Dytry had never been good enough. At least that's what he'd been told over and over. Girls didn't care about him. They never looked twice. It wasn't even funny anymore. He could hear their whispers in the hallways, their laughter as they walked past him, their cold indifference. High school had become a suffocating cage. Every day was a reminder that he was invisible.
He'd tried—tried so many times. Maybe if he dressed better, maybe if he smiled more, maybe if he said the right thing, they would notice him.
But they didn't. The last one, Melanie, had made him feel like he didn't even exist. Her laugh, the way she turned away from him so quickly, the way she walked off without a second glance. That was the breaking point.
It wasn't like he was evil. He wasn't. He wasn't some monster who needed to be feared. He just wanted someone to talk to. Someone to notice. But they never did. And the more they ignored him, the deeper it went. The anger. The hurt. The feeling that the world had just forgotten about him.
And then, he had an idea.
The girls at his school—those who had laughed, who had rejected him over and over—he would make them disappear. Not just disappear, but vanish. One by one. Quietly. No one would even know they were gone.
It would be subtle. Just like the way they'd acted around him. He didn't need to make a scene. He just needed them to stop existing. It was simple, really. No one would miss them, right?
It started slow. One girl, then another. At first, it was just a little thing. He would walk past them in the hallways and they'd look up at him, only to blink and move on. Just that small change, and Dytry felt a cold thrill in his chest. He could feel their presence fading.
Then, more girls. Day by day, he watched as the ones who had rejected him began to disappear. There was no one to question it, no one to care. His classmates didn't notice. Teachers didn't either. It was as if the world was quietly erasing them.
By the end of the week, the number of girls in his classes had dropped dramatically. No one asked why. Dytry sat alone at lunch, a twisted satisfaction twisting inside of him. It was like a game. A sick, cruel game. The rules were simple: rejection meant removal. If they didn't want him, they didn't deserve to exist.
But something started to change.
The disappearances got bigger. He could feel it now—their absence. It wasn't just a girl here and there; it was whole groups vanishing overnight. Their desks empty. Their spots in the hallways and cafeteria, vacated.
People didn't talk about it. It was like they'd never been there. Dytry didn't even have to do anything. The thought alone seemed to be enough. He'd think about a girl, and the next day, she'd be gone.
It was strange at first, almost like a dream. But as time passed, Dytry couldn't help but feel a creeping sense of unease. The more girls that vanished, the more wrong it felt. The silence in the hallways, the absence of their voices, began to weigh on him. At first, it was comforting, a quiet revenge. But now? Now, it was like something inside him was breaking apart.
One afternoon, Dytry walked through the halls, looking at the empty lockers, the vacant classrooms. He passed by the lunchroom and noticed a table full of girls had been replaced with a few scattered students. He froze.
A girl's name—Tina—popped into his head, the last one who had given him that dismissive smile. He thought about her vanishing.
But when he looked up, he saw her standing at the end of the hall, staring at him with hollow, empty eyes. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. Her face twisted, a silent scream trapped beneath her skin.
The other girls, the ones who had disappeared, stood behind her, their faces pale and distorted. They were all there, watching him, but they didn't speak. They didn't move.
Dytry's heart pounded. They weren't gone. They were still here. They were never gone. They had just been waiting. Watching. Waiting for him to understand.
He stumbled backward, his stomach twisting in terror. The faces, the ones he had imagined in his mind, twisted into grotesque shapes. There was no escaping them. They had always been there, following him, waiting for him to crack. And now he had.
He turned and ran, but the walls closed in on him. The faces followed. Every step he took, they followed. There was no escape. He could feel them closing in. The ones he had erased. The ones he had punished. They had been there all along, just waiting for their turn.
Dytry reached for the door, but when he tried to open it, the latch wouldn't move. Panic bubbled up. They were everywhere. He could hear their whispers now, voices that didn't belong to anyone. He pressed his hand against the door. It felt cold. So cold.
And then, the door opened.
A girl—Melanie—stepped into the hall. She was smiling.
And Dytry knew. He wasn't going to be erased this time.
The others were waiting. Waiting to take him.