When Alex finished writing, his face was a mess of tears and snot. He didn't care. He used the back of his hand to wipe it all away, smearing it across his cheeks and under his nose, only making things worse. His chest rose and fell in short, stuttering breaths. For a moment, he just sat there, staring blankly at the screen, the final words still glowing in front of him:
"And this… is my story."
His fingers hovered above the keyboard for a beat too long. Then he stood up.
He walked to the corner of his room, slow, heavy, like he was carrying the weight of every word he had just typed. A calendar hung crooked on the wall. It was old and thin, the kind of calendar given out at drugstores for free. A picture of some mountain Alex had never seen was faded across the top. Each day before today had a red slash through it. Neat, precise. A countdown, like he was ticking off the seconds to something final. He reached into his hoodie pocket and pulled out a marker, uncapping it with a snap. His hand trembled as he drew a shaky red line through the fifteenth of November, 2027.
The day he died.
He stared at the calendar for a long time, his breath fogging in the dim light. Then he turned away, walked over to his closet. He didn't own much. Most of what was in the room wasn't even his. The mattress on the floor belonged to the house. The desk had come from Goodwill. The notebooks scattered across the shelves were his, filled with sketches and stories and ugly thoughts that never saw the light of day. But the clothes? A few shirts, some jeans—those he picked. Those he kept clean.
He pulled out the best things he had: a black button-down shirt that still smelled faintly of detergent from the last group home, a pair of dark jeans without any holes, and a clean pair of sneakers he hadn't worn in months. If he was going to hell, he figured he might as well look good on the way down.
He got dressed in silence. Folded his other clothes neatly and placed them at the foot of the mattress. Not because anyone would care. Just because it felt like something final. Like drawing the last line of a story.
He didn't leave a note. There was nothing to say that he hadn't already poured into the story on the screen. A story that wouldn't be read. A story that didn't matter. He closed the laptop, unplugged the charger, and left it there—on the desk, blinking its low battery warning like a dying eye.
He walked to the door.
He didn't look back.
He didn't lock it.
He didn't care what happened to his room. There wasn't anything in there worth stealing. Just old notebooks, an empty fridge, a mattress on the floor, and a laptop that would probably catch fire if someone tried to charge it one more time.
He didn't care what happened to the house. To the bodies upstairs. If someone found them, then fine. If not, then fine. He'd be long gone. Gone before anyone could pin blame or ask questions or look at him like they ever knew him.
Because they didn't.
Not really.
The outside world was colder than he expected. The chill bit through his thin shirt and sent goosebumps crawling up his arms. The sun was setting, bleeding orange and pink across the sky like someone had taken a knife to the horizon. It was beautiful in a way that made him angry.
How dare the sky look like that?
How dare the world pretend to be soft?
He walked. One foot in front of the other. Past houses with lights on in the windows. Past kids playing soccer in a gravel lot. Past a woman smoking a cigarette on her porch, staring off like she knew what waiting felt like. She didn't even look at him. No one did. He was invisible.
He liked it that way.
Cars passed. Music played from somewhere nearby—something poppy and cheerful and fake. Laughter echoed through a cracked-open window. The sound of someone living.
He crossed two intersections and stepped over a fallen street sign. A dog barked behind a fence, but he kept moving.
He didn't stop until the bridge came into view.
It wasn't a tall bridge. Not the kind from movies. Just high enough. Just long enough. The river below looked still from here, but he knew it wasn't. It moved fast. Cold. Unforgiving. He'd checked. He'd done his research.
He walked to the center, hands in his pockets.
The air was thinner up here, or maybe that was just in his head. The wind tugged at his clothes. A few cars passed by behind him. A cyclist glanced his way but didn't stop.
He climbed the railing slowly.
Deliberately.
Like he was stepping onto a stage.
The concrete was rough beneath his sneakers. The drop loomed ahead of him, dark and final. He stared down at the water.
It didn't look peaceful.
It looked indifferent.
Voices started behind him. Distant. Panicked. "Hey!" someone shouted. "Don't do it!"
"Suicide is not the answer!"
"Don't jump kid!"
But they didn't understand.
They were too late.
They always were.
Alex closed his eyes. Felt the wind curl around him. Felt the world slip a little further away.
Would it be better if I jumped?
Would it end, or just start again somewhere worse?
Is there a silver lining anywhere? Or is that just a story people tell themselves so they don't give up?
He waited for an answer. But there was none.
Only wind. Only cold.
He laughed. Just once. A hollow, tired thing that rattled out of him like an old ghost.
And then, with no drama, no final scream, no flailing arms or desperate goodbye—
Alex stepped forward.
The world tilted. The sky vanished.
The water rushed up to meet him.
There was no one to catch him.
Only silence.
Only dark.
Only the end.