The sound of a door closing, his slow, exhausted footsteps blending with the rain tapping against the window.
It had been a long day for the young man—another month of endless busyness, stretching all the way to this rare moment of comforting stillness.
He dropped into his soft chair, sinking into it with a heavy, drawn-out sigh. After a few quiet seconds, his gaze drifted to the window, mind slipping away as he watched the hazy streetlight spill a faint glow into the half-dark room.
He stayed like that for minutes he couldn't count…
until he finally pushed himself up, sluggish and unwilling to sleep just yet. He walked to his small bookshelf, eyes scanning the spines without focus, thinking of what to read.
While he was drifting like that, he noticed the notebook whose cover had caught his eye once—that notebook. The diary.
He picked it up, studying the beautiful cover with slow thought.
Did he have the mood for this…?
Was it fair to return to it now, after all this time…?
He pressed his lips together and dragged his feet back to the chair near the bookshelf, by the window.
He sat again, still undecided about reading.
A stranger…
A stranger in feeling and identity.
Why did he even care…?
Just a tragic story.
And yet…
Abandoned by everyone a thousand times, and now he was abandoning the notebook in the same way…
He let out a brief, sarcastic laugh, leaning back with a bit more ease.
He opened the notebook to the page he had last stopped at, setting it on his thigh for a moment as he lit a cigarette. His arm reached out to switch on the reading lamp, and his eyes returned to the paper—still marked with tears that had dried long ago.
It's a new year, and I still don't know a way out. I wish my reality were just a nightmare…
Maybe I'll wake up somewhere else. Or maybe in twenty years, and all of this will be nothing but a bad memory.
Well… I don't think that's possible.
My mother is leaving soon. One of our relatives is sick—he might die… I envy him, honestly. The luxury of leaving.
Anyway…
I'll be left alone with that deranged monster.
I don't want to stay. But my relatives scare me even more. They keep throwing strange jokes, asking stranger questions.
Maybe… maybe when my mother travels, he'll go to one of his mistresses and leave me alone…
God… the air itself feels gentle when he's not here. Just the sound of him walking near me makes my body tense. My stomach turns acidic, my head feels like it'll burst. I can't look at him. Not just out of fear—out of disgust.
I hate myself.
I hate that I hate the one who's supposed to be my refuge. My protection. My peace… not a nightmare I can't wake up from.
Why…?
Why me?
Why me and not one of my siblings? Not a stranger?
Who said I could endure this? Who said my body is made of steel?
I begged him until my voice broke. I begged him to leave me alone…
But he hates me.
So why doesn't he leave me?
Does he hate me that much?
What did I do?
16 / 11 / 2023
He exhaled a breath of smoke, lifting his head, the words carved into his mind along with the marks of tears that once blurred the ink.
Why didn't he run away…?
Was it because of his mother…?
Maybe.
He seemed so attached to her.
But… what kind of attachment keeps someone in this kind of torment…?
Did she not know…?
Or was she living something similar…?
Strange.
Truly strange.
That loneliness.
That constant terror…
He remembered the early pages—how he tried to keep writing, then suddenly would go silent for long stretches.
His handwriting back then was beautiful, almost like a painting…
He even had a talent for drawing.
The notebook cover itself was breathtaking…
Lost in these thoughts, he whispered to himself,
"How lonely he must've been…"
His own voice startled him, dragging him out of his thoughts as he realized he'd spoken aloud.
He drew in a slow breath from his cigarette as he flipped to another page, already accustomed to the half-organized thoughts—sometimes coherent, sometimes drifting into nonsense.
He kept reading at a steady, heavy pace, brows knitting one moment, jaw tightening the next.
He had siblings… but each one lived alone, far away.
He had no real friends—just a group he forced himself to blend into.
A strange family…
A violent, cheating father, and a mother as deaf as stone, knowing nothing.
And this stranger… too terrified to speak a word because of his father's constant threats.
"…haaah."
The young man exhaled the sound softly, pressing his fingers against his temple in exhaustion. For a moment, he remembered exactly why he'd lost the urge to finish this diary before. The situation was wretched—this abandoned person's life was utterly miserable…
He stared at the end of his cigarette for a few seconds, then lit another, eyes settling again on the page he'd paused at earlier.
Tomorrow my mother leaves…
I still have hope that he'll forget about me during her absence.
Maybe I'll have a chance?
18 / 11 / 2023
Escape? Or suicide?
Which one…?
What was he planning to do…?
There was no trusting his mental state after all this pressure.
He turned a page—blank.
Another—blank again.
And more… until he had passed several empty sheets.
A low hum escaped him when he reached that page, the one stained with dried blood—the page that had sparked his temporary curiosity.
He frowned.
That fast…?
But then he noticed the faint writing beneath the blood.
In the silence, only two sounds existed: the soft flutter of paper as he turned it, and the rain outside, falling in a rhythm that almost felt musical.
I didn't mean to, it wasn't me, there has to be some mistake, I swear I didn't mean to, I don't know what to do, I just don't know—why why why..?
