The outskirts of the city were a forgotten, desolate place—rows of tall gray apartment blocks with crumbling facades, abandoned warehouses with shattered windows, streets where, in the evenings, only the whistle of the wind and the distant barking of dogs could be heard.
A weak glow from streetlights seeped through dirty windows, flickering across grimy glass. The air hung heavy with moisture, dust, and exhaust fumes drifting in from the nearby highway.
Sometimes, at night, a train would pass. Its rumble vibrated through the walls—a reminder that somewhere the world was still moving forward, while here everything had stopped.
The two-room apartment on the third floor smelled of dust, cold coffee dregs, and something that could only be called loneliness—thick, sticky, as if the air itself had absorbed years of silence.
Through the windows he could see only another gray apartment block and an empty lot below, where children no longer played.
Inside stood an old coffee table scarred with scratches and coffee stains, a gray-upholstered sofa, and a bookshelf crammed with medical textbooks, all buried beneath a fine layer of dust.
Tomas sat on the sofa, his feet propped on the table—barefoot, his soles cold from the floor. He wore a gray T-shirt with a small tear near the shoulder, the thin fabric soaked with sweat and carrying the stale scent of cigarette smoke from work.
His hair was dark brown, short, unruly. One strand fell across his forehead, brushing his eyes. His green gaze was empty, as though it wasn't fixed on the world but passing straight through it, toward something distant and unreachable. A small scar marked his chin—a relic of childhood, from a time when everything had still meant something.
Why am I still here?
The thought came as it always did—cold, unanswered.
Inside him yawned an emptiness as deep as an abyss. Not pain. Not sadness. Just a gray, oppressive void that had filled everything since his parents' death. He felt like a shadow—existing, but not living.
Every morning brought the same question:
Why not today?
Yet something weak and stubborn still clung to him—not hope, but duty. Duty to himself. To his parents. To a world that had never noticed him.
His father's laughter echoed from memory as he ruffled Tomas's hair.
"You'll be a surgeon, son. Scars will be your true beauty."
The words now sounded like a curse.
He was a surgeon—the best the faculty had ever seen.
But what did that mean?
He saved lives. Held hearts in his hands. And still they stopped.
Somewhere else. For someone else.
His parents' hearts had stopped that night on the highway—metal shrieking, glass exploding, sirens tearing through the dark. They had been driving to congratulate him on his nineteenth birthday, rushing straight from work.
He couldn't save them.
Because of him, they—
He was twenty-two.
His body was athletic, muscles hardened by physical labor. His hands were rough, calloused—strong hands, veins standing out beneath the skin. His fingers drifted aimlessly over an open Human Anatomy textbook lying on his lap. The pages were yellowed, creased from constant use.
Page 214: The aortic valve.
Pencil markings crowded the page—small notes, arrows, uneven yet astonishingly precise handwriting. The hand of someone who knew exactly where to cut.
These weren't a student's notes.
They were a surgeon's—meticulous, alive, as though they still smelled of disinfectant and blood.
Now they were only a memory.
Like everything else.
Three years ago, Tomas had been a third-year medical student, already operating beside Professor Julian—the finest heart surgeon in the country.
Not assisting.
Operating.
A nineteen-year-old with green eyes and an unnervingly calm expression had stood beneath blinding surgical lights, holding the scalpel as if he had been born with it in his hand. The air reeked of antiseptic. Machines beeped in steady rhythm. Beneath his fingers, he could feel a living heartbeat.
He was one of the best in the faculty.
Everything physical came to him with unsettling ease—martial arts in sweat-soaked gyms, complex surgical techniques, theory, practice. It all arrived so naturally that people called him a genius.
To Tomas, it felt meaningless. Empty. Gray.
Like this apartment.
A genius?
What was the point, if you felt nothing?
He never laughed; laughter felt foreign. He never went to parties after shifts—music, voices, alcohol all rang hollow. He never answered messages from women; words on a screen felt pointless.
He didn't socialize.
He had no friends.
After his parents died, Tomas was completely alone. Loneliness became as natural as breathing. It wrapped itself around him, filled every hollow space, and turned him into a quiet human shadow—a figure that walked, ate, slept, but did not live.
Loneliness—the only one who never leaves.
The last operation he remembered with absolute clarity had taken place a year and seven months ago.
A woman. Thirty-four. Fourth pregnancy.
A ruptured aortic wall.
They fought for six hours—sweat streaming down his face, his hands slick with blood, machines screaming faster and faster. Tomas held her heart in his hands—literally—warm and fluttering, while Julian stitched the valve.
They saved her.
She survived.
A healthy baby boy was born. His cries echoed through the corridor.
The next morning, Tomas placed the scalpel on the table. The metal clinked softly. He pulled off his gloves and walked out of the operating room. The doors closed behind him with a dull, final sound.
For three days, no one saw him.
On the fourth, he submitted a request to be removed from the student list.
Personal reasons, he wrote.
Julian tried to talk to him. Tried to stop him. His voice echoed through the empty lecture hall.
Tomas only looked at him with hollow eyes and said, again and again,
"I'm tired of saving people. Everything feels… meaningless."
I'm tired of feeling like I can't change anything.
He never entered an operating room again.
Now he worked whatever job paid. Money didn't interest him—he didn't want wealth or comfort. Just enough for food and rent.
Today he had worked in a warehouse, lifting boxes while sweat soaked his back and the air smelled of cardboard and dust. He got home at 22:47.
Tomorrow was a day off.
"Maybe I'll go to a bar," he muttered to the empty room, his voice bouncing off the walls. "Have a drink. Silence the thoughts."
The thoughts that always returned.
Always the same.
He stood. The floor creaked beneath him. He pulled on a long black coat, heavy and damp with the scent of rain, and a pair of old jeans worn thin at the knees.
Then he left.
The door closed with a dull click, and the apartment was alone again.
Outside, the wind chased leaves along the pavement. Streetlights flickered. Somewhere a few blocks away, a neon sign pulsed in the darkness:
OBSIDIAN