"What am I even doing?" Said the young man after coming home to his apartment from work, not even having taken off his shoes yet.
His day wasn't good, nor was it bad either, it was just normal. Nothing to take note of and nothing to regret, even though he didn't have to work every day, it was the same as the many he had faced before.
That filled the young man with an incomprehensible sense of dread as if he were drowning in a pool with no surface.
As for the young man, he was not someone to take note of either, with his short black hair, brown eyes, his slim yet slightly taller than average physique and clothing that would be better suited for a casual day out.
Once the man took off his shoes, he went straight for his fridge and reheated some frozen food he had stored in there, as he did when coming home from work.
After he was done washing the dishes, he went into his room and looked out the window wanting to see the stars at night to try and clear his head, however the bright city lights didn't allow him to.
And so he got changed, brushed his teeth and scrolled meaningless posts on his phone he'd forget in the next minute and went off to bed.
This was his everyday life. He hated it.
"A wedding?" He said, a bit surprised. He usually never had to work at weddings, but he wasn't complaining, in fact, he was a little excited for this new job.
He got ready to go out with his overly casual clothing and equipment for his job, then took a ride to the wedding.
Once he arrived, he set up what he had brought and started to take pictures. It all seemed like a blur to him, he thought that day would be different.
"At least I'm getting paid" he thought to himself once he snapped out of his trance, placing his camera down and looking at all the people present.
"It would be nice to be the one being taken photos of in a wedding. Maybe one day." he started to think, and lost his train of thought as he picked his camera back up to finish what he came to do.
The whole day passed in blur, just like any day for him, until the ceremony started.
He broke from his trance once more when he saw those people, up in the altar, he had no idea who they were until now.
People who had lived their lives until that moment, and would now live them together.
He saw two people who cared for each other, people who would have happy moments together, who would see obstacles together, who promised to live their lives together no matter what happened.
He looked up at them and felt sick to his stomach.
He felt sick and wanted to throw up right then and there, he was confused as to why because he had felt nothing wrong with him up until that moment.
Then he started to feel a deep rage towards everyone around him. He had no idea what was happening to him, but he wanted to leave that place, he didn't care what anyone thought of him at that moment.
But despite every part of his body screaming at him to leave, he decided to stay and finish his job.
The moment everything was done, he walked out without saying a word.
The wedding he was at was about a one hour walk from his apartment, but at that moment he had no desire to speak to anyone so he made the choice to walk home instead of ordering a ride.
While he was walking home, he felt a weight on the back side of his head, it didn't hurt him, it was just there, he could feel it pounding.
All the while, he was holding his desire to throw up in the middle of the street.
He kept thinking back to the wedding, how he felt when he saw the bride and the groom up in the altar.
"Should I go to the hospital?" he muttered to himself, wondering if he had eaten something that made him sick.
As he kept thinking and muttering to himself he saw a blurry dot on the pavement where he was walking.
That blurry dot made him lose focus of his thoughts, and he saw it move. That dot was actually a little bird.
A little bird was lying on the street, unable to fly, it probably wasn't able to at that age, defenseless, with no one around to hear its cries, except for the young man.
He was genuinely surprised. At first he hastily looked around for a nest, he then looked for its mother but gave up shortly after.
"How does a bird get stranded on the street like this?" He said, feeling pity for the animal, assuming it fell out of a nest nearby he hadn't noticed.
Then something came to him.
"What if I took care of it? I can't just let this bird die here, that would be cruel, right?" He thought, and felt a sense of true happiness wash over him, taking with it all that he was feeling from the wedding before.
He picked up the bird and practically ran to his apartment. Not noticing anything but the little animal he was holding in his hands.
Once he got to his apartment, he looked for a small box and put the bird inside of it, then ran to his laptop to find out what he could feed it.
For some reason he was disappointed to see that he had nothing that the little bird could eat, even though he knew he only had frozen food in his fridge.
So he went to the store and bought an apple for the little bird, as he saw in his quick searches that some birds eat apples.
The young man cut the apples into slices and tried feeding them to the bird, not expecting much, however to his surprise the bird seemed to enjoy them quite a bit.
