Hiroki lay sprawled out on his bed, staring at the ceiling, headphones in and music blaring. He’d cranked up the volume, trying to drown out the day—the weird, messed-up day he’d just had. For most people, the worst part of their day might’ve been flunking a math test or getting drenched by the rain. But no, Hiroki had to go and pick up a sarcastic, nightmare-fuel ghost.
“Hellooo… anyone home?” came a familiar, gravelly voice, cutting through his music. “Ignoring me won’t work, you know. I’ve got all the time in the world.”
Hiroki groaned, squeezing his eyes shut. “Great, now I’m hearing things. Perfect.”
“Oh, please,” Arkan replied, voice dripping with mock hurt. “I know you’re not that dense. Just accept it—I’m here, and I’m fabulous. Or are you the type who needs to be hit over the head with a neon sign?”
“Why are you even here?” Hiroki mumbled, rolling over and jamming a pillow over his face, as if that would somehow mute the voice in his head.
“Well, funny you ask, kid,” Arkan replied, with a touch of sarcasm. “I’m here because you need me. You got all that anger bottled up, just waiting to blow, and lucky for you, I specialize in that sort of thing.”
Hiroki took the pillow off his face, staring at the wall, eyes narrowed. “Right. So you’re some kind of… anger-management spirit? A rage therapist?”
Arkan’s laugh was low and amused. “Not exactly. More like… let’s call it a mutually beneficial partnership. I get to stick around, keep things interesting, and you get a little extra firepower when life tries to knock you down.”
“Great. So you’re my imaginary motivational coach now.” Hiroki rolled his eyes. “Just what I needed.”
“Imaginary?” Arkan scoffed. “You think your imagination can pull off sarcasm this well? Please, kid. I’m as real as you are. Just because you’ve spent half your life tuned out doesn’t mean I’m some figment.”
Hiroki sat up, running a hand through his hair, not really sure what to make of this voice that had been bugging him since the alley. “Okay, let’s say you’re real. Hypothetically. What exactly are you?”
“A Wraith,” Arkan said, his tone nonchalant, like he was explaining something obvious. “I thought we covered this. A spirit of emotion, specifically anger. You’ve got a lot of it, by the way. It’s practically pouring out of you, like some kind of broken faucet.”
Hiroki shook his head, trying to tune him out. “Nope, not real. Just a weird voice in my head that’s feeding off my social life, or lack thereof. Or maybe it’s some stress reaction. I mean, how am I supposed to believe you’re real?”
“Oh, come on. You really think you hallucinated me?” Arkan sounded genuinely offended. “You’re alone, sure, but this level of self-denial is just sad. Face it—I'm here, and I'm here to stay.”
“Right,” Hiroki muttered, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and grabbing his phone, checking the time just to have something to do. “You keep talking, and I’ll keep pretending this is all some elaborate figment of my imagination. Like… I don’t know. Like one of those old superhero origin stories. Just a delusion.”
“Aww, you want to play the hero?” Arkan laughed, low and mocking. “Trust me, kid, you’re about as far from a hero as they come. But that’s fine. Heroes are predictable. You, though? You’ve got a darkness in you. I’m just here to help channel it, keep it from turning you into a ticking time bomb.”
Hiroki raised an eyebrow. “Darkness? Listen, I might not be sunshine and rainbows, but you’re making me sound like some kind of… I don’t know, brooding anti-hero from a bad manga.”
“If the boot fits,” Arkan shot back, amused. “Besides, you need me. Without me, you’d be like a spark without a flame—full of potential, sure, but going nowhere.”
Hiroki couldn’t help it; he actually laughed at that. “A spark without a flame? That’s your pitch? That’s the best you’ve got?”
“Hey, I didn’t sign up for this to write inspirational quotes for your mirror,” Arkan replied, his tone dripping with disdain. “Look, all I’m saying is, you can pretend I’m not real all you want, but at some point, you’re going to realize that I’m the only one who gets you. Everyone else? They’ll see you as just another loner. But me? I see the anger you’re hiding. And it’s not going away just because you’d rather ignore it.”
Hiroki looked away, jaw clenched. The weird thing was, as much as he wanted to shake off the voice in his head, there was some truth to it. That feeling—like something boiling under his skin, waiting to burst—it had been there a long time, even if he’d always tried to bury it.
