After a long, exhausting day at the office, I finally finished my last report and stepped out into the night, hoping for the comfort of home and a hot meal. My phone kept me company as I walked, eyes glued to its bright screen, zoning out the rest of the world. The city’s hum was familiar, almost soothing, and I let my feet move on their own, trusting the well-worn path.
That’s how I lost myself.
Somewhere along the way, I realized the buildings didn’t look familiar anymore. The traffic noise faded. When I looked up, the street was nothing I recognized—a narrow, forgotten stretch swallowed by darkness. I shivered. My stomach, already aching with hunger, twisted even tighter. The streetlights barely worked, leaving long patches of darkness between flickers. Trash piled along the cracked curb, sour and rotten, making my nose wrinkle in disgust.
In the shadows, black cats watched me from ruinous stone walls. Their eyes flashed gold in the dim light, cold and unmoving. I felt like an intruder. Their stares made my skin crawl, warning me that I didn’t belong there.
Trying to steady my nerves, I turned and started back the way I’d come—or thought I had. But after minutes of hurried steps, I saw nothing familiar, and no end to the street. My heart beat faster. My pace turned to a jog, then a run. Panic clutched my chest as the street seemed to stretch with every step, refusing to let me escape. Sweat trickled down my face. My legs quivered. Every breath filled my lungs with that foul, rotting stink, thick enough to taste.
I stopped, chest heaving. My surroundings spun for a second.
When I forced myself to look forward, I suddenly noticed a figure—someone crouching under the feeble glow of the only working streetlamp. At first, he was just a dark shape, hunched over, his head hidden behind his knees, shivering slightly but making no sound.
A wave of unease rolled over me. Should I walk past or turn back? Something about him, though, tugged at my memory. I edged closer, one cautious step at a time, while the cats still watched, tails flicking.
As I approached, I whispered, “Excuse me…?”
The figure stirred, lifting his head slowly. When his eyes met mine, I gasped. There was something hauntingly familiar about his face—a face I might have seen reflected in train windows or bathroom mirrors, marked by time and tiredness.
Up close, I saw his face and arms covered in bruises and fresh wounds, slick with blood in some places, crusted and old in others. His clothes were torn and filthy. His hair hung long and tangled, half-hiding his hollow eyes, which stared back at me pleadingly.
He didn’t say a word. He just watched me, and after a moment, dropped his face back behind his knees.
“Are you alright?” I tried again. My voice trembled a little, afraid of disturbing something fragile.
He let out a laugh—low, bitter, more like a cough than a joke. “You really don’t know?” he said, his words scraping like gravel.
I hesitated. “Know what?”
“Why I’m here,” he replied, his shoulders shaking as if from a chill only he could feel. “Why I look like this.”
I shook my head. “I don’t… Really, I’m lost. I just want to find my way home.”
He smiled, but it was a sad smile. “Lost,” he repeated softly, as if testing the word. “Me too.” He hugged his knees tighter. “I’ve been wandering here forever. The bruises and wounds never go away. They heal, then return, deeper. I barely remember what it feels like not to hurt.”
A chill went through me. “Who did this to you?” I asked, careful but curious. He looked up, meeting my eyes with a tired but strange intensity. “You did.” My spine stiffened. “What do you mean?”
He stood slowly, barely steady on his feet. He leaned against the lamppost, breath ragged. “It started years ago,” he began, voice softer now, filled with sorrow. “There was a boy. He wasn’t special—average grades, not athletic, not popular. He loved his family more than anything, but life moved on, and childhood faded without warning.
Suddenly, everyone expected more from him. Being himself wasn’t enough. He had to join a race he never signed up for. His parents’ love started to feel like something he had to earn by winning, by achieving. Friends drifted away; meetings became rare. Laughter was replaced by awkward silences. Salaries, promotions—these became measures of his worth.
He tried to keep up, to be everything for everyone. Duty and responsibility piled up. He thought if he made his loved ones happy, peace would come. But the weight only grew heavier. His true self got buried under expectations. He locked away his feelings, thinking it would help. In the end, all he found was loneliness.” His story hurt to hear. My chest ached, and I recognized that dull, hollow pain in his words.
