Anthesis of Sadness
Chapter 148: Tiredness

Chapter 148: Tiredness

I stepped forward. One step, then another, but each slower than the last, as if the world itself were becoming denser around me, or perhaps it was simply my body — emptied, twisted, undone — struggling to respond anymore. It wasn’t hesitation. It wasn’t fear. There was no more room in me for that kind of resistance.

It was something older. Deeper. A kind of surrender woven under the skin, something creeping, animal, that had supplanted any will to fight or return. I had become this body too heavy for itself, this fatigue piled up like years of rain on ruins. I wasn’t moving toward a choice. I was simply going where the ground collapsed with me.

It was something else. A total exhaustion, absolute, almost sacred, as if every cell of my being had understood that this step, that path, called for no more.

My legs had grown heavy, not because of fear — that had long since dissolved — but from pure saturation, from excess tension, effort, resistance worn down to the bone.

My body was nothing but a badly sewn sack of pain, a grotesque assemblage of worn-out nerves and beaten flesh, a stretched envelope, too full of stifled screams, restrained spasms, digested refusals. It still moved, by reflex, by automation, propelled by a mind that could no longer bear to think, that clung to momentum like a puppet thrown toward its final scene.

Even thinking burned. It had become a weight, a slow poison. Every thought bore the imprint of a love I no longer wanted to feel, of a gaze I no longer wanted to remember, of a voice that might have said "stay" if I had still been able to hear it without screaming.

The edge was there. Motionless. Perfectly silent. Just one step away. A trivial step, yet immense. The abyss stretched out before me like a vast maw, open not to swallow me but simply to exist — a mute mouth in a world without cries, without calls, without promises. It demanded nothing. It didn’t seduce. It was just there, vast, black, patient, with a purity so stark it tore at the nerves.

I looked at it. For a long time. So long I lost count. Muscles frozen, breath suspended, the moment stretched until it became nothing but a dull throb in my temples. And behind me, without a sound, without a word, the world watched me in return. Not with eyes. Not with a voice. But with something else. A presence. A warmth. A strange patience, heavy, almost benevolent. As if it wasn’t holding me back. As if it accepted, in silence, what I was about to do.

This world, behind me... it wasn’t calling me. It wasn’t pleading. It wasn’t insisting. It waited. Simply. Like a calm presence, without blame, without pressure. A gentle warmth, almost hazy, whispered something to me — not with a voice, not with words, but with a way of being there, constant, whole, and almost tender.

You can still come back.

That’s what it said. You can come back. You can turn around. You can try, even if you no longer know how. Even if everything in you is still bleeding.

But I... I didn’t want to. I no longer wanted to. I didn’t want to come back, didn’t want to reach out, didn’t want to admit anything. I didn’t want to apologize. Or forgive. Or heal. Even the gentlest light made me want to bite.

I wanted... to stop.

I wanted to die.

Not because I had nothing left. But because something still remained. A part I hadn’t managed to rot, a living root at the bottom of my carcass, still beating despite everything. And that’s what I wanted to tear out. With my own hands, if necessary. It wasn’t death I was seeking. It was extinction. An amputation of what, in me, could still love.

I had believed, for so long, that hatred was my skeleton, that it held me up when everything else collapsed, that it was that dark, gritty, violent engine — the one that pushed me to keep going, to move forward, to take one more step even when my bones screamed surrender. I believed it was what allowed me to stand against the world, against the gods, against what I had become. I believed it protected me from myself.

I had mistaken it for strength. An ally. A deliverance.

But now... now I felt it. It wasn’t enough anymore. It no longer carried anything. It no longer filled anything. It floated in me like a dead ember, useless, without glow.

I was tired.

Not just of living. Not just of suffering.

I was tired... even of rage.

I couldn’t bear that residual warmth anymore. That leftover humanity. That stubborn flicker of hope that refused to die with the rest. Even hating myself, I still felt the trace of her fingers in my memories. Even as I collapsed, I still searched for her face in the void. And that was what I wanted to kill. That light that kept coming back. Always. Like a last breath one has no right to take again.

the fingers without being able to stop the tearing. It wasn’t a scream, not a rupture, just an inner softness, an ancient fragility rising to the surface. Something soft. Something vulnerable. Something... human.

And that thing, I felt it melting. Literally. Dissolving in the warmth of the air, in that invisible wadding that enveloped me without constraining, like sugar abandoned in lukewarm water. It didn’t hurt. Not yet. But it was worse than pain: it was a gentle disappearance, an intimate evaporation.

And then... I understood.

It wasn’t myself I’d been fleeing all this time. It wasn’t rage, nor shame, nor even memory.

It was love.

And the worst part was, it was there, everywhere. Not like a promise. But like a poison. I felt it in the wind, in the air, in this world still watching me without judgment. As if it wanted to return to me what I’d spent my life burning. As if it had secretly kept that version of me who still knew how to say "I love you." And I... I wanted to strangle it. With all my strength. Until nothing remained but a formless memory.

Not the love of others. Not the one given to me.

The one I had left.

That microscopic part of me, that intact shard, still warm, still alive, still capable of loving in spite of everything. Still capable of hoping. Still capable of believing. In a world. In someone. In her.

And that was the part I wanted to extinguish.

Not the monster.

Not the father.

Not the killer.

That spark. That fucking obstinate light. That was what I wanted to drown until nothing remained.

I closed my eyes, slowly, like closing a book that would never be opened again. And I inhaled. Just once. A heavy, trembling breath, lost somewhere between fatigue and certainty. One last trace of air before silence.

Then I turned around.

The void at my back.

The world ahead.

And in that suspended moment, in that second both trivial and sacred, I raised my arm. Not abruptly. Not in anger. But with a slowness almost ceremonial, almost gentle. My shoulder creaked. My fingers quivered.

And then, I extended my middle finger.

Not out of provocation.

Not to insult.

But as one seals a contract. As one draws a line. As one plants a flag in a land one refuses to inhabit.

It was a no. A complete no. A sabotage. A farewell not addressed to an enemy, but to everything that could still have saved me. A rejection hurled straight into the heart of that world too patient, too gentle, too loving.

A refusal of love.

A refusal of forgiveness.

A refusal of warmth, of light, of embrace.

And without screaming, without trembling, without turning around one last time...

Because I knew. If I looked back even once, if I saw even an echo of what had been offered to me, I wouldn’t jump. I’d stay. I’d ask for forgiveness. I’d return. And I didn’t want that. I’d rather die than let that love catch me one more time.

I jumped.

The void swallowed me in one motion, one breath, one gesture that wasn’t even a gesture anymore. It didn’t grab me. It didn’t devour me. It accepted me. Instantly. As if it had been waiting for me all along, arms open, mouth shut, heart nonexistent. As if it had always known I would end up here.

There was no vertigo.

No breath cut off.

No strangled cry.

Not even that dull fear we think is instinctive.

Nothing.

Only silence. A silence so vast, so total, it erased even the memory of sound. A silence without edges, without tension, without threat.

And then...

The end.

Not a tragic end. Not a heroic end. A simple end. Flat. Obvious.

An end that demanded nothing.

A strange peace, bare, unearned. A peace that didn’t reproach me, didn’t question me, didn’t offer comfort either.

Just peace.

A peace I had not deserved.

But that was there.

Anyway.