“Fine,” he said quietly, almost to himself. “So maybe I’m mad. But that doesn’t mean I need a creepy shadow ghost hanging around telling me about it.”
“Oh, but I’m not here to just tell you about it,” Arkan replied, voice softening, taking on a more persuasive tone. “I’m here to help. Imagine all that anger, all that power, actually working for you, not against you. Imagine what you could do if you stopped fighting it.”
Hiroki felt a shiver crawl down his spine, a strange thrill mixed with fear. But he shook his head, stubborn. “Nope. Sorry, ‘partner.’ I’m not interested in becoming some rage-fueled psycho. Go haunt someone else.”
“You’ll come around,” Arkan said, his tone so smug it practically oozed through the air. “Give it time, kid. You can try to ignore me, but I’m not going anywhere. And sooner or later, you’ll realize that you’re stronger with me around.”
Hiroki let out a slow breath, grabbing his headphones and slipping them back over his ears, blasting the music to drown out the voice. He didn’t care if Arkan was some figment of his mind or something real and supernatural. Either way, he wasn’t buying into this “power” nonsense. The last thing he needed was some annoying, sarcastic ghost making his life more complicated.
But as he closed his eyes and tried to block it all out, he could still feel it—Arkan’s presence, a faint but persistent hum in the back of his mind. And despite every effort to dismiss it, part of him couldn’t shake the feeling that something had fundamentally changed.
The school day had been a mess. Hiroki’s morning was filled with half-hearted lectures and the same monotonous faces, some of which seemed to go out of their way to annoy him. He’d spent most of the day in his usual state of trying to disappear, especially after the weird experience with that… thing in his head last night. It had stuck around, taunting him at odd moments, throwing out snarky comments whenever he tried to ignore it.
He could still hear Arkan’s faint voice, though he was trying his best to block it out as he packed up his things after the last bell. It was Friday, and all he wanted was to slip out, go home, and pretend he was just another bored teenager in a crowded city.
As he slung his bag over his shoulder and headed for the door, a faint but distinct sound stopped him in his tracks. It wasn’t the usual chatter of students in the hall; it was something darker—a low, eerie hum, like the static before a storm.
“What the…?” Hiroki muttered, glancing around.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
The hallway outside was mostly empty, but he could hear something coming from around the corner—a mixture of muffled screams, a strange crackling sound, and what sounded like snarling. He knew he should probably just walk away, but something about the sound pulled him forward, curiosity or maybe just plain irritation.
He turned the corner and froze.
A group of students were huddled against the wall, wide-eyed and shaking, as two shadowy, half-formed figures loomed over them. The figures twisted and coiled, their forms shifting between vaguely human shapes and something far more monstrous. Their eyes glowed with an unnatural, fiery intensity, and dark tendrils snaked out from their bodies, reaching toward the students with an almost predatory hunger.
Hiroki recognized a couple of the students—members of the so-called “popular” crowd who’d barely given him a second look all year. In fact, some of them had made it their personal mission to make his life difficult. He almost felt a twisted sense of satisfaction seeing them look so helpless.
Arkan’s voice suddenly echoed in his mind, dripping with amusement. “Well, well, looks like someone made some new friends.”
Hiroki’s heart raced, his instinct screaming at him to turn around and get out of there. He had no idea what he was looking at, let alone how he was supposed to deal with it. “What… what are those things?”
“Rogue Wraiths,” Arkan replied with a hint of impatience. “Not the brightest of the bunch, but when they merge like that, they become pretty nasty. A little cocktail of fear, anger, and chaos.”
Hiroki backed up a step, torn between the urge to bolt and the strange, inexplicable feeling that he should do something. But what could he do? He barely knew what a Wraith was, let alone how to handle two of them fused together and rampaging through his school.
One of the students, a guy from his math class who’d barely said a word to him all year, spotted Hiroki and shouted, “Hey! Help us! Don’t just stand there!”
Hiroki’s gut twisted. He didn’t owe these people anything. But the snarling, monstrous Wraiths were inching closer, their eyes locking onto the students with a hunger that was anything but human.
