Smile was finally the only personality. He had won, but at a terrible price—Lowo's death.
In the days that followed, Smile continued to live, but the town noticed something different. The "madman who talked to himself" now walked in silence, with a cold and distant expression.
The troublemakers who had once tormented him now avoided him. There was something disturbing in his eyes, something no one could understand.
The Lowo who had once existed, with his fears and weaknesses, had died in that accident. Only Smile remained—a hollow figure, bearing the scars of an internal struggle fought to the bitter end.
But that would be in the future, in the present moment, the pain of loss was far greater than any stupid reaction from those troublemaking boys.
At the right time he would teach each of them a good lesson.
Of course he would.
From the same commercial establishment where the child had exited, a father was running desperately, crying inconsolably, fearing the worst for his son.
The scene was a mix of chaos and relief. Lowo, who had thrown himself to save the child, lay on the ground, motionless, and for a moment, it seemed life had left him.
Everyone around was confused, and Smile, watching everything from afar, felt an inexplicable tightness.
"Lowo...?" murmured Smile, his heart heavy. Something was wrong, deeply wrong. He could feel it.
The child's parents, overcome with gratitude, insisted that Lowo should receive a reward for his heroic act. But Smile, who now felt as if a part of himself had been ripped away, watched in silence.
Lowo could not respond. To Smile, he was... dead.
The owner of the car, still in shock, tried to apologize for the failed brakes, mentioning that he was merely a deliveryman transporting eggs.
But Smile, his increasingly fragmented mind barely processing the words, only stared at Lowo's lifeless body. His breathing quickened.
"He's gone..." he thought. "Lowo is dead. I... it's just me now."
The deliveryman, trying to make amends, offered the remaining boxes of eggs from the accident—some cracked, others intact.
Smile looked at the boxes, his thoughts scattered. Lowo would have politely declined, but Smile... Smile didn't know what to do anymore.
He accepted the offer, yet at the same time, felt profoundly disconnected from reality. Was this a reward?
A reward for losing Lowo? The eggs seemed meaningless against the growing pain in his chest.
"What do I do now?" Smile thought, his face lost in confusion. "I am Smile... I should be smiling... but Lowo is gone. What's left of me?"
Back home, Smile walked as though carrying the weight of the world. Upon arriving, he found the humble little house he once shared with Lowo.
Everything seemed so empty without him. Smile placed the boxes of eggs on the floor and stood there, staring at them, unsure why he had accepted them.
He wanted Lowo to be there. He wanted Lowo to laugh, as he always did when things went wrong. Lowo wasn't there.
When the deliveryman arrived hours later with more eggs in hand, Smile barely registered his presence.
The man seemed kind, perhaps trying to ease his own guilt, but Smile could barely look at him.
"Please, young man, what's your name? I think I forgot to ask earlier," said the man, attempting to break the silence.
"I'm... Smile," he answered automatically, but the truth burned inside him.
He wasn't Smile. Not anymore. Lowo had died in that accident—or at least, in Smile's mind. And now, he was alone.
The man, slightly puzzled by the response, continued to talk, but Smile was far away, lost in his grief. He thanked the man vaguely and let him leave, returning to stare at the boxes of eggs.
Each of those eggs seemed like a symbol of something he had lost.
Lowo, without a doubt, would have found some use for them. He would have joked about the absurd number of eggs, would have thought of a way to share them with the neighbors.
But Smile couldn't do any of that. All he saw was the emptiness left behind by Lowo's absence.
He picked up a cracked egg, as if it were the last connection he had to his old friend, and held it delicately.
"Lowo... what would you have done?" he asked aloud, hoping that, somehow, the answer would come to him.
But it didn't.
When night fell, Smile was still there, sitting on the floor, surrounded by the eggs. Time seemed suspended, as if nothing else mattered.
His friend, his other self, was gone. He didn't know how to move on.
"Hello, Smile," said a familiar voice.
It was his friend, with the usual smile, but Smile barely recognized him.
"What happened to you? Why do you look so strange?"
Smile tried to smile, but the smile wouldn't come.
"It's nothing, it was just a... stumble."
The weight of the lie almost crushed him. Lowo had died, and he was alone.
As Smile tried to explain what had happened, he looked away from the egg cartons, feeling deeply ashamed, as if he had traded his friend's life for the eggs. His friend smiled, unaware of the depth of the situation.
"Wow! What are you doing with all this? Collecting cardboard to sell? That's a good idea!"
Smile just shook his head, too exhausted to argue.
"No, something interesting happened... or maybe not."
They talked late into the night, but Smile was distant, trapped in his own mind. His friend tried to cheer him up, but it was useless.
Nothing felt right anymore. Lowo wasn't there to comfort him, to fix things, and Smile didn't know how to deal with it.
"You know what, Smile? I never imagined you'd one day be called a hero," said his friend, trying to lift his spirits.
"I'm not a hero..." murmured Smile, his voice heavy with sorrow.
"Neither was Lowo. He did what anyone would do. He just wanted to feel... human."
But now, for Smile, humanity seemed lost.