From the next room came Albert's soft cries, the sound cutting through her like a blade. It was a reminder of the wounds she had allowed to fester for far too long. Tears began to spill from her eyes, uncontrolled, unstoppable. The weight of guilt and despair pressed down on her, paralyzing her in the chair. She wanted to move, to comfort her son, but her body felt shackled by invisible chains.
With trembling hands, she wiped her face, trying to calm her erratic breaths. The small lamp beside her cast a soft, golden glow, creating a faint shadow on the wall. That shadow didn't feel like her own; it belonged to someone else entirely a stranger. She closed her eyes, letting herself sink into a sea of memories and regret.
"How did I get here?" she whispered to the empty room, the question echoing in her mind, unanswered.
Her gaze fell on an old, dust-covered journal lying forgotten in the corner of the room. It was a relic of a time she had almost forgotten. She opened it to the first page, and the words of her younger self greeted her like the voice of an old friend:
"I began with love—or maybe just the illusion of it. I thought choosing my own life meant freedom. But that freedom became a cage I built with my own hands."
Tears welled up again as she read. What once felt like a simple confession now unearthed the ache of wounds she had tried to ignore. The pill bottle sitting beside the journal seemed to mock her—a silent accomplice in her endless cycle of escape. She stared at it with a mix of hatred and despair, knowing the peace it offered was nothing more than a lie.
She picked up a pen, her hand trembling, and let her thoughts spill onto the next page.
"If only I could go back to when everything felt possible—when my dreams were still within reach—maybe I would choose differently. But now, my path is lost in the fog. Everything I once chased—education, a career, even myself—is buried in the darkness I've been too afraid to confront."
She stopped, her eyes drifting to the small mirror on the table. The reflection stared back at her, unrecognizable—a woman drained of the hope and courage that once defined her.
Albert's cries grew louder, pulling her from her thoughts. This time, the sound pierced through the fog of her despair. She wanted to move, to hold him close, to give him the comfort he deserved. But each step felt like wading through quicksand, every inch of her body weighed down by years of neglect and pain.
"I have to change," she whispered, her voice fragile but determined. "Not just for them—Jesica, Tommy, Albert. But for me too."
Though the path ahead was shrouded in uncertainty, that night, Sana made a decision. She would no longer let herself remain trapped. No matter how dark or thorny the journey, she would find a way out.
Her gaze returned to the words in her journal. An unwelcome pang of envy struck her as she thought of her friends—those who had chosen different lives. They had carved paths of freedom, careers, and happiness unburdened by the weight of suffocating roles. No crying children in the night. No cold, loveless marriage. Just lives of their own making.
"Why didn't I choose that?" she wondered bitterly. The thought cast a shadow across her heart. "Why did I trap myself in this life I didn't even realize I was building?"
Her eyes fell on the pill bottle again, a symbol of her escape. It had been her crutch, a way to silence the chaos inside. Each pill brought fleeting relief, like a breeze that cooled the scorching heat of her reality for just a moment before vanishing.
But tonight, for the first time, Sana dared to imagine something else—a life not just endured, but reclaimed.
The atmosphere around her seemed heavier than ever. Outside the window, the sky was cloaked in a deep, unrelenting gray, mirroring the storm within her. Sana reached for her journal once more, her hand trembling as she began to write the final lines. Each stroke of the pen felt like the cautious steps of someone approaching the edge of a cliff, unsure whether they would fall—or finally take flight.
"I'm tired, tired of a life I never truly chose. And maybe, maybe it's time for me to disappear, to fade away from the burdens I can no longer bear."
Tears fell onto the paper, blending with the ink, smudging her words. The drops grew heavier, painting the emptiness she had long kept hidden. When she finally reached for the bottle, time seemed to stand still. The pills spilled one by one into her palm, cold and hard, like tiny stones that would build the final wall around her.
After swallowing the pills, a lightness began to take over her body. The world around her seemed to blur. The pain that had suffocated her for so long started to loosen, the guilt that had shackled her began to fade. Everything quieted, like waves retreating from the shore.
However, in her semi-conscious state, she felt something strange. Her body was lifted, as if being carried by someone. The cold night air brushed against her face as she was taken outside. She faintly heard the engine of a car starting, then felt herself being laid onto something hard. The sounds around her grew fainter, fading along with her consciousness. She floated, falling into a soothing darkness, no longer caring where she was being taken or what would happen next.