“Go on,” Arkan’s voice urged, almost coaxing. “You’ve got me, remember? I can give you just enough power to deal with these guys. All you have to do is trust me.”
“Trust you?” Hiroki whispered back, his voice thick with disbelief. “You’re the creepy ghost that hijacked my head. I barely know what you are.”
“Fine, don’t trust me,” Arkan replied with a mocking tone. “But if you don’t do something, those people are as good as Wraith fodder. Unless you want to sit back and enjoy the show.”
Hiroki gritted his teeth, feeling the familiar thrum of energy building up inside him, the same strange power he’d felt in the alley. He didn’t fully understand it, but part of him wanted to let it out, to see what would happen if he tapped into whatever Arkan was offering.
Just as he was on the verge of making a choice, a sudden blur of motion caught his eye. Three figures in dark, streamlined armor appeared out of nowhere, moving with a speed and precision that made his jaw drop. They were dressed head-to-toe in black, each one wearing a half-mask that covered their faces, leaving only their intense, focused eyes visible.
One of them raised a hand, and a glowing chain materialized from thin air, wrapping around the rogue Wraiths with an arcane glow. Another held out a dagger that seemed to pulse with its own eerie light, slicing through the air as if it were cutting through more than just shadow. Within seconds, the Wraiths were bound, contained, their forms flickering and dimming as the mysterious group worked their techniques.
Hiroki watched, completely stunned. These people weren’t just fighting—they were controlling the Wraiths, bending the shadows and energy around them with an ease he couldn’t comprehend. The students huddled against the wall stared too, just as bewildered, their eyes wide with fear and awe.
One of the figures—the leader, judging by the way the others deferred to him—glanced in Hiroki’s direction. Their eyes met, and Hiroki felt a jolt of recognition, though he couldn’t place why. The leader gave a slight nod, as if acknowledging something in Hiroki, before turning back to his team and issuing quiet orders.
In seconds, the rogue Wraiths were fully subdued, their shadowy forms collapsing into nothingness as the last of their energy dissipated. The mysterious figures vanished as quickly as they’d appeared, slipping away into the shadows, leaving no trace of the encounter.
Hiroki stood frozen, his mind reeling. He’d barely processed what he’d just seen when Arkan’s voice cut in, laced with smug satisfaction. “Told you you’re not the only one dealing with this stuff.”
“Who… who were they?” Hiroki whispered, still staring at the empty space where the Wraiths had been.
“Oh, just a friendly neighborhood group called the Crimson Hand,” Arkan replied with a chuckle. “They’re the ones who keep tabs on people like you—people who get tangled up with Wraiths.”
Hiroki’s pulse quickened. He didn’t like the idea of being “kept tabs on,” especially by people who could make rogue Wraiths vanish like they were nothing.
“So… what now?” Hiroki asked, mostly to himself, but he knew Arkan was listening.
“Now?” Arkan sounded amused. “Now you’ve caught their attention. Better get ready, kid. Your life just got a whole lot more complicated.”
Hiroki slipped through the school gates, trying to make himself as small and unnoticeable as possible. The last thing he needed was for someone to start asking questions about what he’d seen back there in the hallway. The image of those masked figures taking down the rogue Wraiths was burned into his mind, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t shake it.
And then there was that feeling. That prickling sense of being watched.
He hurried down the street, his footsteps echoing a bit too loudly in his own ears. He’d barely gone a block when he heard it again—the voice that had been haunting him since last night.
“Still shaken up, huh?” Arkan’s voice was laced with that familiar, mocking tone. “Not exactly your typical school drama.”
Hiroki gritted his teeth, keeping his eyes forward. “Shut up,” he muttered under his breath, hoping he didn’t look like a crazy person talking to himself on a busy street. “What the hell were those things back there?”
“Rogue Wraiths,” Arkan replied, his tone almost casual, as if he were talking about the weather. “Though, given how you handled it, I’m guessing that’s your first time seeing them.”
Hiroki’s brows furrowed. “I know they were Wraiths, okay? But what kind? Why were they here? This is a damn high school, not some haunted ruin.”
Arkan chuckled softly, a sound that somehow managed to echo inside Hiroki’s skull. “Think about it, kid. Schools are prime hunting grounds for rogue Wraiths. So many emotions all packed into one place—fear, anger, excitement, heartbreak. It’s like an all-you-can-eat buffet for them.”
