*On Earth*
"What are you doing? Hurry up! You're blocking the T.V.! You're so freaking slow!" A matured female voice screamed angrily.
"I'm sorry..." Answered by a young man sullenly.
"I don't need your sorry! Just freaking hurry up and move away!"
In the living room, a good-looking young man was diligently cleaning the floor while a woman was just relaxing on the couch, watching T.V. lazily.
While cleaning, he had just momentarily blocked the T.V. from the view of the woman, but this had already made her angry, as if the mere sight of the boy disgusted her to the core.
The young man bowed his head to apologise again and scurried away quickly. He went back to continue cleaning without even raising his head once.
The way the young man cleaned was silent yet fast. Not a single debris nor dust was left behind, yet every sweep didn't make a sound. It was incomprehensible how the young man did it, but he managed to.
After sweeping the floor, he also silently mopped the living room floor. And after that, cleaned the other parts of the house. Without even raising his head.
Meanwhile, the woman was still facing the T.V. but even though it seems like that, she was actually watching the boy in the corner of her eye, ready to fire off a barrage of mockery once a single mistake was spotted.
Unfortunately, the boy was perfect in his work. There wasn't a single spot in the room left unclean and even the floor was faintly reflecting the sunlight.
In such a sight, without a mistake to ridicule at, the woman got angry and desperately searched for a mistake.
"What are you doing? Hurry up! Can't you clean faster?" The woman asked angrily, even though she knew herself that the boy was fast enough.
"I'm sorry…"
"Whatever! Just get the hell away from here!" The woman yelled angrily after not finding any mistakes.
The boy bowed his head even lower, went out of the door, and silently closed it. However, just as the door was about to close, he heard the woman command him.
"By the way, make sure to clean the other room. My son is about to come back home. If I search and see a single speck of dust in it, you know what's going to happen to you, right?" Threatened the woman.
Hearing this, the young man's eyes gazed into the bright sky outside the window in silence. He saw the rolling orange cotton outside dyed by the closely setting sun.
"What? Are you going to say no?" Snarled the woman after hearing no reply.
The young man lowered his head and quickly agreed.
The woman closely watched as the young man shut the door silently.
"Tch! What a disgusting bitch. Whatever. I should take my mind off it." Said the woman and continued watching her favourite actor on T.V..
Excited squeals of a fan leaked out behind the closed door, while in front of it was the young man with his head lowered. His glistering dark hair covered his face, but it couldn't cover the coldness of his abyssal black eyes, containing within a maturity incomparable to his age.
"Ugh! What a disgusting bitch. Whatever. I shouldn't take it to heart." Coldly muttered the young man under his breath. He closed his eyes and inhaled deep breaths to douse the burning hatred in his heart.
After a while, he slowly unclenched his fist and opened his eyes. After calming down, the words of the woman echoed in his mind and a flash of nostalgia surfaced in his eyes, removing all of the coldness in it and softening his straight brows.
"Since it's still Friday… he must be coming tomorrow…" The young man muttered under his breath, except this time, instead of coldness, his voice was soft and full of expectations.
And upon thinking of something, his dark cold eyes slightly softened and his mouth unconsciously curved it's edges slightly. The moment he smiled, it was as if flowers bloomed in the barren grass as a pillar of sunlight penetrated through the dark night. He may seem cold but his smile is actually the sweetest.
Immediately after his face went stoic, the young man went to a room opposite of the setting sun. The room was not so large, but it was comfy and neat. The room was designed elegantly but still radiates a modern vibe.
The man entered the room and started to clean. And this time, instead of the silent and fast cleaning, he cleaned diligently and slowly, making sure to not leave a single spot dirty, be it either the ceiling or underneath the furniture.
*Brush*³
He brushed the part between the tiles, the edges of the wall, and even the places that most people wouldn't go to. With utmost modesty, he cleaned every inch of the room. Not only that, he also moved the furniture to suitable and most comfortable places, like moving the bed beside the window but also near the plug in case someone needs to charge their phone.
Like a professional cleaner, he also changed the sheets of the bed and pillows, folded the clothes, and cleaned the air conditioner. The cherry on top was the bottle of isopropyl and perfume that isn't invasive and subtle sprayed in the room.
After an hour, the young man looked at his work and smiled. The room was now more sparkly and even the window was polished. All the clothes in the drawer were tidy and the curtain was clean. There was even the faint scent of flora in the wind.
The young man swept away the sweat in his forehead and stored the cleaning supplies back into its place.
The young man then went to the kitchen and started washing all of the plates in the sink. After clearing and tidying the sink, the young man started cooking his own food.
However, no matter how arduous he was working, no matter how much he was tiring himself to the bone, he never complained once. All of his moves were precise and contained the right amount of strength and agility. It was as if the young man was used to it.
As the moon rose, and the neighbourhood started to flood with shadows, the young man went to a small bathroom to clean himself up. He removed his heavy clothes to reveal his slightly muscular but malnourished body. However, what was the most prominent was the scars on his body.
Everywhere one looks, there would always be a scar, even in his heels. Some of the scars were large, like the circular wounds on his knees, while some were small, like the shallow wound on his eyebrow, but all of them together created an eerie and quite a… pathetic sight.
The young man looked at the scars in the mirror and clenched his fist upon those sights. He shut his eyes tight and inhaled deep breaths and took a cold bath while lamenting.
He took a quick cold bath and wore a clean T-shirt with small patches on its sides. It seems that the shirt was rather old, but the young man didn't mind anyways.
The young man went into his dimly lit and small room and lay in his rough bed. He rested his slightly shaking hands and scorching eyes as he recalled all the events that occurred that day.
