tree stump he started to converse with her grave.

“Other than your name, I don’t know anything else about you.” Sammuel watched on the sunset by her side. “But that doesn’t mean you need to die alone.”

Sammuel lightly giggled to himself. “I don’t even know if you’re alive or not. You just disappeared. Even if you didn’t leave an impact in the world, you did leave me with something.”

Taking out his phone, he sent a text to Elias. This was the finalized bit of information he finally understood from her disappearance. The Warp Phenomena was finalized. “This is the last time you’ll be hearing from me. I’m going to live my own life now.”

Sammuel turned his phone off and threw it over the cliff. He had made his decision.

“I’ve managed to get a psychopath locked behind bars, that’s enough of a legacy for me. This might be the worst mistake of my life but… , I’ve always wanted to see a world beyond this one. A place where I could live as I wanted.”

Sammuel looked above him, and a small magical circle suddenly appeared, conjuring some kind of power. He shook his head. “First try, huh? I don’t know where it’s going to send me but it’s going to be a journey for sure.”