He felt relieved as he poured some water in a bottle cap he found and placed it inside the box, then went back to the store to buy more apples.
"I'm going to take care of you from now on." he said to the bird, even though it clearly couldn't understand him.
"You need a name if you're gonna be here. What about Bruno? Do you like that?" The bird didn't react, yet the young man laughed a little. He had no idea if the bird was even a male. He didn't care though.
The next day, the man woke up and went to check up on the bird. It hadn't moved much but the food he gave it the previous day was mostly gone.
Seeing that, he was overjoyed, so he took the leftovers and gave the bird more apple slices and more water as well.
He tried playing with it for a while but the little bird seemed disinterested so he dropped the idea and went on with his day, feeling a little happy inside, however, because of his new pet.
And so a few days passed and the young man felt actually happy. His days were less boring with the little bird, he had someone to take care of now, and even though it never really wanted to do anything except sit in its box, the man felt really happy with the change in his routine.
He sometimes took it out of its box and had it walk on his hand, the bird didn't seem to mind it either but the man noticed its lack of energy.
"I guess this is my time to be happy" he thought to himself as he looked at the animal stuck inside a box.
Roughly a month later, the man went to give the bird more apple slices and water, as that had become part of his routine.
However this time the bird didn't seem to be interested. It looked weak and was barely moving.
The young man grabbed the bird to see if it was sleeping. He saw its eyes and they were open, just barely.
He simply thought it had just woken up, however it seemed to be struggling to breathe.
Thoughts the man ignored ever since he found the bird came flooding into his mind as he felt his heart sink into his stomach.
The young man started to panic internally, not being able to gather his thoughts, then before the man could do anything meaningful, then "Bruno" opened its eyes and took its last breath in his hands.
His mind went blank, then he sat there for a long while, not being able to move. He just sat there, staring at the corpse of his pet in his palms.
After a few minutes, he stood up and sat on his couch with the bird still in his hands
Then he started to cry, something he rarely did.
He cried his eyes out, cried so much that more tears could come out of him, every emotion he kept to himself poured out of him like a broken dam in this one moment.
No one could hear him, but he cried to himself for hours as a feeling of an inescapable dread crawled through every inch of his being.
Afterwards he was left with nothing, nothing except for that feeling of dread. Just like he had felt before.
He left the bird in its box, put on his shoes, grabbed the box again and silently walked out of his apartment.
Five minutes later he found himself digging a hole with his bare hands in the community yard of his apartment complex where he would make a grave for his pet.
"What are you doing, Sebastian?" Shouted a voice from one of the apartments.
"Not anything important, Mat" he answered in a monotone voice as he kept digging the hole with his hands.
"Then what are you doing out there? You never go out to the yard, and why are you on your knees?"
"I'm not doing anything, Mat. And please stop shouting, I 'm sure everyone in the building can hear you."
"You're clearly doing something, you aren't even trying to hide it. I'm coming down there."
Sebastian closed his eyes with an irritated look on his face and sighed, then kept digging without answering.
"Why are you digging a hole, did you finally lose your mind or something?" Said Matthew as he walked up to Sebastian.
"Look, I had this bird and it died. I'm burying it here" Answered Sebastian.
"A bird? How did it die?"
"I don't know."
"What do you mean you don't know?"
"It just died when I tried feeding it today."
"Where did you even find it?"
"On my way back home."
"Did you check to see if it was hurt or sick?"
Sebastian stopped digging, thought for a moment and slammed his fist on the ground.
"No." He answered
"It must've been sick when you found it or gotten sick when you kept it. You should really pay more attention to things like these."
"I know." Said Sebastian as he resumed digging.
"Do you need help with that hole?" Said Matthew in a slightly calmer voice.
"I'm almost done. Thank you though"
Sebastian finished the digging, took the bird out of its box then placed it in the newly made grave. He thought of checking the corpse for wounds but figured it wasn't worth the effort.
After placing the bird inside, he quickly covered it up with dirt and waited for a moment, not noticing Matthew still standing behind him.
"Are you okay?" Asked Matthew.
But Sebastian, without answering, stood up and walked out of the yard. Instead of heading back to his apartment, he decided to take a walk to clear his mind.
