Somewhere, on a different world, a young man in his mid-20s is lying in his bed, staring at the ceiling. His unkempt hair is seemingly fused to his pillow by months of neglect, his scraggly beard completing the impression of a caveman. He does not remember the last time he took a shower, or the last time he left the bed, and he can feel his body wither away as the thought of not remembering when the last time he ate crosses his mind.

He is only skin and bones now, feeling weaker by the day. His stomach grumbles due to hunger, his mouth feels so dry that it reminds him of when he ate sand as a child. His throat feels like it wants to strangle him, and the mere thought of eating something sends shivers of nausea along his body. Even if he had something to eat around, he wouldn't be able to keep it down. A problem he struggles daily with, as far back as he can remember.

The brain can be a cruel thing at times, especially when it refuses to work. After all, what are emotions but hormones flowing freely, released by the controller of the body? What are senses but the end result of calculations of the biological computer we call mind? And what if something is too broken to work, but not broken enough to stop working entirely?

A lot of thoughts cross his mind, none of them pleasant, none of them new. When was the last time I laughed? When was the last time I cried? When was the last time I felt happy? Or sad? When was the last time I felt pain? Can I even feel pain anymore?

The last time he left his bed was when he last visited his bathroom. He cut his foot on some random piece of garbage on the way back. He didn't notice it immediately, but as he returned to his bed, a certain kind of warmness spread from an itching, numb spot on his sole.

The man twists his head slightly, looking at his night stand. Three simple things are continuing their existence on it: a digital alarm clock, a half-empty pill bottle, and an empty water bottle. The clock shows that it is currently 3 A.M., a not unusual time for him to wake up to. After all, he has just been asleep the last 12 hours. He still feels weak from a weird, hazy dream where he did something exhausting. He had a lot of those lately.

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Eyes wander from the clock to the bottles. He does not remember the last time he took his pills, but he knows it must have been around the time his water bottle became empty. The pills helped for a while, giving him enough energy to at least pretend to be a normal person, but without feeling anything anymore, what even is the point in pretending? It's not like he cares about the people in his life. Or in anything, for that matter.

He still remembers the taste of the water from the last sip he took. Stale, musty, slightly slimy. He never bothered to clean it, after all, and he is pretty sure some kind of mold has been growing in the bottom. Not that it makes a difference to him. After all, taste is just another dull feeling, shrouded in emptiness. He remembers years back, on a class trip he once took. They were sitting in a diner, and one of his classmates had inatvertendly used salt instead of sugar. Then someone else made a joke and added some cinnamon from his pastry to the mix. Another one poured his orange juice into it.

One said they should make a dare out of this concoction, and quickly a pile of money presented itself on the table, 20 bucks in total. He does not remember the taste of this brew anymore, only that it was less than he expected, even though he didn't expect much in the first place. He mostly did it to sake his curiosity, to see the reactions of others at the table. But after a quick look of bewilderment, everyone just shrugged it off, and that, too, left him empty.

There was a time where he thought that companionship could help with his condition. It's not like he was entirely dysfunctional. Pretending that everything is fine is something he picked up very early, after all, when he first learned about interhuman communication. But his girlfriend only broke him more, a relationship that both left them worse off than before. A woman, nice and caring on the outside, but vile and thorny on the inside. He regularly had to convince himself that he should love her, that he should care about her. Yet he didn't. Only despair flooded his mind, and his energy dwindled even more.

If he could only find something to actually care about, something to foster his feelings so he can finally be normal, like everyone else. If only he could find happiness in his life and leave his godforsaken body behind. These last thoughts go through his mind, and his final words go unheard as his body withers away from malnutrition, echoing from the walls because no one is there to absorb them.

"I'm so tired."