Nine years have passed since Father died.
Six years since Sopia left and never returned.
Six years and six months since Mother died.
Time moves like water—flowing without caring who drowns in it.
I'm in tenth grade now. My body's taller, my voice is deeper, but inside, nothing's changed.
Empty.
Malik's house has never felt like home.
The air inside is always stagnant, like a room abandoned for months. The smell of cheap cigarettes clings to the walls, the clothes, even my hair. No matter how many times the windows are opened, the air refuses to move, as if it's rejecting the idea of leaving.
Every night, I fall asleep to the sound of a TV that's never turned off. The shouting from soap operas mixes with Malik's curses—thrown at the actors, at the air, at his own life.
Every morning, the same smell of frying oil—thick, black, unchanged for years—greets me from the kitchen.
I live.
I move.
But it feels like being an object placed from one corner to another simply because there's an empty space.
—–• ☽ ✦ ☾ •–—
School is even worse.
That day my steps felt heavy when I walked into the hallway.
Last night Malik banged on my door because he had a "nightmare." I don't know what he saw, but the impact on the door felt real.
Too real.
Maybe that's why this morning felt emptier than usual.
Or maybe because I was starting to realize that I… was truly alone.
I walked without lifting my head, focusing only on the small steps in front of me.
Until a voice cut through the air.
"Hey, Al-Fatih! Orphan robot!"
Rino.
And like a bad routine that repeats itself, Rio and Rian appeared behind him.
The hallway fell silent. Not because they were afraid of me—no, that never happened.
But because everyone knew something was about to happen.
Something always happened.
"You're freeloading now, huh?" Rino shoved me against the lockers. The metal rang loud. "Who'd want to take in trash like you?"
I stared at him.
No anger.
Not even exhaustion.
Just emptiness.
"Answer when someone talks to you," Rio grabbed my collar, but I only fixed it after he let go, never breaking eye contact.
Something stretched inside me.
Not emotion.
More like an old iron hinge creaking slowly—a tiny sound I had never heard before.
Rino slapped my cheek lightly.
Mockery.
"Robot," he said. "You're a useless robot whose life means nothing."
I bent down, picked up my bag.
And touched the Rubik's cube.
It felt different today.
Heavier.
As if old memories locked inside were starting to crack.
Rino scoffed. "Childish toy? Seriously?"
My hands moved.
Click. Click. Click.
Three seconds.
Done.
The hallway fell silent.
Everyone held their breath—for reasons none of them understood.
I threw the cube to the floor.
CRACK.
Its colors scattered everywhere.
Some pieces slid to Rino's feet.
Rio stepped back.
Rian lowered his head quickly, startled.
I stared at the shards.
The red that used to remind me of Father.
The blue that reminded me of Mother.
The green Sopia once showed me.
All shattered.
Standing among the fragments, I looked at them one by one.
"I used to be able to solve this," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "No matter how broken it was."
I picked up a small piece, cracked so badly the light made its lines look like scars.
"But some things… once broken, can never go back."
Rino swallowed hard.
Fear filled his eyes—too obvious.
Not fear of me.
Fear of something he couldn't understand.
I stepped forward.
One step.
Two steps.
Our foreheads nearly touched.
I could feel his breath shaking.
"You think I'm afraid of you?"
No threat.
No pressure.
Just truth.
And that was enough to freeze him in place.
Rio and Rian stood rigid, unsure of what to do.
I grabbed my bag and walked past them.
The hallway that was usually noisy now felt like a room suddenly deprived of oxygen.
—–• ☽ ✦ ☾ •–—
The school hours passed without taking shape.
I sat. Wrote. Listened.
But everything flowed like water that never touched the surface.
In my head, a single question whispered:
'What for?'
The same question that appeared every day.
But today… a little louder.
When the final bell rang, I didn't go straight home.
My feet took me to that park—the place where I first met Sopia.
The same tree.
The same bench.
The same sky.
But it all felt different.
I sat, opened my bag, and took out the Rubik's pieces I'd kept.
I tried to put them back together.
But they slipped from my hands.
Some were missing.
Some too bent to fit.
As if the world was showing me something in the harshest way possible.
I stared at the pieces.
No sadness.
No anger.
Just emptiness growing denser.
"I shouldn't have broken it," I murmured.
The wind blew, making the old tree sway softly.
The rustling leaves sounded like someone refusing to answer.
I lifted my head and stared at the orange sky.
That color used to mean something.
Someone once showed it to me.
Six years ago.
Six years waiting for someone who never returned.
"Maybe Sopia forgot," I whispered. "Maybe I'm just data to her."
A flower petal fell onto my lap.
Wilted.
Pale.
I closed my eyes.
'What am I still here for?'
'Why do I wake up every morning, repeating the same pattern, the same feeling, the same emptiness?'
No answer.
Only silence.
The emptiness felt like a hole long carved inside me.
And I began to think…
Maybe disappearing is easier.
Like Father.
Like Mother.
Like Sopia.
Disappearing into the void that's been calling my name for years.
—–• ☽ ✦ ☾ •–—
That night, I didn't go back to Malik's house.
I walked without purpose. My feet took me to the places I once passed—my old home, now empty; the old elementary school, shut down; the park, neglected and dying.
All of them felt like graveyards of memories.
I stopped in front of an old building—the one where I once saw a red light glowing from its window.
Tonight, it was dark.
No light.
No signs of life.
Just a stone structure slowly decaying, waiting for time to finish it off completely.
Like me.
I sat on the front steps. The cold stone seeped through my pants, but I didn't care.
The night sky was full of stars—thousands of tiny lights too far to reach.
"Dad," I whispered into the darkness. "Mom. Sopia."
The names felt strange on my tongue, like words from a language I'd forgotten.
"Are you somewhere out there?"
No answer.
Of course not.
The dead don't answer.
The ones who leave don't come back.
I stared at my hands—the hands Sopia once held, the hands Mother held, the hands Father carried when I was small.
Hands that now held nothing.
"I'm tired," I whispered. "I'm tired of pretending there's a reason to keep going."
The night wind grew colder, cutting through my thin jacket.
I closed my eyes.
And for the first time in my life…
I wished I wouldn't open them again.
—–• ☽ ✦ ☾ •–—
But I opened them.
Because I heard something.
Footsteps.
I turned.
And at the end of the street, beneath a flickering streetlamp, I saw a familiar figure.
Honey-colored hair, slightly longer.
A backpack covered in stickers.
Brown eyes that—even from here—I could still recognize.
Sopia.
She stood there, staring at me with an expression I couldn't read.
Surprise? Relief? Guilt?
Maybe all of them.
"Ziyan?" her voice was soft, almost carried away by the wind.
I didn't move.
Didn't stand. Didn't run.
Just sat there, staring at her like staring at a ghost.
A ghost from a past I should've let go.
"Ziyan," she stepped closer. "I… I came back."
The words hung in the cold night air.
Six years too late.
TO BE CONTINUED…