It was midnight, but for Roby, time was more than just numbers flickering on a phone screen; it was a weight pressing against his chest, making every breath a conscious effort. In a room lit only by the faint, sickly glow of a streetlamp filtering through the blinds, Roby lay on his back. He stared at the ceiling as if trying to decode the blueprint of a destiny written in the shadows.
Outside his door, the muffled sound of the television hummed, punctuated by his family's occasional laughter. To them, Roby was the "Golden Boy"—the cheerful son whose smile never wavered, the one who handed out optimism like candy, as if he possessed an inexhaustible supply.
But here, in the dark, Roby was someone else. He was a wreckage, desperately trying to gather his fragments before the sun rose again and forced him to put on the "Mask."
He closed his eyes tight, and the questions began to gnaw at his mind like rusted blades.
"Will it ever change?" he whispered into the void. "Will I ever wake up to a better reality? Or am I condemned to remain a prisoner of these jagged memories?"
He could feel his "broken wing" bleeding in silence. He wondered, with a bitter ache in his throat, if he would ever fly again with the freedom he once knew—or if the fall he took years ago was final. He remembered the "Old Roby," the boy who chased dreams with a fire in his belly, before it happened. That moment that struck with such violent speed that his mind still hadn't fully processed the impact.
He opened his eyes, feeling the familiar sting of anxiety. Fear and worry weren't just words to him; they were companions that hadn't left his side for years. Overthinking had robbed him of the very concept of peace, making sleep feel like a battlefield he was destined to lose.
"How have you carried this for so long?" he asked his reflection in the dark. "How are you still standing? How did you bury a mountain of grief under a landslide of fake laughter?"
He had no answer, save for a tiny, flickering light deep in his soul: the belief that everything was in God's hands. But that faith was currently at war with a heavy cloud of depression that drained his colors day by day.
With a heavy sigh, he sat up and walked toward his closet. Reaching into the deepest corner, behind a pile of old clothes, he pulled out a small, locked metal box. He placed it on the desk, his hand trembling as he reached for the key hidden under his mattress.
Roby knew that opening this box meant facing the truth he spent every waking hour outrunning. If his family ever saw what was inside, the perfect image he had built would shatter into a thousand irreparable pieces.
Just as the key touched the lock, a sound cut through the silence. It wasn't a noise from the house. It was a "ping" from his phone—a notification from an old app he hadn't used in years.
It was an incoming message from a "Hidden Number." The text on the screen made his heart skip a beat, then freeze.
"Stop looking at the box, Roby. The secret you're hiding... it doesn't belong only to you anymore."
A cold shiver raced down his spine. He spun around, eyes wide, searching the dark corners of his room. Who knew about the box? And how were they watching him right now?