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**Title: "The Weight of a Dream" (Part 1)**
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### **Chapter 1: The Visit**
Aaron paced nervously in the sterile hospital hallway, his fingers wrapped tightly around the brown leather strap of his worn bag. He had been there for hours, watching over the frail figure of his guardian in the bed next door. The steady beeping of machines, the hum of nurses talking in the distance-it all felt so distant, so removed from reality. But there was one thing he couldn't escape: his guardian, the only family he had left, was slipping away.
It wasn't the first time Aaron had spent sleepless nights in this sterile room, watching someone fade, but it hit differently this time. His guardian was old, fragile-he had known this day would come. But knowing didn't make it any easier.
"Take care of yourself, Aaron," his guardian had whispered earlier that day, eyes barely open, voice trembling with the weight of years. "And don't forget the thing I borrowed from the patient next door. Bring it back for me."
Aaron nodded, swallowing the lump in his throat. The request felt odd, but he agreed. "Of course," he said, though his thoughts were already elsewhere. His feet had carried him to the small vending machine down the hall before he even realized it. There were snacks to be had, a moment to escape the tension. Just a few minutes.
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### **Chapter 2: The Empty Chair**
By the time Aaron returned, the room was still, too still.
His guardian, the person who had been his only family for as long as he could remember, was gone. The bed was empty, the oxygen mask discarded, the room almost suffocating in its silence. The beeping of the heart monitor had stopped-its final sound was a flat, lifeless tone.
The thing that Aaron had borrowed from the patient next door? It wasn't even on his mind anymore. All he could think about was the fact that he was alone. Completely alone.
His legs gave out beneath him, and he crumpled into the chair beside the bed. Tears welled up in his eyes, but he blinked them away. He couldn't let it sink in-not yet. His guardian's death would change nothing, he told himself. Nothing. He had to keep moving forward, had to keep breathing.
But that was the lie he would tell himself until the end.
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### **Chapter 3: Alone**
Days passed in a blur. Aaron didn't attend the funeral. He didn't talk to anyone. He didn't even look at the world outside his apartment window. Life became a continuous loop of dark, empty hours. His thoughts remained consumed by the loss, by the quiet. The ache of loneliness buried itself deeper into his chest, and he wondered, sometimes, if he could still feel the pulse of life beneath all the grief.
The apartment he lived in now seemed foreign to him. It wasn't home anymore-it was just a place to exist. The walls, once comforting, now felt like they were closing in, growing smaller with each passing day. And when he looked at the old photograph on the mantel-his guardian smiling beside him-he couldn't bring himself to feel anything.
He stopped eating regularly. He stopped leaving the apartment. It didn't matter. He didn't have anyone to see. The world outside felt like it had forgotten him. And if it had forgotten him, then why should he try anymore?
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### **Chapter 4: The Dream Begins**
It wasn't until a month later, when Aaron had finally ventured outside to buy something-anything-that he saw her.
YOU ARE READING
The Weight Of The Dream
Romance"The Weight of a Dream" follows Aaron, a man consumed by grief after the death of his guardian. As he spirals into loneliness, he begins to imagine a girl named Clara who offers him comfort. But as their connection deepens, Aaron realizes that Clara...
