In a dark room, the only light came from a computer screen, its flickering glow casting an eerie light over the scene. A man sat hunched over at the desk, his features obscured by the harsh light, his hands moving frantically across the keyboard. His body, heavy and unfit, was slouched. A patch of greasy hair hung over his forehead, and his face, obscured by the remnants of a long day, showed the marks of sleepless nights and poor decisions. He was so absorbed in the digital world on the screen that he seemed oblivious to everything else, his eyes glazed, his mind lost in a world that wasn't his own.
The air thickened, laden with an unsettling silence, broken only by the soft clicking of keyboard. The man remained oblivious of a person entering his room, his mind consumed with the web novel before him.
He had been like this for last 2 years—locked away, disconnected from the world outside. The failures of his past had long since turned him into this person, this hollow shell who found solace in fiction rather than in his own life. His body, once active and strong, had grown bloated and weak over the years, weighed down not only by physical neglect but by the burden of a mind that had never forgiven him for his own perceived inadequacies.
Behind him, a figure emerged, its shadow growing longer as it closed the distance.
Without a sound, the figure raised a knife. The edge gleamed faintly, its presence almost unreal in the dim light. For a moment, time seemed to slow, the stillness hanging heavy in the air. The blade hovered just above the man's back, ready to strike.
Then, in one swift motion, the knife plunged deep into his flesh. The impact was sharp, brutal, and final.
A gasp escaped him—a sharp intake of breath—as the pain registered. His hands instinctively shot to the desk, but it was too late. His body lurched forward, crumpling against the cold surface, a final sigh slipping from his lips. The screen before him flickered one last time, the light dimming into darkness.
They say that in the moments before death, a person's life flashes before their eyes. And for him, it did.
His mind spiraled back, back to a time when he hadn't always been this broken. He wasn't always overweight. He hadn't always been the man locked away in this room, consumed by an obsession with web novels. There had been a time when he had dreams—dreams that had once seemed so close, so within reach.
But everything had crumbled after one incident. A single failure had shattered it all. His body changed, his life spiraled downward, and the man who once walked with confidence and purpose was replaced by someone unrecognizable. Someone who hid from the world and retreated into the pages of a novel.
One novel in particular had captivated him: 'Chronicles of unworthy prince'.
The protagonist—strong, brave, endlessly capable—was everything he had once longed to be. He dreamed of strength, of heroism, of living a life of meaning. But those dreams had faded as his reality darkened, piece by piece.
And now, in his final moments, he realized it was too late. There would be no grand transformation. No heroic ending. This was how it ended—for him. As the darkness closed in around him, he could only think one thing:
This was how his life ended.