His breaths grew heavier, his eyes teary as if something had lodged within them. Sensing something unusual, his mom watched him closely. He felt it coming, his heart sinking beneath the depths of despair. Darkness enveloped every part of him, a blackness consuming his soul and every fiber of his being. He could barely contain the overwhelming sadness, regret, and loneliness that tore through him, suffocating him with unbearable grief.
Summoning whatever strength he had left, he grabbed his phone and hastily exclaimed to his mom, "Mom, I've got to go, I have a class now!" Without daring to meet her gaze, he fled upstairs, desperate to unleash the torrent of emotions within him, to release the pent-up anguish and sorrow. It was a sadness devoid of reason, one that had turned his very existence into a desolate wasteland of shattered dreams and lost hope. Tears streamed down his cheeks, as if pleading with him to hold on, to fight against the impending collapse of his world.
Suddenly, the ground trembled, his strength waning. He collapsed, the walls shaking around him. Darkness consumed his vision, leaving him blind. A faint voice whispered in his ear, "Isn't it when you've lost everything that you find the courage to conquer the world and take risks?"
Adam gasped as he awoke, uncertain if he had been dreaming or reliving the haunting days that had besieged him. Blinking, he found himself in a hospital ward. A nurse approached, but before she could reach him, someone sprinted past, crashing into her and shouting about a rat. Chaos erupted as patients scattered in all directions, turning the ward into a scene more absurd than the face of the man guarding the oranges beside Adam, with his intricately tangled mustache and split-chinned beard.
"A government hospital," Adam muttered to himself.
"Congratulations, kid! You've been hit by a car," announced the nurse in a playful tone, as if engaging in a rap battle. "You've fractured your right arm and left leg, but bystanders swear you should've been dead, so count yourself lucky." The man, now revealed to be a chef or perhaps an escapee from a theater troupe, introduced himself as Sushin Hinjoki Babu, the Chinese food specialist from Amna's Kitchen.
"It was Mahmood Saheb's daughter who hit you with the car," he boasted proudly. "Mahmood Saheb sent me to look after you until he can visit. Anything you need, Adam?"
Adam's brow furrowed in confusion. "How do you know my name?"
"Amna beti found out your name from your ID. She had to rush back to college, but she made sure you'd be taken care of. Mahmood Saheb himself insisted," Sushin explained, his voice full of pride, as if this act of responsibility reflected his own honor.
Adam lay still, the words barely registering as the familiar weight of his own thoughts pressed down on him. College. Class. Normalcy. How distant all of that felt now. Everything seemed irrelevant in the suffocating darkness that had swallowed him whole. He didn't know how to explain it to anyone—not even himself. The way the world had gradually lost its color, how the laughter of his childhood friends had turned into a distant echo, how even the faces he loved now seemed distorted, out of reach.
"She shouldn't have bothered," Adam muttered, his voice barely audible. "I'm leaving. I don't want to go back."
The hospital room felt like a cage. The white walls, cold fluorescent lights, and antiseptic smell suffocated Adam. He could feel it creeping into his chest, the tightness, the restlessness—everything he'd tried to escape crashing down on him all at once. His head throbbed, but the pain from his injuries was nothing compared to the weight that had settled deep within his soul. The decision he had made to leave, to abandon everything he knew, had been gnawing at him long before he'd even set foot on the road that night.
