Smiling Depression

As Preye walked down the hall, she felt the stares of her classmates, like a heavy weight pressing down on her.
She felt trapped under their gaze, unable to escape the scrutiny of their eyes. She couldn't understand the reason for their stares, couldn't fathom what they were thinking, and that uncertainty made her even more anxious.
Preye stood there, frozen in uncertainty, when suddenly she felt a warm embrace from behind.
A familiar voice whispered in her ear,
'Is he really gone?'
The voice breaking with grief and anguish.

*********
Love. Pain. Laughter. Sorrow
Ani, an exuberant guy, whose outward deamenor brightening the life of others is trapped in his inner turmoil. He was a beacon of light in the darkness, but the flame within him flickered and dimmed.
His words a salve for broken souls, yet his own heart remained a tangle of shadows.
The world clamors for his attention, yet he is a stranger in his own life, an outcast in his own mind, a solitary figure, adrift in a sea of noise.
Could this be a curse from above, a divine decree? Or the fruit of his own misdeeds, the wages of his sins.