The light shone through the darkness of the clouds as dawn arose crisp and clearly.

"Come on Liam, we're gonna miss the bus if we don't go now".

"Coming!" A black haired young man named Liam said as he turned to take a look at the building behind him.

A melancholic light flashed in his eyes but faded just as quickly as it appeared.

Instantly being replaced by determination, he took his last, good look and walked away to catch up with his friend Zach.

'So this is it huh? It doesn't matter. What happens after I take this path is left to fate. Nevertheless, I'll be able to live without regrets even if it fails'.

Liam thought to himself as he and Zach walked down the street heading towards the Bus stop.

Zach took a glance at Liam from the corner of his eyes and sighed internally. This buddy of his really had it hard on him, nevertheless, it was ok.

The past would be buried from now henceforth. Although not completely forgotten, he could see that Liam was really ready to come out of his shadow and put the past behind him.

And that was the truth. Liam was finally ready to take that step and truly pursue what he wanted in life.

This was the only road he could take.

As for the other route... he had already seen the end result. Liam's mind wandered off to a month ago when he woke up with with fear written all over his face due to a nightmare.

Of course he would much more wish it to be a nothing more than a normal nightmare, or he wouldn't be embarking on this journey with no knowledge of the end results.

But it was much too vivid to be a nightmare. Hell no! It felt so real, and the contents within nearly scared his soul away.

What Liam saw was what everyone in this world was probably most afraid of but didn't even realize it. Failure.

To be precise, he saw his life pass by before his eyes in a third person's perspective. Only to discover that the future version of himself was completely considered qualified to be deemed a societal failure.

After his parents died, he searched high and low in order to obtain a high paying job with good bonuses and conducive working environment.

But with his mediocre certificate results, no family background or connections to consider and a resume completely devoid of any work experience whatsoever, Liam's efforts fell into a pit, producing no results.

After working menial jobs for over a year, he finally found a low paying job with two thousand dollars monthly income.

He thought he could develop stably and get his life back on track. As a result, Lady luck seemed to have enmity with him.

The first two months of work, his attractive facial features caught the eye of the head of the sales department.

After ignoring her hints on multiple occasions, he was blatantly targeted, reprimanded and abused on multiple occasions at work. In the face of threats of being fired and blacklisted, Liam whose life was already a mess could only succumb and become a boy toy.

It wasn't until two months later that their relationship was discovered and reported to the head Vice president of the company who just happened to be the sales head's lover.

Liam was fired in a fit of rage, severely beat up by gangsters the following evening and framed for stealing important documents from the sales head's office where they usually had their secret love affairs.

With no one to stand for him in court, poor Liam was sentenced to serve ten years in prison for a crime he didn't commit.

Throughout all this, Liam who watched from the third person's perspective woke up scared shitless.

Was what he saw the future?

Liam didn't know and his first action was what any other normal human would do. He reflexively denied it, completely convincing himself that what he had experienced was a bad nightmare even worse than those of his parents death.

However, a week later when his best friend Zach told him he was going to quit school and live his dream to enter competitive sports, Liam's expression hardened.

The reason being none other than the fact that in his nightmare, Zach had done the exact same thing, in the same way, at the exact same place.

At that moment, although Liam looked calm, that was only on the surface. His heart and mind had already gone into full scale panic mode.

"No! No! No! No!"

His brain roared despairingly as it spun, trying to process the reality of things. What he had dreamt about was already happening.

Even if Liam didn't want to, he had to come to terms with the fact that what he saw was no longer a dream but a possible future for himself.

A possibly, dreadful one at that.

Liam who was debating with himself internally was silent at the table for several minutes without realizing it.

Liam's life was a mess.

His parents had gone on a luxury cruise while he was in high school when he received a notice that their ship capsized.

The survivors listed weren't even in the double digits and there was no one surnamed 'Torres' among them.

Ever since then, his life had gone into a slump. He became introverted, timid and would try as much as possible to stay away from others unless it was absolutely necessary.

It was a miracle that he didn't involve himself with drugs and shady characters.

A major part of it was due to Zach right in front of him, who had been his best friend since childhood. He and Zach were similar in the sense that they were both orphans with Zach's grandfather being the only family he had left.

Now knowing that his already miserable life would only get worse in the future, you could already imagine the emotions he felt.

Zach watched as Liam sat there quiet, completely unaware of his thoughts. To say the least, silence was the last way he expected this conversation to go.

He had expected Liam to advise against it and repeatedly try to convince him of how competitive sports weren't the way to go.

Then he would resolutely tell him he had no intentions of changing his mind.

In truth, this was what Liam in his nightmare had done causing them to have a small argument about it.

Seeing Liam still in a daze, Zach who was confused and bewildered suddenly thought of something.

A look of realisation appeared on his face before his eyes lit up.

And Liam who was still stuck in his fears was jolted to reality by Zach's next sentence which he least expected.

"Liam... do you, want to come with me?"

.............

"Where are you boys heading to?"

Liam who was still reminiscing heard someone's voice bringing him out of his reverie.

He looked upward and saw an old man with a kind expression sitting on the balcony of a building they were passing by.

The old man looked at them with a smile on his face involuntarily causing both boys to let out a smile of their own.

"Morning Uncle Howard. We're heading off to catch a bus. The first one will be at the station anytime now. How's your week been?"

"Oh! Where's your destination? Do you need to leave this early? Zachary, does your grandpa know of this?" The old man asked with puzzlement and looked at Zach.

His eyes gradually turned solemn as he continued. "If you boys are sneaking out or running away from home, I advise you to....."

Liam looked speechless.

Who was running away from home? Before the old Howard continued, he was quickly interrupted by Liam. After spending a few minutes reassuring him that no such thing was happening, Liam and Zach bid him farewell and continued on their way.

Old man Howard watched their backs gradually disappear into the distance.

His face grew which once radiated a kind smile slowly turned to calm

He raised his hand to his face and put his wrist which held a seemingly old watch right under his mouth and said a few words.

"He's leaving. I repeat, he's leaving".