The last smile

It's been so long since I felt anything. I barely remember what it was like to be hopeful, to feel alive. Two years... Two years spent in the suffocating silence of this room, a shut-in, a failure. I had dreams once, but they were all shattered the moment I saw that red mark on my college entrance exam. I wanted to be someone, to make something of myself. I wanted to be at the top, not just in my heart, but in the world.

But then... I failed. I failed.

The girl I thought I would spend my life with? She was gone. The love I imagined, the future I thought was waiting for me... it evaporated in an instant. And when I looked into my parents' eyes, I couldn't bear to meet their disappointment. Their attempts to console me—pathetic. How could they, when I couldn't even console myself? I was a failure, a weight on the Earth, a burden to everyone around me.

I spent years chasing an illusion, sacrificing everything—my health, my happiness—all for a dream that wasn't even mine in the end. The world had moved on, and I was left behind. I had moved on, too... from hope, from life. I thought death might be the only escape. I couldn't see any other way out.

But then, something strange happened.

I saw him.

A boy. Just a kid

Playing outside my window with his friends, laughing, carefree. It wasn't the sound of his joy that made me pause—it was something else. Something deep inside me stirred. He looked so familiar. His innocent smile, the way he ran with his friends... It reminded me of the person I used to be. The real me. The one who smiled every day, who found joy in the smallest of things.

I watched him every day, my heart aching with longing. I wanted to be him, to feel alive again. To not care about the weight of failure that crushed me. The child reflected the life I'd lost, the life I never thought I could have again. I cried—tears that I hadn't let fall in years. I wanted to scream, to shout at the world for taking it all away.

Months passed by and

One day, something inside me broke me

I gathered every ounce of courage I had left and stepped out of my house, my legs shaky and uncertain. I approached him, my heart pounding. And then, I saw his face.

It was me.

It was the old me, staring back at me from the eyes of this innocent child.

He had been watching me this whole time. His eyes... they were full of pity, but not just that—there was disappointment, too. Not in me, but in himself. He was the reflection of who I had once been, and he was waiting for me to find my way back.

I stood there, trembling, until the boy, the reflection of my past, spoke softly:

"We had a dream, right?? What about trying again'

It was then

When he handed me over the page of the first story I ever wrote

And in that moment, something inside me stirred. Maybe there was still a chance. Maybe I wasn't as lost as I thought.

When I tried to look towards him

He was gone

Was he just a hallucination??

Or was he always there

I don't know, but it doesn't matter anyway.. I have found the hope again

Maybe I could start over while seeing the sun grazing over the flowers that had just bloomed after being shredded in the winters... I saw myself in them

I saw tears flooding from my eyes but it was out of joy.. How long it has been since I last smiled??