Matthew stood confused as to what had just happened. He knew Sebastian rarely left his apartment if he didn't have to work, and now he was taking a walk.
Even though he was worried about his friend, he noticed he seemed mad and thought it would be best to not bother him and went back up the stairs.
Sebastian started walking without any idea where he was going, it was as if his body moved on its own while he was lost in thought.
While he walked, he felt incredibly mad at himself, he thought of Matthew's words, about how the bird might've been sick and he hadn't even noticed it.
All the while he cursed at himself in his own mind. "You're worthless." "A moron who can't think about anything but himself." "Bruno died because of you." "You were so lost in your fantasy that you couldn't even see what was right in front of you." "You're pathetic."
His mind kept racing into memories that would never be of him and his pet still living together. He knew the bird wouldn't stay forever, but having that source of happiness leave so soon made him feel as if a right he had was stripped away from him.
He felt angry, at himself, who couldn't help the poor animal, at the world, for taking it away from him and slightly at Matthew, for pointing out his failures. He knew Matthew had no involvement in this but he couldn't help but feel some resentment either way.
Sebastian was still lost in his own world when, for some reason, he looked up and saw that he was somewhere he didn't recognize.
He hadn't realized it yet but he walked for hours while in his trance and ended up in a desolate field.
The field was completely empty, not a single soul aside from him was remotely close to that stretch of land.
He tried to locate himself but he simply couldn't. He couldn't see the city's buildings either, so he came to the conclusion that he was lost.
After realizing this, he grabbed his phone to use his GPS, however he seemed to have no signal where he was.
He was confused as to where he was and jokingly said to himself that maybe the field appeared out of thin air to try and keep himself calm.
That joke seemed to calm him down enough to lose himself in thought again. He wasn't in a hurry to go back home, nothing was waiting for him there anyway. So he kept walking until he walked straight into a tree.
It was the only tree in that entire field.
Hitting himself with a tree knocked Sebastian out of his trance once more and instead of continuing his walk, he sat down next to the tree.
"My legs are killing me" he muttered, then he looked out into the sunset.
He was distraught by seeing it. The thoughts carried were too much for him at that moment, and combined the fact that he was lost was too much for his already weakened self to handle, so buried his head in his knees and tried to shut off his mind.
"Look at where you are." "You're lost." "You can't even keep yourself safe." He thought to himself despite trying his best to ignore it.
He felt his body grow heavy, like a water balloon being filled, his entire body was filled with dread and anguish. It was too much for him to bear, then he started to cry for the second time that day.
A few minutes passed as he was sobbing to himself when he heard a faint thud on the ground next to him.
Sebastian stopped crying, took his head out of his knees and looked at the thing that had just fallen.
It was an apple, the only fruit that the tree had, and it had fallen right next to him.
It had an unnatural shade of red and almost looked like it was glowing when put by the sun's fading light.
He pensively looked at the apple and his thoughts went back to his deceased pet and how he would always buy apples for it to eat.
He laughed a little as his eyes welled up with tears again.
Then, the anguish that flooded his body was slowly replaced with melancholy as he kept staring at the fallen fruit.
He thought to himself for a moment, picked it up and stared back into the sunset with the fruit held tightly in his right hand.
As what he thought would be a proper final sendoff to the little bird, he took a bite out of the apple.
"I'm really going to miss you Bruno" he thought to himself as he put the fruit, now with a chunk of it missing, back on the ground where it stood before.
Right after putting the fruit down, Sebastian felt sick, truly sick. He stood up from where he was and started holding on to the tree for dear life as if it were going to save him.
In an instant he felt his body heat up like the deepest pit of hell. He felt as if he had spun around a thousand times in a fraction of a second, his vision faded to black, came back, and faded again. He felt every cell of his body screaming in agony as he struggled to keep his grip on the tree. He felt his ears seal shut, so much so that he couldn't even hear himself scream in pain at the top of his lungs.
"What the hell is happening to me?" He screamed, barely conscious and still not able to hear himself. He truly believed in that moment, he was definitely going to die.
As he screamed, Sebastian's vision faded to black one final time, then he fell unconscious to the ground.