It was a normal day . People were getting ready in their respective homes to venture out in the world :adults to get to work ,children to schools, and youngsters, who just crossed their milestone to adulthood, were excited to do all the things that were forbidden just a day before. It is surprising, really, how many children become adults every single day—and how many of them have their pride quietly crushed the moment they take their first step into a world far harsher than anything they were prepared for. How, intelligence of schools vastly differs from that in colleges ,which could be said "controlled environment" but the world is unhinged and uncompromising. It can never be controlled and those who tried, always end up with the short end of the stick.
One such youngster was lying on his bed, completely oblivious to what he was missing out on , he was wearing only white shorts and hugging his pillow in a childlike grip, laying there with contented smile on his face like he had already conquered the world yesterday and there was nothing to be done after that, nothing to be achieved ,like he will never wake up .But alas, everyone has to keep moving. Even a king needs to 'run' his empire once he has won the world , moreover it is one of the fundamental rules that distinguish between living and the dead. But this young man, looked like as if he were drifting somewhere beyond life itself, lost in a dream too pleasant to leave behind.
As sun rose from the horizon its rays reached the slumbering young man through the window, causing his body to instinctively curl up and bury his head deeper in the pillow he was holding , after some time of silent deliberation and squirming , he finally decided to succumb to the day , raising up and straightening his bed sheets he went straight to his bathroom to freshen up. It was an important day for him after all , as he was going to confess his feelings to an important someone .
He scrubbed himself clean with the look of someone lost in memories , after bathing he went straight to his wardrobe in just his underwear and towel loosely hanging from his broad shoulders ,his body was lean , not sculpted but good to look at with faint creases of four square abs and fairly defined chest .
He stood there for a while choosing what to wear, going back and forth to the mirror holding clothes close to his body and pondering for the "perfect one" finally deciding to go with a gentleman look of black trousers and dark blue shirt with black shoes .He stood in front of the mirror admiring his underachieving handsome looks as he had never received any confessions before but he soon shook his head to get rid of that and focus on his current relationship. Which , he thinks will bloom into a beautiful and everlasting flower and he will make sure of it .
Hmm... not bad , not bad he thought to himself .
Will i finally get a girlfriend , just thinking of her made him giddy all over.
He finished his preparations which were just grabbing the gift he brought for her , two simple couple necklaces with a heart in the centre , they join to form a heart within a heart .
After taking one last look at his room he went outside locking the door behind him and straight to the parking lot .He hopped on his bike with the enthusiasm of a child who got his wish granted, full of excitement he drove towards his destination .
People were going about their usual work ,chatter between school going children ,clattering of shutters opening could be heard ,yet amidst all this a certain young man was driving his bike, cutting corners, skipping signal lights, ignoring all the shouts and curses thrown at him , he was in his own world completely engrossed in thinking about how he will propose to the girl he loves .
He manoeuvred his bike around a particularly sharp turn at the speed, he never drove before , then past a mini-van , overtaking a school bus without caring about anything. But just then, he heard a loud alarm blaring somewhere behind him .He frowned and turned only to see a police vehicle chasing him, his previously blissful expression immediately turned into a panicked one .
NO, no, no, i can't get late today , not today , he sped up even more in an attempt to lose the police car.
I need to get out of here, with that thought in mind, he quickly took a sharp right turn, only to enter in the wrong lane, now the vehicles coming toward him started blaring their horn, he swiftly turned right to avoid them and to reach the walkways, but the moment he saw ahead after turning ,he knew he was fucked, there was a truck coming toward him to close to do anything about it now , he was only seconds away from death .
Then, as if the world was shaming him of his life choices , time slowed ,everything around him became quiet , every vehicle, every person became slow and the world became monochrome, his life choices began flashing in front of his eyes, a strange, unnatural screen appeared before him—as if reality itself had fractured to display his life. his struggles as an orphan, his desire of a lazy life , his unequivocal nature toward new discoveries ,his adamant wish to test the limits of human sleep which lead to his admissions in medical universities just to access their libraries and eventually meeting his girlfriend who he was going to propose today, but now its all ruined, he knew he will collide with that truck and die .
For a brief, fleeting moment, he tried to deny it—to believe there was still a way out, that this was just another close call like all the others… NO,NO,no,his thoughts became a mess, his vision blurred, and before he could even understand what he was feeling, tears began to spill uncontrollably from his eyes as the weight of everything—everything he was about to lose—crashed down on him all at once. Just thinking about his girlfriend made him lose himself , his mind went into an overload. The thought of her—waiting, trusting him, completely unaware that he would never make it—was enough to shatter whatever composure he had left.
Then came his physical response , he screamed , he wailed but no sound could be heard only silent flickering of the screen in front of him . As more time passed ,his grief turned into anger and something darker. In a surge of blind fury, he lunged forward, as if he could tear the screen apart—but his body passed through it like it was never there and fell on the road, he turned and with an almost inhuman , feral ferocity he lunged towards the screen again, but nothing happened, his hand just passed through it , as his hope got crushed before the inevitability of death ,his fury slowly turned into despair and despair into emptiness . He fell to the ground trembling and a strange hollowness started to gnaw at his heart , like someone was clutching it in his hand , crushing it .
He was at the brink of complete breakdown when suddenly he felt a pull from behind and before he could do anything he vanished , the space around him bent and twisted forward then swallowed him like a giant maw devouring his food.