Ethan Blackwood sits slumped against the peeling wallpaper of his tiny studio apartment. The only light comes from a flickering streetlamp outside the grimy window, casting long shadows across the cluttered floor. It's past midnight, and an eerie quiet envelops the room, broken only by the distant hum of traffic. He is drowning in silence and darkness, and the weight of it presses on his chest until each breath feels like a chore.
In the dim light, Ethan glances around at the remnants of his life. Scattered scripts with his lines highlighted — single lines for background characters or silent roles — are strewn on the coffee table. A faded headshot of his younger self lies crumpled in the corner, smiling with bright eyes full of hope he no longer recognizes. At twenty-four, Ethan feels a hundred years old, every ounce of energy drained by disappointment and despair.
His body is exhausted beyond measure. He hasn't eaten since yesterday morning, but the gnawing hunger is dulled by an even deeper pain inside. His muscles ache from long hours at a part-time job that barely pays the rent, and from nights spent pacing in anxiety. Even now, his hands tremble — whether from low blood sugar or the weight of hopelessness, he can't tell. He pulls a thin blanket tighter around his shoulders, but it does nothing to ward off the chill seeping into his bones.
Ethan tilts his head back against the wall and closes his eyes. Images flash behind his eyelids: the bright stage of his high school auditorium on his sixteenth birthday, when he had dared to dream of fame. The bustle of movie sets where he stood invisibly among crowds of extras. The casting calls and auditions that always ended in polite rejections. Eight years of chasing a dream, and all he has to show for it are walk-on roles with no name and countless echoes of "We'll be in touch," they always said. They never were.
A lump rises in his throat as he remembers the last audition, just a week ago. It was a small part — three lines in a TV drama — and he had poured everything into it, convincing himself that this time might be different. For a moment, he thought he saw a spark of interest in the casting director's eyes, a glimmer of hope, but the call never came. Today he saw the announcement: the role went to someone else, someone with a fraction of his experience. Reading that email, something in Ethan finally broke.
His eyes burn with tears that refuse to fall. He's cried them all out already on countless lonely nights. Now he just feels... empty.
The dreams that once kept him going have all withered, one by one. He can't even remember the last time he truly laughed or felt warm. Every day has been a repetition of the same pain: waking up to nothing but failure, going to bed with only despair. And tonight, he doesn't think he has the strength to do it again.
He stares at the ceiling, where water stains spread like shadows. The air smells of dust and stale memories. In the quiet, his heartbeat is a slow, heavy drum in his ears.
Maybe this is it. Maybe I won't wake up tomorrow.
The thought isn't panicked or frightened; it's strangely comforting. An end to the constant ache sounds like a relief. If sleep is the closest thing to peace he can have, then he welcomes it.
Ethan slides down until he's lying on the threadbare carpet, the blanket tangled around his limbs. It's cold, but he barely notices now. His eyelids are so heavy.
He listens to the weak sound of his breathing and wonders if any of it mattered — if anyone will miss him, or even notice he's gone. He doubts it. In this huge city, he is just another face in the background, unnoticed in life and likely to be unmourned in death.
A single tear finally escapes, trailing warm against the chill of his skin. His last thoughts as consciousness slips away are a jumbled prayer for peace and a quiet apology. He silently begs forgiveness — from his parents he drifted away from, from the child he once was with stars in his eyes, and from anyone who might have cared, if only he had let them. I'm sorry... It is the final thought that flickers through his mind, though his lips barely move to shape the words. And then there is nothing but darkness.
Ethan blinks, expecting the ceiling of his apartment — or anything at all — but sees nothing. Just an endless dark expanse surrounds him. He staggers to his feet, the ache in his body gone, replaced by a numbness and lightness that feels unreal. There's no floor he can see, yet he's standing on something solid. No walls, no light source, just a gray twilight emptiness stretching infinitely.
His heart starts to race in confusion and fear. Where am I? he wonders, turning in place and finding no familiar landmark, nothing to ground him. The silence here is different from the quiet of his apartment — it's deeper, absolute, as if even sound has died in this place. Ethan's last memory is of curling up on his apartment floor, consumed by despair; he doesn't remember falling asleep. He doesn't remember dying.
He pats himself, feeling his arms, his chest — everything seems solid, real. His clothes are the same ones he wore... how long ago? It feels like only moments, and yet an eternity. Panic bubbles up as he calls out, "Hello?" His voice echoes strangely into the void, swallowed by the vastness, and no answer comes back.
Ethan's breath catches; he should be dead — he was ready to die, wasn't he? But this isn't any afterlife he ever heard of, nor is it life as he knows it. It's something in between, an emptiness where he is utterly alone. He doesn't know if this is a dream, a hallucination, or something worse. All he knows is that the despair he thought he left behind is creeping back in, now compounded by a new terror of the unknown.
He takes a hesitant step forward, and the "ground" holds beneath him with a soundless assurance. In every direction, the void looks the same — no path to follow, no sign of life or light. Ethan wraps his arms around himself, a familiar gesture of trying to find comfort. His mind races with questions he has no answers for. Am I dead? Is this what death is?
In the silence, Ethan's trembling voice whispers the only question that matters: "What... what happened to me?" The darkness offers no response. Alone in the void, Ethan Blackwood stands at the threshold of a fate unknown. His story is about to begin anew — without him understanding how his last act in life truly ended.