"So this is how it ends..." the boy said.
He slipped his head through the rope one he had tested to be sturdy and slowly pulled it taut. Today was supposed to be his eighteenth birthday, yet there was nothing worth celebrating. Not that there was anyone left to celebrate with him, anyway.
He had made many mistakes in his life, but even so, he had never stopped chasing his dreams. He was supposed to be a filmmaker whose movies would shake the box office, a director known around the world. Instead, the few short films he had made were barely taken seriously by anyone.
Was he untalented, or merely unlucky? No one could say. What mattered was that he had failed and his failure had come with a price. He had gone into debt, buying expensive equipment, clinging to his dreams and a little too much faith in his luck.
His relationship with his family had been broken for years, and his pride wouldn't let him ask for their help. Nor did he have any friends rich enough or loyal enough to lend him that kind of money.
His girlfriend left him as soon as she learned he was in debt and that his films were flops. He had dreamed of a life where even the most famous actresses would be drawn to him, but he couldn't even hold on to a single ordinary woman.
These things hurt him, angered him, but none of them alone was reason enough to put his neck in a noose.
The real reason was disappointment. He remembered that pure happiness from when he was five or six, the dreams he used to have about the future, how he would grow up and live an extraordinary life. Never had he imagined that adulthood would be so... gray.
Rent, bills, basic needs, social stagnation, the inability to please a lover, the lack of recognition, and worst of all the agony of never fulfilling a dream. There is no word more perfect to describe all that than disappointment.
He swallowed hard. His head was spinning, his heart pounding furiously. That primal survival instinct found in every living creature fought desperately to reclaim control.
But his disappointment was stronger.
He knew from experience that the longer he waited, the harder it would become. So he took a deep breath and kicked the stool from under his feet.
The sounds followed the thud of wood hitting the floor. No human conscience could bear the gasps, chokes and struggles that followed.
Then came silence. Absolute, suffocating silence.
After a while, the rope loosened, the ceiling groaned and the boy's body went still.
Time lost all meaning after that. Had it been minutes? Hours? No one could tell.
Not that it mattered. His soul had already left this world. There would be no coming back.
In that place where time had no meaning, even silence echoed. He no longer breathed, nor felt his heart's pulse, yet somehow, something of him still existed.
He drifted through an endless void not dark, not light. If there were a color, that could not be described, this place was that color. Neither warm nor cold. Neither pain nor peace. Only... nothingness.
"Was this... how it was supposed to be?" he wondered, though he no longer had a mouth. "So... that's it? That's all?"
There was no one to answer. And yet, it felt as though the universe itself whispered back silence. Endless, absolute silence.
His mind was unraveling, memories scattering like grains of sand, his identity dissolving into the void. And yet, a few fragments resisted.
A laugh.
A tear.
A birthday cake, its candles never lit.
And one final thought:
"If only... I had one more chance."
And then, something stirred. The void rippled like the rings of water from a falling stone. Time folded once more upon itself. That single wish echoed through the depths of existence, a spark flickering in the infinite.
Then came a sound, or rather, the idea of one. Not a voice, but a vibration in the silence, a thought made audible:
"Your wish has been granted."
A chill spread through him like feeling one's bones freeze in a place where no bones existed. His soul was being pulled, drawn by some invisible hand. Darkness gave way to blinding light.
And then a rhythm.
A heartbeat.
Slow, heavy, alien.
He breathed again. Air-filled lungs that were not his own. That breath was not his breath.
He tried to open his eyes but couldn't. He tried to move but failed. Time itself began to take shape again.
The rhythm quickened. Somewhere, in a body that was not his, blood was flowing, muscles contracting, life beginning to take form. He was inside, yet somehow outside of it.
At first, he couldn't comprehend. There were no sounds, only vibrations. No darkness, but a faint dance of shadow and light like sunlight through a thin curtain.
Gradually, he realised that these patterns formed a coherent whole. His new brain was beginning to function. But it was not the brain he knew. It was slow, raw and unrefined. His thoughts emerged muddy, shapeless and sluggish.
"Where... am I?"
"This isn't my body."
Even forming a sentence was a struggle. Each thought felt like a rebellion. Words collapsed before they could take shape. Meaning dissolved.
Then he heard the sound of not one, but two hearts beating. One strong and deep. The other small, irregular.
The smaller one was his. The larger... belonged to the one carrying him.
"This... is a womb?"
Fear gave way to disbelief. He tried to think, to analyze, but the brain resisted. Then it hit him: his consciousness was too slow, too young. He was a grown mind trapped in an infant's brain.
He tried to scream, but he had no mouth, no lungs under his command. His existence was bound entirely to the rhythm of another's body.
He had no eyes yet, but there was... a blur. Faint echoes of a world he could not yet see rippled through his underdeveloped eardrums.
And in that moment, the truth struck him cold: Yes he had been reborn. But now, he was a prisoner of flesh, a mind caged within a forming brain.
Another consciousness was taking shape alongside his, neurons linking, synapses multiplying.
Once, he had dreamed of films, of lights, of stories. Now he floated weightless in a dark sea.
His thoughts grew shorter. Chopped. Primitive. Instinct began to replace reason.
Warmth. Pressure. Safety. And an odd... tranquility.
Time blurred once again. Days, months, or seconds it was impossible to tell.
Then, something from outside shook the world around him.
The strong heartbeat raced, loud and violent. A contraction. The walls pressed in. The whole world was collapsing.
"I'm being born."
As the thought formed, the body reacted. The fluid receded. The muscles clenched. And he was pushed, forced through a tunnel of pain and light.
And then Light.
Blinding, white, absolute. Every nerve in his body ignited at once.
A scream tore from his throat, but it was not his voice. It was the muffled cry of a newborn.
This is his first breath.