He straightened in his seat, startled by the repetition of those fragmented, frantic words on a page whose edges were cracked and torn. The handwriting looked like a fevered hallucination—uneven, overlapping, smeared with the dried blood from the previous page and streaks of tears. Whoever wrote this had cried hard… desperately.
He didn't hurt himself…?
It didn't seem like it.
But wait…
Could it be…?
He swallowed hard and put out his cigarette abruptly, flipping to the next page.
Madness… I still can't believe it. I didn't mean to. I didn't want this.
I always wanted warmth… but not like this, not this momentary warmth, this wrong warmth. I didn't want it, I didn't mean it.
He noticed the trembling in his handwriting—by now, a familiar sign of how long he had been breaking—and the missing date.
When did this happen…?
And what exactly happened…?
He flipped the page with a deep frown.
It was the same again.
The stranger repeated the same pleas, the same apologies, over and over.
Ten pages… maybe thirteen?
On the fourteenth page:
He called my name.
In the middle of the night, he called me by a name I hadn't heard from him since childhood.
He called, and terror spread through my chest.
I didn't want to go downstairs, but he threatened to come up.
He was obviously drunk—angry, full of hatred… hatred for me, for my existence, one I never chose.
Mother was away in another town, and I didn't know any of my siblings' numbers.
I was walking to my own end, dragged to it, forced into it.
Either death… or something worse.
He stood in the kitchen, leaning against the counter.
Even then, I couldn't look at his face—his forgotten face, the same as everyone else's forgotten faces.
I didn't say anything.
I couldn't.
He threw the vase at me. Then pulled me toward him.
I don't want to say I got used to the beatings.
That would erase what little humanity I still own.
I couldn't bear it anymore—didn't want to spit blood again, didn't want another bruise I'd have to hide.
I only wanted one day… one day without fear, without heaviness, without the endless questions: Why me? Why not me? Why anyone?
He fell.
The knife didn't fall with him—it stayed in his chest.
He looked at me.
Not with regret.
Not with sadness.
Only anger.
He spat at me, tried to come closer, but… I was terrified.
If he lived…?
That same knife would carve through me next.
I had no other choice…
One stab.
Then another.
I stained everything—the floor, my hands, my own mind.
I didn't understand what had happened until a strange silence filled the room.
A silence I wasn't used to.
I flinched.
I wanted to scream.
Wanted to run.
But who would believe me?
Who would show mercy?
Who would understand?
I cried.
Not for him.
For what was coming.
For my mother's disappointment.
For my siblings' shock.
For the end I believed was now mine.
I sat the whole night without sleep, without even the ability to feel tired.
He didn't move.
He didn't return.
And then I remembered…
If anyone found out, that would be the end of me.
I don't know.
I tried writing, but his blood covered everything—just like it covered me.
I dug until my fingers bled.
I dug until I saw the distance of trees and the sky beyond.
I wished I had sealed myself inside that moment.
But… I didn't have the courage.
I think he's started decomposing now.
I cleaned.
Pretended nothing happened.
Locked myself in my room and wrote.
I couldn't keep myself together.
Mother came back and didn't ask anything.
I wanted to tell her everything—fall to my knees and beg for forgiveness.
But I didn't.
I didn't have the courage.
And somehow…
No one missed him.
Mother thinks he ran off with another woman, like always.
And me…?
I almost lost my mind.
But now…
I feel no guilt.
Not an ounce.
For the first time, I could breathe—deeply.
Cold air.
But that cold wasn't cruel.
It was gentle.
Didn't make me feel lonely or afraid.
The house is peaceful now.
I'm no longer waiting… bracing for whatever comes next.
I always wanted warmth… and I got it the wrong way.
Now even December's cold feels joyful.
So, like everyone else…
My father ran away with someone.
30 / 12 / 2023
The young man went silent.
He didn't close the diary, even though this was the last page.
He couldn't bring himself to.
Couldn't end it.
He covered his mouth, trying to hide the smile creeping up.
A laugh burst out of him—sharp, unexpected.
He stared at the page for a long time, absorbing the last line, a strange excitement humming in his chest.
His fingers trembled faintly as he searched for a name to commit to memory, something to anchor this stranger, but even the name—if it was one—was violently crossed out.
The stranger's signature at the bottom was scratched over too, but even beneath the lines, its beauty was unmistakable.
Steady.
Elegant.
The handwriting had returned to its original grace—just like the earliest pages.
"…Uncle Derek!"
The door swung open.
A little girl burst in, pulling him out of his drifting happiness.
He turned, lowering his hand, giving her a soft smile.
"Grandma said you should take me to the park!"
She clung to his arm, her dress and furry coat catching his eye, and he sighed lightly as he stood, indulging the girl's request, in an unusually good mood.
Only then did he realize—
It was morning.
He'd spent the whole night with the diary.
One last time, before leaving the room, he looked at the notebook resting on the chair where he'd sat.
Just once more.
Then he closed the door behind him.
....
The End~