Morning again.A grey, cruel morning.
He turned his head to the calendar taped crookedly on the wall—May 22. His fingers hovered over the date. A hollow throb bloomed in his chest. Their anniversary. The one his parents never got to celebrate.
"Mom... Dad…" his whisper cracked in the quiet room, "It's so cold without you. So lonely… Why did you leave me behind? You should've taken me too…"
When he was fourteen, a brutal accident tore his life apart. Only he survived. No relatives came. Just silence—and then a man, his father's best friend, stepped forward and offered to take him in. It could've been a blessing, but fate wasn't that kind.
The man's wife saw him as nothing more than a cursed shadow."You're the reason they died," she'd hiss under her breath."You lived on their death," she said once while laughing bitterly.
The words sank deep like poisoned needles. Already drowning in guilt, her accusations were the rope pulling him under. The man—maybe out of guilt or maybe mercy—sent him to a hostel. From then on, he learned to be alone.
The rumors in school followed him like smoke."He killed his parents.""Murderer."Even teachers looked the other way when he tried to complain."Just ignore them," they'd say.
So, he did. He ignored everyone.
Everyone but one thing—his violin.His father had taught him. His mother used to sing while he played. He remembered her swaying gently, clapping at his first solo. Music was the only place he felt whole. When sadness came like waves, the violin became his oar. He'd play until the strings soaked in tears, until silence turned soft again.
But the darkness was always there.
After the accident, something strange began to stir inside him.Two emotions. One was his own—grief, guilt, despair. A fog that clung to his skin.But the other?Bright. Warm. Alien.
It wasn't his joy. It wasn't even his hope.At first, he thought he was losing his mind. That the trauma had cracked something open inside him.But the feelings returned—gentle warmth, sudden excitement, glimmers of something alive. He'd feel them during the darkest hours, when the knife lay too close or the pills lined the counter. Every time he reached the edge, those foreign emotions—like whispered prayers—pulled him back.
He didn't know whose feelings they were.But they saved him. Over and over.
Even so, the darkness kept growing.
When he turned eighteen, he left the dorms and returned to the house where his memories still haunted the walls. The whispers resumed. "Unlucky." "He cursed his own family."He heard them. All of them.No matter how many locks he turned, the voices reached inside.
The bright feelings? They became rarer, weaker. But never gone.It was like sitting in a pitch-dark room, and someone kept cracking open a door. A sliver of light would spill in. Just enough to make the darkness bearable.He wanted to walk through that door.But his legs were too weak. His heart too broken.He was afraid.
Until one morning, he couldn't take it anymore.
"I'm going to end it," he told the silence.
But not here—not in this house stained with grief.
He remembered Sahana.The mountains his parents used to take him to.A place of peace, where the wind carried birdsong and the sky stretched endlessly blue. They had picnics there. Took photos. Laughed. It was the last place he had ever smiled freely.
So he packed his violin. He left behind everything else.One last pilgrimage.
As he neared the Sahana Mountains, something stirred.That strange light again—stronger than ever. It welled inside him like sunrise.Conflicting feelings rose in his chest—joy, guilt, longing. He wanted to collapse right there, laugh and cry and scream all at once.
He climbed the familiar path, trembling.
Every tree, every breeze, whispered of memories.His parents. Their smiles. The warmth of their arms.This place had been love.
He stood on the hill, wind brushing through his hair, breathing in the peace one last time.But then—he saw her.
A girl, camera in hand, right behinde his back.When he turned —Their eyes met.
It was like the world cracked.
His chest seized. The warmth he'd felt for years flared—bright, blinding.But it wasn't just warmth. It was pain, too. Overwhelming, unbearable. A chaotic rush.Like someone had poured every emotion—his and hers—into his veins.
She stared at him—wide-eyed, tears brimming.Then, as if pulled by invisible strings, she began to cry.Her body trembled as though she could no longer hold it in.
He staggered.
What is this?Why… does it hurt so much?Who… is she?
She wept as if mourning for both of them.And for the first time in years, he couldn't cry.He was too stunned.
The door of light wasn't just cracked open now.It had been blown wide.
And he was no longer standing alone in the dark.