𝘾𝙧𝙖𝙯𝙚𝙙 𝙎𝙤𝙪𝙡 : 𝘌𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘍𝘰𝘳𝘨𝘰𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘎𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘧.

A golden light spilled over him, too bright too sharp, tracing the panic etched his face. His face twitched, breath came in ragged whispers, and shadows of his nightmare clung to the corners of the room, as if the morning itself had slipped into the terror behind his closed eyes. He woke up. He's eye widely darted staring at ceiling. He clutched his shirt suffocating to catch breath. His hands trembled as though the ache within his chest had found it's way to his fingers. Each moment stuttered, hesitant - like world itself resisted his touch. The candle beside him flickered, throwing shadows that swayed with his breath, and in that dim light, his eyes begged for something name less. A hug perhaps - warm, unearned, and undeserved. Something to remind him he still belonged somewhere. But room was quiet, cruelly. So, and silence felt like mockery of comfort. He pressed his palms against his chest as if he could stop the hollow from growing. There was no wound to tend, no blood, drop by drop, into the emptiness of the night. He sank to edge of bed, his fingers tracing invisible patterns across the worn sheets. The air in the room tasted faintly of dust and forgotten promises. Somewhere deep inside, a weight pressed against his chest - not heavy like grief, but subtle, persistent, like the memory of something he had never lived yet already mourned. He whispered into the darkness, though he knew no answer would come, "was it always meant to be like this?" The words dissolved into the room leaving the echo behind. A notebook that was laying on the floor, it's cover cracked, and corners bent, ignored for months. His hands itched to touch it, to write something, anything, but the oen felt like foreign thing in his grasp. He wanted to spell the ache onto page, to catch it before it consumed him entirely. But even the act of beginning felt impossible. He curled into himself, a trembling coil like skin and thought, and thought of a hug he had never received. He thought of hands that never soothe him and the sorrow that seemed to belong not to him, yet settled into his bones as if it had no other home. "I don't know. I don't understand. What is this foreign yet familiar wave of emotion? This is not mine." He mumbled to himself in hollow air. He finally reached for the notebook, fingers brushing the cracked cover like it might bite. The room seemed quieter somehow, though the weight on his chest had not lifted. He opened it and the first blank page stared back at him - unforgiving, expectant. Then, as if carried on some invisible breath, a thought came unbidden, foreign yet familiar: "You should have felt this before. You should have known." He froze. The words were not his own yet nestled into his mind as if they always had been. He wrote them down anyway, trembling, watching the ink spread across the page like shadow crawling over the wall. It was not confession, it was not memory. It was something else - an ache that had no name, a grief that had never lived, yet now seemed stitched into his very bone Minutes passed - or perhaps hours; time had loosened it's hold - and he wrote again, following the pull of unknown sorrow. The lines blurred, his handwriting jagged, as if ink itself was aware of the life it carried. With each word he wrote on paper, he felt himself sinking deeper, not into the notebook, but a world that haf long awaited him, a world that whispered: this is not yours, yet it will not let you go. He shook, trying to cast them into nothingness, yet the ache grew sharper, heavier, a weight pressing through his chest that thought himself empty. Night stretched into eternity; shadows leaned closer, patient and cold. Even the notebook once quiet companion, pulsed now, expectant, alive. The first time he wept for no reason, the tears were not his. Beneath them, a sorrow - foreign and familiar intertwined - bitter relentless, and without name. Every attempt to flee only wove it tighter, more tighter, more vivid, more consuming, until the line between self and sorrow blurred beyond recognition. He no longer dared ti meet his reflection. The eyes staring back were hollow, haunted by grief not entirely his own, he trembled at their depth, a stranger nestled within the hollows, whispering of tragedies he had never lived. By the evening's end, the ache had become a fire - slow consuming, inescapable. Each breath, each trembling heartbeat, belonged to another, stitched into his very bones. The tragedy he had tried to resist had already begun, and in resisting, he had surrendered completely. By the midnight had grown still, though he could feel the whispers curling inside him, coiling around his thoughts like smoke in the jar. He sat on the edge of the bed, fingers pressed to his temples, eyes fixed on the shadows that would not leave. He knew even then, that he was no longer entirely his own. The ache in his chest was no longer silent companion - it was voice, a presence, a sorrow stitched into the marrow of his bones. He wanted to scream, to throw himself into the night, but the words froze in his throat. And yet he could not move. He could not flee. The grief had claimed him, patiently, both terrified and intimate, as though he had finally touched something infinite and unknowable. His hands rested on the notebook. The blank page stared back, patient knowing, somewhere beneath silence, the whispers waited. Always waiting. He closed his eyes, perhaps tomorrow would bring light - or perhaps tomorrow would simply bring more shadows. Either way, he knew one truth with terrible clarity: he was lost.