A feeble man with dark, sunken eyes and a sad gaze was staring at the night sky from the veranda of a hospital room. It seemed as if he was lost in thoughts too deep to name. If someone had looked into his eyes right then, all they would see was something endless too deep or too hollow as if his gaze had no bottom.
As the man looked at the night sky, an old woman opened the door and called softly, "Arman…" Her voice trembled with both sorrow and joy, as though her heart was tearing apart and healing at the same time.
She rushed toward the man and hugged him tightly. "Oh, my boy! Finally… it seems God has heard my prayers. You're awake!" she said, tears streaming down her cheeks.
A faint smile appeared on the man's face. "It's alright, Mom… calm down," he said gently.
Arman had been in a coma for more than five months. The doctors had long given up hope that he would ever wake again. But fate had other plans. He woke though the accident had left him unable to use his legs ever again.
He spoke softly to his mother, trying to calm her down, but inside he was devastated. It felt like a sharp needle piercing his heart when he realized he would never walk again. After a while, he convinced her to go home and rest.
Alone in the hospital room, Arman stared at the ceiling and thought to himself, 'I guess it's what I deserve… sometimes life just fucks you up.'
He was lost in thought, uncertain of what came next. Suddenly A beam of light shot toward him from the veranda of the hospital room.
Bam!!, everything went dark, and he felt like something pulled him somewhere deep.
***
Arman awoke after what felt like an eternity. His eyelids fluttered, heavy as stone. When he finally opened them, there was nothing only darkness. Endless, suffocating darkness. For a moment, he thought he had gone blind. He raised his trembling hands before his face, yet even they were swallowed by the void.
He reached out, searching for something solid a wall, a bed, the faint touch of reality but there was nothing. Only silence, deep and dreadful. Then, suddenly, he felt his legs. They moved.
A shiver ran down his spine. His legs the same lifeless limbs he had thought lost forever were now his again. He stood up, uncertain, frightened. A faint joy flickered within him, but it was drowned by confusion. 'Where am I?'
He called out, his voice echoing into the emptiness, "Hello? Is anyone there?" No one answered.
He took a hesitant step forward, then another. The ground beneath him felt unreal, neither soft nor hard as if he walked on the very fabric of nothingness. He kept moving, searching for a boundary, a sound, a light anything. But there was no end.
He walked. He kept walking. Time dissolved. He did not feel hunger, nor thirst, nor weariness. The silence pressed against him like a weight. The darkness began to whisper in his mind, subtle and cruel.
'What is this place? Am I dead? Is this hell? Or am I dreaming still, trapped within some cruel joke of fate?'
He tried to remember how long he had been there, but there was no measure of time, no rhythm to his heartbeat. Only an infinite stillness, stretching on without mercy.
At last, he murmured to himself, voice trembling in the dark, 'Maybe this is death… or maybe this is what's left of me.'
Again, he stood up. 'What should I do now?' he wondered, his thoughts echoing faintly in the void. He tried to remember something anything but his mind was like a shattered mirror, every piece reflecting only fragments of a life he could no longer grasp.
He reached deep within himself, searching for a memory, a face, a voice but there was nothing. He tried to recall how he had come to this place, yet the harder he tried, the more the memories slipped away, like smoke between his fingers.
He strained to remember who he was. The effort made his head ache, his heart pound but still, nothing came. Finally, he tried to remember his own name… and even that was gone.
A hollow silence filled him. It was as if his very existence had been erased, leaving behind only a wandering shadow that once had meaning. He tried , he knew something, something very important but , he could not.
"Ha… ha…hahahahaha…" He began to laugh a hollow, manic sound that echoed through the void. It was the kind of laughter born from despair, as if everything around him were nothing more than a cruel joke.
Then, suddenly, he stopped. 'Why am I laughing? The thought struck him cold. Have I finally gone mad? How long have I been laughing for?'
Silence answered him. His own breath felt foreign in the emptiness. 'What should I do now? he wondered. If only I could find something… anything.'
Once again, he stood up and began to walk. Step after step, into the same endless dark. He walked until the act itself lost meaning until walking and standing felt the same. At last, he stopped.
He gave up.
There was no end, and no beginning. Only the void vast, indifferent, swallowing him whole.
And within it, a faint thought flickered as if even nothingness was waiting for something.
He thought to himself, What now? He just lay there, staring at nothing. 'What if this is just a dream? Maybe I'll wake up after I feel pain… or die somehow.'
He wondered what to do next, then suddenly tried to choke himself to death—but he couldn't feel anything. No matter how hard he tried, he somehow came back to life each time. 'What if I just inflict pain? That might work, right?'
There was nothing around him, so he started breaking his fingers, chewing on his hand, choking on the blood but still, he felt nothing. Every wound healed itself instantly. Then, all of a sudden, a sharp pain struck his head, and he blacked out, and the world, once again he became one with nothing.