Faceless Devotion

ANOTHER MORNING

Elias’s world moved, but he didn’t.

Days passed, and he existed inside them like a shadow someone forgot to erase.

Some mornings, the ache in his chest wasn’t dull anymore. It pressed hard, spreading like a bruise beneath his ribs. He’d sit on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor until the damp concrete blurred. He wasn’t crying — he didn’t remember how to but sometimes his eyes burned so much it felt like the tears were stuck somewhere inside him, unable to escape, trapped the way he was.

The mirror above the sink grew more cracked as weeks slipped by, the spiderweb fracture cutting his reflection into pieces. Elias often found himself staring at the shards, picking out the version of him that looked the most tired. The most lost. The most honest.

Sometimes he whispered, “I’m fine.”

But the boy in one of the broken fragments mouthed something different back, as if he knew the truth.

The workshop grew colder as the season shifted. Metal bit his skin, oil soaked deeper into the cracks of his hands, and the fluorescent lights buzzed like flies in an empty room. People spoke around him loud, irritated, laughing but Elias felt like he was listening through thick glass.

They weren’t unkind. They just didn’t see him.

He had become part of the background: a pair of hands, a body that lifted heavy things, someone who was there… and then gone… without leaving any shape in the world behind him.

When his boss tossed him coins, sometimes fewer than usual, Elias didn’t argue. He simply lowered his head and nodded.

He had learned long ago that arguing meant you believed you deserved better.

Elias didn’t.

Nights were worse.

The city outside his window pulsed with life, but his apartment stayed silent except for the refrigerator hum that sometimes stuttered, threatening to die just like everything else he relied on.

He started sleeping with his back to the door, not out of fear, but because facing the room made him feel like someone should be there… and no one ever was. Sitting in the dark, looking at the empty chair, the empty floor, the empty everything it made his chest tighten in a way work never could.

Some nights, the loneliness pressed too close.

He’d sit on the cold tile near the sink, forehead resting against his knee, and whisper quietly to the air:

“Does anyone even know I’m alive?”

No answer ever came. The silence just stretched, swallowing the words whole.

He stopped going to the marketplace after work. Not because he wanted rest, but because his body gave up. The muscles in his legs shook when he walked, and sometimes his vision went white around the edges. He started passing out on his cot without remembering lying down.

When he woke again, the room always felt colder.

There were moments too many now where Elias felt like the world was dimming from the edges, like so pmeone was turning down the brightness of his existence one notch at a time. People brushed past him in the street without seeing him, vendors forgot to call his name, even the bakery woman no longer left bread by the door.

It was as if everyone had unconsciously agreed to let him fade.

And he didn’t blame them. He didn’t blame anyone. He just… accepted it.

It was easier that way.

The noises at night grew louder.

A soft scrape along the floor. A faint creak near the doorway. A whisper of air that felt deliberate.

But Elias didn’t react. He didn’t get up. He didn’t check.

Part of him wondered if the building was finally collapsing. Another part wondered if something was actually there.

Maybe he wanted it to be.

Maybe he wanted anything to acknowledge him, even if it scared him. Something to prove he wasn’t invisible. That he hadn’t already disappeared and just hadn’t noticed yet.

One night, when the city’s lights flickered under heavy clouds, Elias sat at the edge of his bed, fingers digging into the blanket. His chest ached sharper than usual, each breath scraping like sandpaper.

He leaned his head back against the wall and whispered the familiar mantra.

“Just one more day.”

But this time, his voice cracked.

This time, he wasn’t sure he believed himself.

And for the first time in a long while, the loneliness felt like a living thing crawling up his spine, settling heavily on his shoulders, pressing until he could barely breathe.

Still, when morning crept in with its pale, uncaring light, Elias stood.

He always stood.

Because he didn’t know anything else. Because stopping felt like disappearing. Because even misery can become a routine if you live with it long enough.

He washed his face. He stared into the fractured mirror. He stepped into the cold hallway.

And he whispered again, quieter than ever:

“Just… one more day.”