Hiroki’s mind raced as he tried to piece together what Arkan was saying. “So, what… they’re attracted to strong emotions?”
“Bingo,” Arkan said, sounding almost proud. “Wraiths like those you saw? They start off just sniffing around, looking for someone to bond with. They’re not bad at first—just hungry, desperate. But when they can’t find anyone strong enough to handle them, they get… cranky.”
Hiroki thought back to the chaotic scene in the hallway. The way those shadowy figures had lunged and snarled, mindless and violent. “So if they don’t find someone to bond with, they just… lose it?”
“Exactly,” Arkan confirmed. “They feed off emotions, but they need someone to channel it. Without that bond, it’s like overloading a circuit—they burn out, turn into mindless beasts. But if they do bond with someone, they get sharper, more sentient. The stronger the bond, the more aware they become.”
Hiroki turned a corner, his mind still spinning with all this new information. “And what about you?” he asked, almost without thinking. “If I hadn’t… if we hadn’t bonded, would you have turned into one of those things too?”
For once, Arkan didn’t have an immediate comeback. The silence stretched between them, thick and uncomfortable. When Arkan finally spoke, his voice was quieter, almost contemplative. “Let’s just say I’ve been around long enough to know how to keep myself together. But you, Hiroki… you’re the one who needs to be careful.”
Hiroki frowned, confused. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Let’s just say you’re not exactly as stable as you think,” Arkan muttered, almost too quietly for Hiroki to catch. “You’ve got more power running through you than you realize, and it’s only a matter of time before someone else notices.”
Hiroki paused, leaning against a streetlamp as he tried to process everything Arkan was saying. “Like those masked guys?” he asked, remembering the way they’d handled the rogue Wraiths with a precision that had made it look easy. “Who the hell were they?”
“Crimson Hand,” Arkan said, his tone shifting to something more serious. “Or as I like to call them, the nosy neighborhood watch of the Wraith world. They keep tabs on anyone who gets tangled up with Wraiths, especially people like you.”
Hiroki’s stomach twisted. He didn’t like the sound of that. “So, what, they’re coming for me now?”
“Oh, they’ve already noticed you,” Arkan replied, almost sounding amused. “They’ve got eyes everywhere, kid. But you’ve got a choice. Either wait for them to track you down and drag you into their little club, or you get ahead of the game.”
Hiroki’s mind was racing, his heart pounding. “Why would I want to go looking for them? I don’t want any part of this.”
“Too late for that,” Arkan said, his voice turning serious. “You’ve already opened the door, and it’s not going to close just because you pretend it didn’t happen. Besides, if you’re not careful, they’ll just assume you’re another rogue to put down.”
The weight of those words settled on Hiroki’s shoulders like a heavy cloak. The idea of getting mixed up with some secret organization was the last thing he wanted. But if what Arkan said was true, then he was already on their radar, whether he liked it or not.
“And why are you so eager to push me toward them?” Hiroki asked, narrowing his eyes. “What’s in it for you?”
“Simple,” Arkan replied with a laugh that sent a shiver down Hiroki’s spine. “The stronger you get, the stronger our bond becomes. And trust me, kid, I’m not about to let you go rogue on me. That’d be a waste of perfectly good potential.”
Hiroki pushed off the streetlamp, shaking his head as he resumed walking. “Great. So I’m stuck with you whether I like it or not.”
“Like it or not, kid,” Arkan said, his voice fading into the background noise of the city, “this is your life now. Better get used to it. Now, are you gonna sit around waiting for the Crimson Hand to crash your party, or are you gonna take control of this mess before they decide for you?”
Hiroki clenched his fists, a mix of frustration and something else bubbling up inside him—something that almost felt like resolve. He didn’t know who these Crimson Hand people were or what they wanted, but one thing was clear: hiding wasn’t going to save him.
“Fine,” Hiroki muttered under his breath. “If they want me, they can have me. But I’m going to find them first.”
“Now that’s the spirit!” Arkan’s voice was practically gleeful. “Let’s see where this little adventure takes us, shall we?”
As Hiroki walked deeper into the city, the rain beginning to fall in heavier sheets, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d just made a decision that would change his life forever.