At exactly 2:17 a.m., the counter still read 0.
The cursor blinked on the screen like a quiet heartbeat, steady and patient, as if it believed someone would eventually arrive. The room was dark except for the pale glow of the laptop, casting long shadows across an empty desk and a stack of unfinished notebooks that smelled faintly of old paper and regret.
He stared at the number again.
0 views.0 comments.0 favorites.
It wasn't surprising. He had uploaded the chapter less than an hour ago. Still, knowing that didn't make the silence any lighter.
Outside the window, the city breathed softly—distant traffic, flickering streetlights, lives moving forward without noticing the small act of creation taking place in this room. Somewhere out there, people were laughing, sleeping, dreaming. None of them knew that a story had just been born.
And maybe none of them ever would.
He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. The chapter had taken him three weeks to write. Not because it was long, but because every sentence felt like pulling something fragile out of himself—hope, doubt, memory—then laying it bare for strangers who might never come.
"Why do you even bother?" he muttered to the empty room.
The question had been following him for years.
He remembered the first time he'd thought of writing seriously. Not for school. Not for anyone else. Just for himself. Back then, the idea felt enormous, like standing at the edge of a vast ocean with nothing but faith and a single step forward.
Now it felt smaller. Quieter. Almost foolish.
His finger hovered over the trackpad. He could delete it. One click and the chapter would vanish, leaving no trace behind—no proof he'd dared to believe this could matter. He'd done it before. Written things that never saw the light of day. Safer that way. No rejection if no one ever reads.
The cursor blinked.
Still waiting.
He exhaled slowly and let his hand fall away from the delete button.
"I didn't write this to quit," he said softly, as if the words needed to hear themselves spoken.
He stood up and walked to the window. From this height, the city looked endless, a constellation of lights stretching far beyond where he could see. Each window held a story. Millions of them. Lives filled with victories, failures, love, loss.
And here he was, hoping that someday—just someday—someone would choose his words over everything else competing for their attention.
It felt impossible.
Yet the thought refused to let go.
He turned back to the desk and sat down again. The title stared at him from the top of the page:
Written for a Million Eyes
The name had come to him suddenly, almost embarrassingly bold. A million eyes. A ridiculous number. A dream too large to say out loud without laughing.
But he hadn't named it for where he was.
He'd named it for where he wanted to go.
The platform refreshed automatically.
Still zero.
He smiled faintly.
"Everyone starts somewhere," he whispered.
His phone buzzed on the desk, breaking the quiet. A notification from the platform. His heart jumped before he could stop it. He reached for the phone, pulse quickening, already imagining what it might say.
New view: 1
He froze.
Just one.Just a number.
But it felt heavier than all the silence before it.
Someone—somewhere—had clicked on his story. Someone had seen the title, paused for half a second longer than they needed to, and decided to read. He would never know who it was. They might close the page in seconds. They might never come back.
But they had been there.
One pair of eyes.
His chest tightened unexpectedly. He hadn't prepared for this feeling—the strange mix of relief and fear, the sudden understanding that being seen, even a little, meant opening himself to judgment as much as hope.
The cursor blinked again.
Waiting.
He placed his hands on the keyboard.
If one person had read it, then maybe another could. And another after that. Stories didn't grow all at once. They grew quietly, word by word, reader by reader.
He began typing.
Not because he was confident.Not because he was certain of success.
But because somewhere deep inside him was the belief that stories written with honesty never truly disappear. They wait. Patiently. For the right eyes to find them.
Even if it takes a million tries.