The alarm went off at 6:43 am.
Kael Veyron opened one eye, groaned, and stared at the cracked ceiling of his apartment. The fan above him wobbled slightly, clicking with every rotation like it was counting down the seconds of his life. His head throbbed from last night's coffee — or maybe from the lack of sleep. Probably both.
Kael didn't move right away. He lay there, staring at the gray ceiling as the alarm kept screaming beside him, until the sound became part of the morning. When he finally rolled over, the bedsheet clung to his skin with a faint smell of sweat and instant noodles. He slapped the alarm, and silence filled the room again.
The fan above him turned in lazy circles, clicking once every few seconds. Click. Click. Click. It had been doing that for months, and he still hadn't fixed it.
The clock said Thursday.The rent reminder on his phone said 'overdue.'
He sat up slowly, rubbed his eyes, and let out a half-laugh, half-sigh. "Good morning to me" he muttered.
The studio apartment was a single rectangle — one bed, one table, one window, and the quiet hum of a fridge. Coffee stains dotted the counter. A stack of unfinished manuscripts sat beside his laptop, each labeled with titles he didn't have the heart to open anymore. 'The Wandering Sun. The Painter of Dreams. When the Stars Forget Us. Lonely Raven.' All ideas that had once felt brilliant at 2 a.m., and pointless by dawn.
He brewed coffee, the cheap kind that tasted like shit, and opened his laptop. His last web novel update had three views. Two of them were his own. The comment section was empty except for one spam bot offering "real followers for only $5."
He stared at the screen for a while. Then he closed it.
The city outside was already awake. The muffled sounds of traffic bled through the thin walls — honking, shouting, the hiss of old buses grinding to a stop. He could hear his neighbor's TV through the plaster: a morning news anchor cheerfully talking about the "booming tech sector."
He pulled on his rumpled shirt, tucked it halfway into his pants, and stared at his reflection in the small mirror above the sink. A tired, pale man looked back. Late thirties. Unshaven. Eyebags that made him look permanently skeptical. His tie was crooked, but he was too lazy to fix it.
Outside, the city was awake in its usual, indifferent way.Rain drizzled lightly — enough to turn the asphalt slick but not enough to justify an umbrella. He walked to the bus stop with his head down, messenger bag slung over one shoulder, shoes squelching through shallow puddles.
The air smelled of exhaust and wet concrete. Commuters squeezed under shop awnings, trying to stay dry.— a mix of office workers, students, and the occasional vendor pushing a cart of steamed buns. The light changed from red to green, and the crowd moved like a single organism, no one looking at each other.
Kael glanced at their faces — tired, distant, some bored enough to scroll through their phones while crossing the street. He wondered if anyone among them felt the same dull ache he did, that quiet knowledge that they weren't where they thought they'd be by now.
The bus arrived ten minutes late. He got on, tapped his worn-out transit card, and took a seat near the window. The city slid past in gray tones — laundry flapping between apartment buildings, billboards promising new beginnings, a group of kids laughing under a broken streetlight.
It all looked the same. Every day looked the same.
***
The office smelled of paper, printer ink, and stale coffee.Kael's desk was in the far corner. Piles of files leaned dangerously close to the edge, and a small ceramic mug sat beside them, filled with pens that didn't work. His computer took three tries to start.
His manager, Elen, walked up beside him. She was in her late thirties, maybe early forties? It was hard to tell. Her hair was always tied back in the same messy bun, like she'd done it in a rush that morning and never looked in the mirror again. There were faint lines around her eyes, the kind you get from squinting at screens too long. She wasn't mean, just… done. The kind of tired that sits behind a smile.
"Kael, you sent the wrong file again."
He blinked. "What? No, I double-checked-"
She turned her laptop toward him. His face fell. It wasn't the project summary, it was a draft of his novel. The title "SSS-class feather armor" was right there in bold letters.
"Oh, for fuck's sake," he muttered under his breath.
Elen sighed. "Look, I know things have been… off lately, but this can't keep happening. We're on thin ice as it is."
He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
As she walked away, he opened his inbox. There were forty unread emails. Deadlines, reminders, company updates that all said the same thing: "Due to recent financial constraints…"
By lunch, most people had gone to eat in groups. Kael stayed behind, heating up a convenience store sandwich in the office microwave. He watched the plastic wrap bubble and shrink. He ate at his desk, watching the cursor blink on an empty spreadsheet. The only sound was the rain tapping against the window.
By 6 pm., the office had emptied. Dael packed his bag, powered down the computer, and left without saying goodbye. He doubted anyone noticed.
Outside, the rain had started again.
