"Why am I still here?"
I don't know how many times I've asked myself that question. It's the only thought that seems to stick. I can't stop asking it. I've been trapped in this prison, this endless void of existence, for so long that I am starting to forget the details of who I was.
All I remember clearly is the peak: a young man who finally achieved his dreams, recognized worldwide for a feat that everyone thought was impossible for him. The sheer joy he felt standing there, his hard work rewarded, the feeling of being on top of the world. And then... how it all collapsed the moment envy arrived.
My name is Fredrick Edmond. Or rather, it was.
I remember that much, of course. I was the son of a divorced home, the unwanted child of a bitter mother. I was a timid kid, which was expected, given my unusual upbringing. For most of my life, I was alone. I never learned how to form real connections, which permanently hurt my ability to interact and express myself later on. The only thing I liked to do, besides reading, was stare out my window and wonder: What would life be like if I hadn't been born into this home?
The answer was always the same: it would be different. Different could be anything. Positive or negative. I couldn't choose my parents, so who knows? There was always the possibility that it would have been much worse.
Maybe I should have been grateful. I had a roof, a mother—one who clearly didn't care about me, but a mother nonetheless. I had enough food and clothing. I was given every basic necessity a child needed. So, objectively, it wasn't that bad.
With time, I accepted this reality: this was my life. I moved on. I buried myself in books, doing what anyone with time and curiosity would do—I questioned the unknown.
For instance: Who came up with the concept of fate?
Someone must have woken up one morning, walked outside, looked at the sun, and decided: "Wait, what if every decision we make has already been decided?" Why? What made them think that way?
The answer I found was simple: They needed something to blame.
Everyone who feels they wasted their life, or who is stuck in a bad situation they can't change, wants a scapegoat. They need something they can hate and point fingers at for why they didn't become that other person, or why their life turned out this way despite everything they did to stop it. The idea that forces beyond your control set an inevitable direction for your life provides that perfect 'blame punching bag.' It lets them relieve that anger. It helped me, too, for the first part of my life.
But the truth is, there is no FATE, no DESTINY, and no KARMA.
Look at the world from the perspective of an animal in the jungle. Or humans in the stone age. Survival of the fittest is the only law. Some animals are born strong, born to be predators. Others are born small and vulnerable. Is that fate? Is a lion predetermined, or is it the result of two animals procreating to prevent extinction? It's the latter. That one person is beautiful and you are not is not because some entity tried harder on them; it just happened.
That's all there is to it.
But the 'time gurus' will argue. They talk about timelines and constant ties to the future that can't be changed. My response is simple: I call bullshit.
The FUTURE does not exist. Nothing exists outside the present moment, not even the past. The past is gone the moment it happens; all that remains are experience and memory. Nothing more. It is not some parallel reality you can chart with a time machine.
Even if we agree a future exists, a future is just a present moment that has not arrived yet. It has not happened, and it won't happen until it is here. Saying, "I am waiting for tomorrow to do this," means you'll do it... never. You write your future. Fate is just coincidence.
That was my core stance. I refused to believe my life was pre-written by some bored entity that scripted every single thing in existence. It makes no sense. Wouldn't a truly powerful entity just let creation run wild and observe? That seemed more sensible. I knew I would die satisfied with the life I lived and the decisions I chose, because a person becomes a memory in a single day.
My passion was to create stories that captivated the mind. Did I achieve that dream? Yes, I did. I won. The world knew my name.
But I died. And the dream is what killed me.
"You took everything from me, EVERYTHING!" That's what the lunatic screamed when I asked him why he pulled the trigger.
It was an exit. I won't lie; it didn't hurt too much, knowing I had accomplished the thing I always imagined when looking out that window. I won against the life I was given. I went from the timid kid dreaming of the impossible to the guy with the award, standing tall, telling life, 'You don't control me. I control me.'
It was one hell of a ride.
Yet, in that final moment, I had a single question: What comes next? It was the one unknown I never solved. Do we just cease to exist? Are we reborn through genetics? Could the supernatural actually be involved this time?
I still don't have an answer. Maybe I never will. The only things left now are my thoughts and the void. I feel my sense of self, my identity, starting to erode. Maybe this is the final stage of death.
Heh. Well, that was anti-climactic.
But there is one question I never asked in my life:
But, I guess i might never get an answer to it.
[A/N: This is entirely a work of fiction.]