"In seeking meaning, I forgot how to live."
There comes a point when the endless search turns into a kind of drowning.
Where every step forward feels heavier instead of it being lighter.
Where the questions that once sparked hope now hollow the heart instead.
I thought that if I searched hard enough…
If I bled enough, lost enough, hoped enough—
There would be something waiting at the end...
A reason? A purpose?
Or a voice in the dark telling me it had all been worth it.
But the truth was a lot simpler and crueler…
Sometimes, there is no great answer.
Sometimes, in chasing meaning, you lose the small, sacred things that made life worth living at all.
I forgot how to sit still, I forgot how to laugh without guilt...
And I forgot how to love a morning without wondering if it mattered.
How much time have I wasted? How much have I failed?
How many dreams did I abandon, and how many loved ones did I let slip through my fingers because I was too busy searching for something more?
The sky changed, the seasons passed, but I remained the same…
A man waiting for a sign that I knew would never come.
And maybe that's the cruelest trick of all—
To be arrogant enough to believe that the universe owes you an explanation, a search of meaning...
That if you suffer beautifully enough, it will reward you with something more...
But it doesn't.
It just moves on, with or without you.
And perhaps along the way, I should have realized this.
Truly, what a fool I have become.
"Seth, you're here?"
He turned to see Monica, a woman who had become a passing part of his life months ago.
Though, he hadn't allowed himself to be truly part of her own.
She stood at the edge of the alleyway, a faint frown tugging at her lips as she looked at him, eyes searching.
She looked the same, yet entirely different—
Her hair was shorter, and the softness he remembered in her eyes had been replaced by a cool, assessing clarity.
"You okay?"
She asked.
For a second, he said nothing.
His gaze changed focus to the ground, the sudden question pulling at the edges of his scattered thoughts.
"Mm. Yeah. Are you that curious about my feelings?"
He let out a playful and grinning smile, the old, easy mask sliding into place.
Monica didn't respond with her usual comforting smile.
Instead, she walked over and stood beside him, close enough that he could smell the faint scent of her shampoo...
Jasmine and rain.
The familiarity of it was a physical ache.
"You don't have to pretend."
She said, her voice low.
"I know what that look means. The one you get when you're trying to solve the universe and hate the answer."
He let the grin fade, the effort too much to sustain.
She saw through him, she always had.
That was the gift, and the problem of being with her...
She paused before continuing, her gaze fixed on the damp brick wall opposite of them.
"....If you give me a good reason as to why you did that, I might forgive you."
There was hesitation in her voice, as though hoping for an answer that could satisfy her.
Seth's grin faltered, the corners of his mouth twitching before falling away entirely.
The night air continued to flow between them… And for a moment, Seth found it hard to reply with his usual charm.
It seems she already knew…
He ran a hand through his hair, his gaze darting away, anywhere but at her.
"Monica…"
He said, voice low, rough with a shame he could no longer hide.
"I wasn't thinking. I… I thought I was lost. I thought none of it mattered."
He laughed dryly, the sound could be heard a bit loudly in the quiet alley.
"I tried making up for it, I swear…"
Monica cut him off with a look.
"Did you really?"
Her words were stern, but there was something about the tone that made it feel sad.
"You were selfish. You were always so terrified of being ordinary, of being happy, that you had to set everything on fire just to feel warmth..."
Seth's mouth opened— then closed.
Because there was nothing left to say.
She was quoting his own words back at him, words he'd whispered to her in the dark of her bedroom, a confession of his deepest fear.
"You didn't accidentally fall into a pit of misery..."
Monica continued, her tone trying to steady as though holding back the deep sadness that had been gathering inside her for a very long time.
"You jumped in it, and you didn't care who you dragged down with you."
He flinched, the truth of it landing like a physical blow.
Monica took another step forward, now standing directly in front of him, her eyes glistening in the dim light.
"You slept with someone else... why?"
She said, her voice slightly cracking... the facade of toughness and coldness in her tone finally faded.
It was not even an accusation.
Just a simple, damning truth.
Seth squeezed his eyes shut, as if he could block out the memory of that night, the cheap perfume of the other woman, the frantic, empty energy of it all.
Although they had already broken up at that time, they had promised to each other that they would not be seeing anyone until at least for a year...
Otherwise it would be considered cheating.
But it did not even take Seth a week to already sleep with another woman.
"Yeah…"
He whispered, the word tearing from his throat.
He did not want to argue about how they had already broken up during that time.
To Seth, arguing with her would only lead to more complications...
"I slept with someone else."
The silence that followed was a living thing, filled with the memories of what they'd been, and what they could've been.
The late-night talks, the shared coffee, the way she'd traced the lines on his palm and told him his life was happening right now, in his room, with her.
'Perhaps it's better if I explain my side and calm her down...'
He turned toward her, maybe to plead, maybe to explain—
To tell her about the regrettable decisions he had made lately, the silence where God should be, and how her love felt like one more question he was failing to answer.
But Monica's hand moved first.
A flash of cold light.
And then—
Stab.
Pain exploded in his gut, slow and blooming, like a flower torn open too early.
He staggered back, gasping, his hands clamping uselessly over the thin blade buried deep in his abdomen.
Monica stood firm, her face carved from something colder than anger.
"You always wanted life to hand you answers..."
Her voice was soft, almost pitying, a cruel remains of the comfort she'd once offered.
"And when it didn't… you decided everyone else should pay for it."
Seth opened his mouth— to plead, to apologize, to do anything… to tell her he finally understood the small, sacred thing he'd destroyed.
But the words wouldn't come.
Only a strangled gasp as his knees buckled and the world began to tilt sideways.
The last thing he saw before the dark swallowed whole was Monica's silhouette, turning and walking away without a second glance, the scent of jasmine and rain still hanging in the air.
She pulled out her phone as she uttered words that Seth could barely hear.
"Hello, I would like to confess to a murder..."
Seth could barely process what was happening as the pain invaded his entire mind.
He had spent his whole life searching.
For what..? He wasn't sure.
Purpose? A place that felt like home?
Some grand revelation that would make the ache in his chest finally ease?
He had chased it in books, in strangers' beds, in the bottom of whiskey glasses, in train stations where he stood too long staring at departure boards...
As if one of them might finally tell him what he was supposed to live for.
Perhaps…
This was a fitting end.
To die by the consequences of the choices that you thought would build you up.
He thought, as his surroundings slowly turned darker and darker...
Suddenly, in his vision that constantly darkened…
A flash of light sparked in his eyes.
[Death has reached you]
[The Sin of The Meaningless has awoken inside you.]