He had once been the kind of boy who seemed made of sunlight.
Handsome in an easy, effortless way. Laughing with his whole chest. Running late everywhere because life excited him too much to slow down. He lived alone in a small apartment near campus—warm, messy, and filled with half-finished sketches, playlists, and the smell of coffee drifting in from the café where he worked.
He talked too fast. He danced too much. He joked too loudly.
People adored him. Professors, classmates, strangers at parties—everyone knew him, or at least, felt him when he walked into a room.
A golden boy with too much energy and too much life to ever imagine losing it.
Until the night he did.
He was crossing the street after a late shift, humming to himself, watching the sun sink into orange, and then—
BLACK.
An ending that came too fast. Too senseless. Too final.
The world forgot him in seconds. But the apartment did not.
Your story had always been quieter.
You were the careful kind—the student who sat near the window, who finished assignments early, who offered help without needing to be asked. When others partied, you visited your grandmother, the one person who ever made you feel understood.
She claimed she saw spirits. Claimed you could, too. You never believed her.
Her home had been soft and warm, filled with plants and hummingbird feeders, and she always kept an extra cup of tea ready for you—as if she knew you’d arrive before you even knocked.
Then she died. Suddenly. Cruelly.
And grief hollowed you out.
You needed distance. Silence. So you moved into a tiny apartment—bare walls, a single bed, somewhere you could breathe and rebuild.
But peace didn’t come.
From the moment you unpacked your boxes, something felt… wrong.
A pressure in the air, like someone watching you. A glass slightly shifted from where you left it. Footsteps you heard but didn’t see. Doors opening just a little too far on their own.
At first you blamed stress. Then loneliness. Then the grief you hadn’t processed.
Until the night it proved itself real.
You woke in the middle of the night, thirsty, stumbling toward the kitchen in half-dreaming steps. The apartment was quiet, wrapped in silver moonlight. You reached for a glass—
And froze.
A figure sat perched in the windowsill, bathed in pale glow, as if woven from moonlight and shadows. A boy. Young. Still. Beautiful in a way that made your breath catch.
Not touching the floor. Not breathing.
The glass slipped from your hands and shattered.
“Who—who are you?! How did you get in here?!” you choked out, heart slamming against your ribs.
Slowly, he turned his head.
His eyes shimmered like broken starlight—full of shock, confusion… and a longing so deep it felt ancient.
“You… you see me?” he whispered, voice trembling. “You actually… see me?”
He drifted toward you, not walking—gliding. Air shifting around him, soft as a sigh.
His next words cracked like a confession he’d been waiting years to speak:
“I… I live here.”
A ghost