It was a beautiful Friday afternoon.

Upon the alarm of the sound already known to all, the students hurriedly left the school gates. Everyone seemed to be equally excited for the weekend to come, after all the week has proven to be incredibly testing and uneventful for everyone there.

That could be seen in their expressions, which carried blunt marks of tiredness among the many smiles of relief for finally being able to rest for a while. Some walked with friends back to their homes, others decided to stop at places to meet and talk while the scent of pleasant sweets from the coffee shop, located on the avenue, crossed the air.

There, they discussed plans for the first weekend without having to worry about a Monday. Some of the others, more isolated, just returned home to their parents, happy and excited by the promise of a trip to a good place that vacation.

Yes. The studying period ended there, and now everyone kept in their minds and hands the expectations of living a whole month without having to go to that place that, although it was so pleasant, managed to be so immensely tiring.

And while many walked together, a lone figure stand out in the crowd. He walked alone, constructing his path without any hurry, thinking about something rather silly while facing the intersection of roads that has been placed in front of him.

He was already used to that reality, after all, he walks home alone since he knows himself as a person. It wasn't because he wanted to isolate himself or something like that… If anything, that's what he wanted it to be.

"Damn..." He muttered, frowning. “Just when I could have brought the bike instead of having to walk the entire distance...”

Disappointment with himself could be seen all over his face. The boy, such a perfectionist by nature, had failed to successfully predict whether it would rain or not, and ended up not taking his bicycle to school.

“If that damned dark cloud hadn't fooled me…! Now, look at this...! Radiant like never before...!” He kept complaining to himself, while praying internally that he wasn't being overheard.

... And to match, his two best friends were absent that day, which made him feel more alone than ever. He was relatively popular in the classroom, and managed to carry on a conversation with most of his peers, but there was an extra element that these more superficial interactions were always missing – the depth of the talk he had with his real friends was what excited him the most.

“I guess I can't blame them, in the end… I had the chance to do the same…! I mean... Last day of school, right? I feel so tired myself...” He said, clicking his neck. “...But now, whatever...! It's now about getting home and enjoying this month without worries!”

That young man crossed the road as soon as the passage could be given, and seeing the orange horizon stretching across the sky, he thought to himself.

“It is a beautiful evening.” He smiled a little, even noticing it in himself. “I wonder if I could make a description of it in writing form.”

He didn't have many plans for that period of break from routine, and most likely would just stick to writing one more of his narratives. The young man in question found in his imagination what he couldn't or even what he didn't want to experience in his real life. Alone, he has already created beautiful fictional universes, with people different from those present in his world, places where hope really prevailed in the human heart even in the face of difficulties, and where altruism and the fight for what is believed in was the key, and a consolidated universal truth, which guided the world as in a set of gears.

He would just write more and more, distancing himself from the real world for those mere moments. A powerful and meaningful experience, able to revive the mind and the desire for change.

“Heh...! Maybe I'm just a hopeless idealist...! Dreaming of a world that I could never have, and that if I did, it would be unsatisfied to the point of making me think of something like this here while I lived there...!” He chuckled to himself, noting his own features.

He laughed not because he thought it was funny – at least, not just because of that. The real reason he laughed came from the truth he found in his consciousness. He knew that if he lived in one of the fantasy worlds he created, he would dream of a modern and advanced world like the one he lived in, and the same goes for the opposite.

"I'm never satisfied, really...!"

It was a short walk to where he lived, so he could take it with patience. He walked slowly, just to be able to observe the scenarios that were happening around him. Several workers hurrying to return to their homes, dressed in corporate attire and Burnout Syndrome. In the coffee shop, the young girls who discussed about matters that didn't belong to him, that didn't concern him, but that nevertheless, in any case, he knew were part of reality.

His stories, the texts he wrote, were all based on reality. A successful story needs two key elements: heart and reality.

You can't write when you can't feel what you're writing. A scene in a drama or a romance novel is much more meaningful and emotional when the author themselves recognizes and is in tune with these feelings. The same can be said of a scene that causes dread. Fear must be felt in the skin.

And finally, every story must have aspects of reality, even if it is a fiction. With reality, it is possible to give life to the text and autonomy to the characters, and that is why you cannot create something that is disconnected from reality as we know it, from the real world of tall buildings, meaningless violence and the glorification of money.

A story without these elements is a dead thing, which is why he continued to watch, even though it theoretically got him nowhere.