Suddenly, he sat up, stuck his ears to the door, and listened closely for a sound. He listened closely and searched for the slightest noise, be it a breath or a friction. But after nothing entered his ears except silence, he stood up and slightly pushed his bed to expose its side.
With expertise, the young man pointed to a particular point on the side of the bed, and in a seemingly ordinary view, in the point where the finger was pointed, a dent suddenly appeared alongside with a clicking sound.
*Click*
Suddenly, a hidden compartment appeared on the side of the wooden bedframe. Inside it were tonnes of coins and some important documents regarding himself.
Seeing this, the young man searched deep inside the pocket of the inside of his pants and he pulled out a bunch of coins, only amounting to the price of a biscuit. But however small it may be, the young man still cherished it and silently hid it in the compartment.
The young man looked into his pile of money. Even though it seems many, it would easily disappear in months, and the young man knows that.
After that, the young man carefully closed the compartment, pushed the bed back into its place and approached the wall near the light switch. He used tweezers that he got from the drawer to unscrew the switch.
*Click*
Shockingly, what was inside the wall was a bunch of complicated wirings. Normally, a light switch was supposed to only have a single wire, but the thing is, some of the wires in this building have to pass through this wall, which resulted in this.
But that wasn't what was inside the young man's mind. The young man used the same tweezer to pull out a rectangular object from the wall. As the young man carefully pulled out the object, a cell phone came into his hand.
He pulled the rather old and broken phone and removed it from its charger. He heavily pressed the power button and the brand of the phone surfaced.
After opening the phone, he clicked on the G-Docs app and numerous documents about diverse topics appeared.
Some were titled "Dream Diary", "My Bitchy Mother", "Mathematics X", "How To Be Independent", "How To Vent Emotions", and many more. He clicked on the one titled "Diary" and started to write.
As the last sentence was written, the young man looked back at his work and proofread it.
With that done, the young man took his time to read fictional books. But seeing no updates from his favourite books, he shut down his phone and stored it back inside the switch and screwed it back.
Moving on, he searched underneath his bed and picked out a book from the bundles of books underneath his bed. Sitting down on the bed, he used the Illumination of the streetlight outside to read the book.
As the last bit of gold in the sky sank and as the time of the stars to shine clocked in, the rustling sound of paper lingered in the young man's room. Past 50 pages of the book, the young man suddenly flinched and hid the book back with utmost respect. All the basic education that the young man learned was from books, so he had a massive appreciation for them. Sadly, he had no proper bookshelf and plastic cover to protect them.
After hiding them, he hurriedly lied on the bed and covered himself with the sheet.
*Thud*⁴⁴
Out of nowhere, heavy footsteps filled the corridor like a train rushing.
*Crash!*
The door was so strongly crashed open that it even bounced off the wall! A woman entered the room angrily and opened the lights. Unfortunately, the light was quite weak.
Ignoring the weak lighting, the woman strutted towards the bed and a sleeping young man came into her view. He seemed to be in a deep sleep because even the loud sound of the door opening didn't wake him up.
"HEY!!! WAKE UP!!!" Screamed the woman to his ears loudly, that even the neighbours heard it.
The young man jolted from his sleep and immediately sat up like a soldier while facing the woman, but his eyes were lowered and he seemed to be dizzy.
"Have you done the things that I told you to do‽" Asked the woman.
"Y— Yes…"
"Good." The woman scoffed and went out of the room without even closing the door or the lights.
Meanwhile, the young man was left sitting in the bed. Luckily, he was only pretending to be asleep, or else, his deep sleep would have been interrupted.
After closing the door and turning off the light, now that it was time to sleep, the young man lay in bed and comforted himself to sleep.
"..."
The young man looked at the stars outside his window. Looking around, the moon wasn't visible from the angle of his window, but he knows it is out there. But even if it was, he still somehow couldn't help but feel down at the thought of it.
"... It's okay… There might not be much progress, but… You've already done your best, and that's okay… Don't worry… Tomorrow will always come…" The man said to himself. His eyes slowly grew heavier by the second as all the fatigue from the day hit him.
"Someday… Someday…. I'll… survive and... escape from this house… some… day…" The young man promised himself with his voice full of desperation as a teardrop escaped from the edge of his eyes.
The stars sparkled as if they watched him from the outside of the room. The clouds in the night sky were cleared away and a breeze entered the room and blew his hair, as if it was caressing him.
In this peaceful night, unbeknownst to him, amidst his sleep, that he won't actually have the chance to see 'tomorrow' anymore. Well, at least for this world.
*Bzzt*
Amidst his sleep, as the never ending darkness surrounded him, irritating static noises thundered through his ears out of nowhere. It sounded like a T.V. severely malfunctioning. The sound seemed so close to his ears, damaging his eardrum and receiving a scream from him.
"Aaaargh!!!!"
He immediately woke up and he was shocked to see the world around him distort. Flashes of light passed through his surroundings like meteors showering the earth. It looked beautiful with the numerous diversion of colours, but the young man wasn't in the right mind to care about that.
He felt his senses getting muddled and his skin was blazing hot. His ears and eyes were bleeding and he felt his ears ringing. He tried desperately to breathe but no air would come out. He felt like air was getting sucked out of him and he felt like he was about to puke. He was starting to see reds on the edges of his vision and his vision started to get muddy.
Every part of his body felt like it was on pins and needles and as if every hair on his body was pulled out. His chest was getting tighter and his body was getting colder and colder by the second.
As his vision endlessly spun in the dark, he could only think: "... What is happening…?"
And just like that, he died a gruesome death without himself even realising what happened to him.
As the young man drifts through the crack of time and space, his body continues to disintegrate along with his will. And just as his last will was about to disappear, a bright pillar of light swallowed him and a miracle occured.