He kept speaking, voice full of quiet despair. “He could have reached out, you know. Could’ve spoken, cried, screamed—anything. But instead, he chose silence. He hid every bruise beneath smiles, every ache behind jokes. And he became so skilled at pretending that, over time, even he forgot what the truth felt like. He doesn’t know what he feels anymore—only that something’s always missing.”
He looked up again, his hollow eyes searching mine—not for answers, but for recognition. Understanding. “Tell me,” he asked, almost gently, “doesn’t this story sound… painfully familiar?”
My breath caught. It felt like someone had peeled open my soul and read its pages aloud. I stammered, “How… how do you know all this about me?”
He looked at me with something between grief and frustration. “Why did you do this to yourself?”
Then, without waiting, he spoke again. He told me everything I’d buried. Everything I’d whispered in the dark. And with each word, shame flushed my face. My gaze dropped, unable to meet his. My chest burned with something between guilt and surrender.
“I… I don’t even know how to explain it,” I murmured, my voice raw. I paused, swallowed hard, then let it out.
“Sometimes, I don’t know if my life is a dream or a reality. If I’m living, or just moving through the motions. I used to have a goal, a vision, something to run towards. But now it feels like a mirage… the closer I get, the more it slips away. Everyone around me seems happy, and I smile too. I laugh when they do. But inside, I’m drifting just like a boat without an anchor.
Every time I meet someone, I put on a mask—a smile, rehearsed and polished, because no one really wants to see your sadness. No one wants your truth unless it’s wrapped in sunshine. I’m tired… Tired of the questions that never end. It used to be about marks. Now it’s about salary. Tomorrow, it’ll be about something else—marriage, children, property.
And why should I even speak? Why should I bare my soul when all they’ll do is listen for a moment, then carry my pain to someone else and laugh about it later? I don’t want to be a story told at parties, a punchline for someone else’s amusement.”
It poured out of me, not as a confession but as a collapse.
He listened to me, his expression softening. Then, he let out a long, weary sigh. “I was there, you know,” he said gently. “Through every sleepless night, every lonely meal, every tear you wiped away before anyone saw. I was there. You should’ve spoken to me.”
I looked up, my eyes brimming. “How could I trust you?” I whispered. “What if you’re just like the rest of them?”
He exhaled—a sound caught between a sigh and a broken laugh. “Because I’ve always been with you. Every time you buried your feelings, every time you forced yourself to be someone you weren’t, I was there with you silently aching. When the world demanded more, I bled to keep you upright. When you smiled to please others, I swallowed the sadness. I am you. The part you cast aside when pretending became easier than honesty. The voice you silenced to fit in. Faint, but still alive.”
A tremor passed through me. The world around us felt suddenly heavier, sharper, painfully real. “Who… who are you really?” I asked.
He looked at me with something close to love. “I am the one who never left. I am your truth, your hurt, your strength. I am the ‘you’ you forgot. I am your soul.”
He stepped back, the shadows beginning to pull him in again. But before he disappeared, he said softly:
“This is what you’ve done to me. When you stopped caring about how you truly feel, when you buried your pain beneath the world’s noise—I paid the price. The world will always demand something. Let it. But you… you must remember to be yourself. Because if you don’t—who will?”
He turned, preparing to vanish into the alley from which he came. But just before he did, he looked over his shoulder and smiled faintly.
“Thank you for finding me. I liked this little conversation. If you do it more often… maybe neither of us will have to suffer in silence again.”
I stood frozen, heart pounding in the sudden stillness. As he faded into the darkness, something shifted. His wounds began to disappear. The smell of decay lifted, as if the air itself had exhaled relief. The alley grew lighter. The garbage receded. The cats blinked and turned away, no longer watching like judges.
And I… I felt lighter, too.
For the first time in years, I understood. I was never truly alone. I had just forgotten to talk to the one self who always listened—the one who never left.