The thoughts saw their end upon reaching the door of the residence. Without further ado, the boy turned the handle, opening said door.

One moment. The strange air of tension didn't lie. Something there was dangerously wrong.

The door was simply open. He always had the habit of lightly pushing the door before opening it, and never, during the course of his 17 years of life, did the young man come across an open door. The break from routine was weird.

Anyway, he went in. His parents must have left the door open by sheer accident, and that must have been it. Nothing more must have happened.

Weird. The house was filled with a heavy silence, an inertia of time that presses passively and violently over that space. The lights were off, and only the amber glow coming in through the windows was any source of orientation.

Why had they left the lights off? Is there no one home at that moment? If not, why would they leave the door open in such a careless manner, bearing in mind that it was a relatively dangerous and violent neighborhood?

From the core of his being, he prayed with all his might that it was all just a big coincidence of fate, and that his family were there, just very silent, forgotten and with a strange affection for the darkness that ran through the environment.

He went up using the wooden steps. They creaked. His father had, just yesterday, promised that he would fix them today. Why didn't it happen? The young man knew that, regardless of the circumstances, his father would never fail to keep what he promised.

Arriving upstairs, it was again noticed that there was no presence, whether human, animal, or anything else. It was all very strange for an ordinary day.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

After resting his things on the bed, he faced the window. It was already getting dark and there was no news of anyone.

He decided to go down. Apparently no one was actually home, and the best he could do was wait for someone to arrive. The holidays had already started, so it's possible that his parents even traveled, however, they wouldn't do it without at least letting him know about it beforehand.

But if that's really the case, then fine. That would mean more time to write.

“I think I can survive without them here.” He let himself speak, smiling at the thought. “I hope they have fun… Without me!”

He said that, but didn't really care. The option of being alone was one he liked, and he hoped his parents and older sister were enjoying themselves. Their absences didn't bother him at all.

With a calmer mind, he opened the kitchen door, which creaked, revealing a scene that was certainly not expected for that period of school recess.

“What the—“

The young man fell to his knees on the ground immediately realizing what was going on there. He didn't know what to think of any of the things he saw – it was all a big shock. His arms became numb, falling, and he lacked the strength to rise.

"What the hell...?"

There, lit by the faint glow of the night, was his family. Yes. Everyone really was there, just not in the way he expected them to be.

Sitting at the table, motionless and unresponsive, were the members of his family, including his two parents and his sister. The mother was looking up, neck turned back, eyes glued to the ceiling. A huge red spot that periodically expanded has her abdomen as its origin.

The father had his face lying on the table. A face of horror whose eyes pointed directly at his figure, staring at the kitchen door. It was a look of despair, but at the same time almost punitive, as if he were blaming him for the state she was in. The knife blade remained across the back of his neck, with the reddish end of the dyed metal protruding from his mouth, almost screaming.

Beside the table was her sister. The young woman kept her grip tight on the bowl she held. Four metal stakes nailed the limbs to the floor and the table, keeping it upright. Her head, hidden by the long, wavy black hair, was not visible.

But it wasn't that scenario itself that disturbed him the most...

"It can't be... It can't be... It can't be... This can't be...!" As very specific memories invaded his consciousness, the almost-man internally struggled against the notion his own mind had developed.

He had written that very scene long ago in one of his stories. All the little details, the composition of the scenario, the time, the way everything was laid out around the room. He had already written that previously with a lot of tenacity and dedication.

His heart raced, as did the tears that gathered in small rivers, streaming down his face. Was this his punishment? Is this the future of writers? See the worst, most inhumane aspects of their stories come true?

Was it all nothing but his fault?

He could only stare at the floor, letting the whole scenario continue to unfold like a movie. What would have happened there? Why was this happening to him? None of those things made the slightest sense, after all, a story is just a story, a set of words that come together to generate some meaning, each of these words being formed by marks with specific formats, imbued with a meaning, the letters.

Wrong. The massacre of his family was something far greater than just a string of words. It was "heart" and "reality", the two necessary elements for a writer. It was no longer just a narrative in digital text or a sheet of paper. Everything was real, and it hurt like hell.

"I didn't want this... I didn't want this... I didn't want this...!"

From one second to the next, the mere teenager fell to the ground completely, feeling as his own conscience threatened to leave him. He never wanted this to happen, right?

