And now, we are back to where I started

   When I opened my eyes, the world was wrong.

   Everything around me was orange—flames reflecting off smoke and rubble. My ears were ringing. My head pounded. My body felt heavy and numb.

   I slowly pushed myself up.

   There was no ceiling. No walls. Even the floor was barely recognisable.

   The damage was everywhere. The kind of destruction that didn’t leave pieces—just ashes, shattered metal, and broken bodies.

   Whatever room I had been in before was completely gone. The damage was so extreme that I couldn’t even tell which part of the facility I was in anymore.

   Everything had been erased.

   The air was thick with smoke. Heat pressed down from every direction. Fires burned across the ruins, casting flickering shadows across collapsed beams and mangled equipment.

   And bodies.

   They were everywhere.

   Some were slumped over metal, others twisted across broken tiles, a few half-buried under rubble. Most of them were guards.

   I felt sick. My stomach twisted. I might have threw up at any second. Luckily I managed to hold it.

   I walked past one guard slowly. His uniform was charred black, and his chest looked like it had been torn open by shrapnel. But something else caught my eye—his arm. It was bent backward at the elbow, unnaturally, and his shoulder had deep bruises around it.

   Like someone had grabbed it and snapped it barehanded.

   I crouched down and checked. The bone had broken clean, and the bruises matched the size of a human grip.

   I stood back up, my hands shaking slightly.

   "What the hell happened here?" I muttered.

   I moved forward, trying not to trip over the wreckage. Another body caught my attention—different this time. Gray uniform. Subject, not guard.

   The number 9 was still visible on the torn fabric.

   He looked no better. Burned. Crushed. But the injuries were different. No bruised grip marks.

   But his hands—his fingers were stained red, like blood or something chemical. His knuckles were scraped and raw.

   He might’ve fought back. Maybe he was the one who broke the guard's arm?

   But looking at him… his build didn’t match that kind of strength.

   And in the middle of trying to make sense of it all, a single thought pushed its way to the front of my mind: Where is Zeno?

   Panic hit me all at once.

   I stood up too fast, stumbled a few steps forward, and shouted his name. “Zeno!”

   There was no answer—just the sound of flames cracking in the distance and the low, distant groan of collapsing metal. I called again, louder this time, my voice nearly breaking. “Zeno!”

   Still nothing.

   My chest tightened as I broke into a run, weaving through the wreckage, ignoring the way my foot slipped on ash and blood, ignoring the bodies I had to step over, ignoring the heat and smoke. I couldn’t feel anything but the growing fear that something had happened to him too.

   Then, near a partially collapsed wall, something silver caught my eye.

   I stopped. My stomach dropped.

   It was hair—messy, familiar, half-covered in debris.

   I didn’t think. I just moved.

   I dropped to my knees and cleared the rubble away, hands scraped and shaking as I uncovered him. I turned his body over, slowly, carefully, praying with everything I had that he would groan or move or tell me to stop being dramatic.

   But when I saw his face—what was left of it—I knew there would be no words.

   It was smashed in so badly that it barely resembled a human face anymore. Blood covered everything, dried and dark around the parts that hadn’t been completely crushed. One eye socket had collapsed. His jaw was cracked wide open, the skin torn at the cheek. Most people wouldn’t have recognized him. But I did.

   Even like that... I knew it was Zeno.

   And there was no saving him.

   His body was cold. Lifeless. Gone.

   I reached out and touched his cheek, but there was nothing there but bone and blood and the echo of who he used to be. He wasn’t unconscious. He wasn’t wounded. He was just... dead.

   I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. I just sat there holding him, the silence so heavy it felt like the world itself had stopped.

   He was the only person who ever managed to make this place feel even a little less empty. He was the only person to ever make me smile. Who stayed beside me even when I pushed him away. Who asked for nothing, but gave me more than anyone ever had.

   And now he was just... gone.

   Something broke inside me in that moment. My chest tightened until it hurt to breathe. My eyes blurred, and then the tears came—slow at first, then hard and uncontrollable.

   I cried into his shoulder like a child, my fingers digging into what was left of his uniform. I kept whispering his name like maybe that would bring him back, like the sound of my voice would be enough to wake him up. But nothing changed. His body stayed still. Cold. Heavy in my arms.

   Eventually, my body started to give out. The shock, the heat, the pain—it was too much. My arms felt weak, my legs too numb to support me anymore.

   I gently lowered him back to the ground and leaned backward until I fell onto my back, staring up at what used to be a ceiling. Now it was just sky—gray, dull, dark, lifeless like everything else.

   The smoke stung my eyes. My breathing slowed....

   And now we are back where I started.

   I spent most of my life just existing—waking up, doing what I was told, pretending I was fine. I never fought for anything. Never cared deeply. Never felt anything real. I had a family, but I don’t remember a single warm memory with them. I had people around me, who I thought were my friends. I had a girlfriend, but she was just another part of the routine—something I had because I thought I was supposed to, not because I truly wanted it.

   And just when I thought I’d finally found something meaningful—just when I thought I finally started living—he was taken from me.

   Just like that.

   Zeno had once said that people only feel things like happiness, sadness, or even anger when something matters to them.

   He was right.

   Because this pain—this crushing, suffocating weight in my chest—proved that he mattered. More than anything.

   And if this is what it feels like to lose someone important, if this is the cost of letting someone into your life... then I don’t want it.

   I don’t want to feel this again.

   I don’t want to care again.

   I don’t want to hope or move forward or wonder what comes next.

   I just want to lie here.

   Lie on this broken ground, next to the only person who ever made my life matter, and wait for the end. Whether it comes from the smoke, the flames, or whatever else is out there—it doesn’t matter.

   I’m done.

   My eyelids grew heavier, my thoughts dulling as I started to slip away. Consciousness was fading, and I didn’t fight it. There wasn’t any reason to.... 

   As I lay there, everything fading into black, a voice pierced through the silence. 

   “I found you.” 

   It was soft, unmistakably female. But I didn’t hear the words fully—didn’t have the strength to comprehend them. By then, I was already slipping into the void of sleep.