The streets were lined with reflections — people hurrying under umbrellas, neon signs rippling in the puddles. He walked without much purpose, just following the stream of strangers. A small boy tugged at his mother's sleeve, asking for street food. A couple argued quietly near a crosswalk. A man handed out flyers no one wanted to take.
It was life, loud and ordinary. Kael felt both part of it and utterly apart.
Back home, the apartment was dark except for the glow of the TV — some drama rerun playing louldy. He poured himself a glass of water and stood by the window. The city outside was alive: the hum of cars, the distant sound of music from a bar, someone laughing on the street below.
He checked his email again.
HR Notification: 'Due to restructuring, your position has been terminated effective immediately.'There was a severance amount. It wasn't much. Enough for rent — maybe one more month.
He read it twice, then just stared at the screen.
The room felt smaller.
He turned off the TV. The silence that followed felt heavy, pressing down on him from every side. He sat at his desk, stared at his laptop, and opened a new document. For a moment, he thought he could write something — anything.
But no words came. Just that blinking cursor again.He let the screen fade to black.
At some point, he found himself standing on the chair, the coarse rope looped over the ceiling hook. He wasn't crying. He wasn't even shaking. It felt… inevitable. Like a task he'd been postponing for too long.
He thought about his parents - kind people, distant now. They'd always believed he'd be something more. A writer, maybe. A husband, eventually. Someone to be proud of. He thought of how small their kitchen table was, how warm their house felt in winter. He hadn't visited in months.
He whispered into the quiet with tears in his eyes,
"I'm sorry."
He took a shaky breath and lifted one foot off the chair. His throat felt dry."Why is this so terrifying?" he whispered.
Back when he was a teenager, he never understood people who ended their own lives. He used to scoff at the thought—why would anyone do that when they had family, friends, people who cared? Life was supposed to be precious. He'd tell himself that some people never even got the chance to live it—war, sickness, poverty. Some never even made it to birth.
He used to believe pain was temporary, that people just had to hold on long enough for things to get better.
But now, standing there with a rope around his neck, he wasn't so sure anymore. The logic, the optimism—it all felt like something that belonged to someone else, a version of him that had no idea what this kind of emptiness felt like.
A dry laugh escaped him. "Fuck it" he muttered.
He closed his eyes, took one last breath, and stepped off the chair.
And then...Snap!
The rope tore cleanly from the ceiling. He fell backward, hitting the floor with a grunt of pain. For a long second, he just stared up at the ceiling, stunned. Then he let out a weak laugh — half relief, half disbelief.
The absurdity of it hit him hard, and he started laughing — quietly, bitterly, until tears stung his eyes. When the laughter died, he sat up and rubbed his face. His hands were shaking, but there was a strange, numb calm beneath it
His thoughts were a mess. Part of him was relieved the rope had snapped — like life itself had refused to let him go. The other part wished it hadn't.
He just lay there, staring at the ceiling. His head was a mess, but his mind was empty. It felt like hours before his phone vibrated. His mom had sent a message.
He pulled out his phone.Mom: "Dinner's ready, Kael. You're still coming this weekend, right?"Kael: "Yeah. I'll be there."
It was almost midnight when he finally stepped outside again, not because he wanted to buy something or whatever, but because staying inside felt suffocating. The apartment was too small, the walls too close, the silence was unbearable. He needed to breathe.
The rain had just stopped, leaving the streets slick with reflections of the dim streetlights. The wet asphalt gleamed, stretching like rivers of ink under the orange glow. The air smelt like rain and asphalt, bitter and strangely pleasant, carrying the faint smoke of faraway grills and exhaust. It was clean compared to the flat.
Kael walked slowly, letting the chill sink into his skin, feeling it wake up nerves that had gone numb from too many hours of sitting alone. Each step made a soft splash, the sound oddly satisfying. The street was nearly empty. Most people were asleep or hiding from the lingering drizzle, their lights off and faces turned inward. He liked it that way — the quiet streets made him feel smaller, and in a strange way, safer.
He reached the corner store and hesitated, staring at the fluorescent glow inside. The cashier's tired eyes met his briefly, and Kael offered a weak nod. He picked up a can of beer, the aluminum cold in his hand, and paid with a few coins, savoring the sound of them clinking together. It was mundane. It was trivial.
Walking back outside, he raised the can to his lips and took a sip. The bitterness hit him immediately, harsh but grounding. He walked slower now, listening to the sound of his own footsteps, letting the city settle around him. Streetlights reflected in puddles like molten gold, distorted and alive.
He was glad now glad that the rope had snapped, he was happy that he got to breathe again, to feel again...but fate had other plans