David barely remembered leaving the aid station.
Linda's voice wouldn't stop echoing in his head.
"I just don't care anymore."
What haunted him even more was the way she'd looked at him when she said it. No anger. No heartbreak. Nothing at all.
That emptiness hit harder than anything else.
He boarded the return truck in a daze, sitting among the bumps and dust like an empty shell without a soul.
The obsession that had driven him there and the faint flicker of hope had long been cruelly extinguished by reality, leaving only cold ashes.
Back in his shabby rental room, he locked himself inside, eating nothing, drinking nothing, just staring with open eyes at the stained ceiling.
Alcohol once again became his tool for escaping reality, but this time, even alcohol seemed to have lost it
