In my world, every day feels like being trapped in a room with walls closing in on me. It feels like the world’s going to swallow me whole at any minute, and sometimes I wish it would. Whenever I meet a new person, I try to find a trace of empathy, a human being, or something that isn’t just a trapped soul in a lifeless body. I want to find somebody who understands me and has real emotions. I had that person, but I pushed her away so far that I never saw her again. The world we live in has no space for life, happiness, or excitement. The first thing we are told is that this is the way it should be and if you find someone who challenges these rules, you’re to turn them in to authorities. This is what I did. I turned in my best friend and never looked back.

What was I thinking? She was the only thing in my life that broke the dull and eternal cycle that our world was. I got up every morning and went through the workday because she would be by my side. I risked my life so we could sneak off into the dark alleyways of our city to laugh together. She showed me her true self, even when it was hard. But I was so brainwashed by our world that I thought by turning her in, I was doing the better thing. I told myself I was the hero by ridding the world of happiness. I realize now that I wasn’t. In fact, the only thing that could save everyone else now is to remind them what happiness feels like. They need to know how it feels to be on top of the world, with no worries. I wish I could find a way to bring life back into people’s eyes. I want to help every person I see on the streets of our graying city as I watch them get home from work just to go back ten hours later. I hate walking through the streets just to find more rows of identical houses. I wish I could hug the children I see on the streets as their emotionless parents go off to work. I helplessly watch as people get dragged into vans by the authorities. I wish I could show everyone how she made me feel. There’s something that is holding me back, and I don’t even know what it is. Every night I lie awake with a million thoughts circling my head. Why did I do that to her? Am I the villain in my own movie? I would give anything to save her. She was one of the only people that decided not to let the world control her. She smiled at every person she saw and even though most of the time they didn’t smile back, she kept doing it. She wrote stories of a world full of life and read them to children. She could have saved the world if she wanted to, but I held her back.

Tonight I gaze at her grave with a longing to bring her back. The wind howls around me. The night sky is filled with ominous gray clouds. Cold drifts around my face and brushes against my cheeks. The marble of her headstone has been worn down by rain and wind. Her smiling face stares back at me and I find it difficult to look into her eyes. I break out of my trance when I hear the sound of laughter. I look up to find two kids laughing by the edge of the graveyard. They smile at me. Their smiles look strikingly similar to hers. The sadness I felt goes away and a feeling of hope replaces it. Maybe if I finally forgive myself, I can finish what she started. I gently drop a single red rose at the feet of her grave and stand there for a very long time. I don’t want to move. It feels as if I’m in a place between life and death, and I like it here. I am away from my world. I feel truly content here. It’s where lost souls find a home, where the past is truly in the past, and where the world stops spinning, just for a moment.