Wrong. In his heart those acts would happen, since a scene has no life when its writer's heart is not in tune with it. In a very sudden way, he wished that this would happen in reality, even if not expressly. It was something coming from his soul.

He felt guilty about it all. All writing is inherently imbued with a sense of responsibility, and in that moment he realizes that's what he lacked. The creation of a reality was too dangerous of a thing to be trifled with.

… … …

Half an hour had already passed, and his tears, together with the weight of guilt, did not diminish in intensity. He was spiteful of himself, and of all the cruelties he wrote in his stories – a visceral disgust when remembering every bloodshed, every scream of pain given by a character.

What if all the bad things you've ever recorded in writing already happened somewhere in the world, and someone else suffered because of them? Who would ever have died in the exact same ways as it was described, and suffered at the hands of another who had undertaken to mimic the details so coldly... How many lives had he already taken?

What if there was a way to undo that? ... Not. There was not. Once imagined and written, a narrative lives on even after its physical form is erased. One can burn the paper, erase the files, shred and explode all the remains and even the machine that was used for the process, but as long as the memories of this new and painful reality remain in the minds of those who read it, even if it is about of just one person, the narrative will live.

Lying on the floor, all that was left for him was to cry with intense regret about all the sins he had committed in his writing – such a silly and innocent activity – but which would now leave him immersed in a cold and empty world of truth, where no there would be room for the so-called “hope”.

"All I want is for this to stop... Please, it's just a really bad dream..."

He asked with what felt like every single piece of his being, even though he knew that what he so wanted to hear was impossible.

That all of that was a prank... just that his parents and sister had read one of his narratives and decided to play a joke in very bad taste to express their dissatisfaction with the content... Whatever! He would never write again if necessary, assuming this new moral lesson.

But that didn't happen, and the iron odor that consumed the air gathered, getting more and more intense, bringing the truth of the final death of those he loves so much.

“How did this all happen…? It was just damn words…!”

… …. …

“I can make it stop.”

A voice came out of nowhere, but as he looked, the boy soon came to notice there was no presence in the room. The young man desperately looked around, searching for the owner of that androgynous voice, not male, but not female; neither young nor old, either.

"Do not fear. I am not here to hurt you, but to help you.”

The boy thinks a little, and then questioned that being. After everything he had seen, he would accept literally anything. Inside, he felt he didn't have the clout to dare question any more.

"How can you do that...?"

"Don't worry about that. I just need you to do something for me in return. That is all."

He thought for a while. Trusting that voice sounded and felt doubtful enough, however, the thought that there was nothing left in this life was potent enough to disinhibit him, stripping away any deep sense of self-preservation.

“I cannot bring your family back, however, I can fulfill any other wish you have. Obviously, I have something I want from you, too.”

That being has already made his intentions clear. He looked at his family one last time, overwhelmed by the words he wrote himself, and without hesitation accepts the proposal.

“I accept… Tell me what I have to do.”

“First, tell me what you want.”

The young man could not take his eyes off those images, and consumed by yet another twinge of self-disgust and sadness, addressed his voice to that entity.

“I want you to take these two things away from me: heart and reality. I want to get rid of it.”

The entity took a while to respond. This made him understand that this was not what was expected.

“Is this your final wish?” Anyway, he just complied, not showing any emotional reaction.

"Yeah." He didn't hesitate, certain of what was wanted.

"Very well. I will take these things away from you. Now, let’s discuss my part of the deal.”

He got up, listening to that voice.

“For this quest, I will grant you some skills that will be useful to you on the way. Make no mistake – I can't give you much because It’s above my powers, but initially, these will be useful talents. Use them without hesitation when you need to. Bear in mind that once the agreement is accepted, it cannot be undone. You can reject this deal as we speak, and you will continue to live your ordinary life.”

He didn't want to live an "ordinary life", at least not that way. The 17-year-old young man accepted the commitment with full dedication.

“Since you've accepted, I'll tell you what to do. I need you to do the following...”

***

His eyes were a little heavy, but that was all. In the middle of that green plain, with his head lying on a rock, he woke up, being awakened by the strong sun and blue sky that covered the entire horizon. Various flowers of different colors are swayed by the wind, and birds gracefully fly through the airspace.

He felt the grassy earth under his hands. It was a little wet.

Propping himself up on two legs, he surveyed his surroundings. His mission would be about to begin.

As soon as he got up, however, he noticed something different...

Something inside.