The funeral was held on a gray, overcast afternoon. The small cemetery sat quietly on the edge of the city, surrounded by weathered stone walls and overgrown trees that seemed to bow in mourning. Two modest coffins lay side by side, draped in simple white cloths, the only adornments being the sparse bouquets placed by the few attendees. The absence of a crowd only made the space feel more hollow, the silence heavy and suffocating.
Leon stood at the forefront, in between by his grandparents. His grandmother held his hand, her grip firm yet gentle, as if trying to tether him to the present moment. Her face was pale, streaked with tears, while his grandfather stood silent, his broad shoulders slumped with grief. They were the only family he had left now.
Leon, however, was a shadow of the boy he once was. His eyes, once bright and full of life, were rimmed red and sunken, devoid of their usual spark. His small frame seemed even smaller, as if the weight of the past two weeks had crushed the very essence of him. He hadn’t spoken much since that night, his voice lost somewhere amidst the storm of his emotions. Now, standing before the graves, he didn’t cry—he couldn’t. The tears had long dried up, leaving only a hollow numbness.
As the priest spoke solemn words about life and loss, Leon barely heard them. They were drowned out by the echo of his own thoughts, by the images that wouldn’t leave him: his father’s protective gaze, his mother’s final smile, the monstrous figure that had torn them away. His fists clenched at his sides, fingernails digging into his palms. He wanted to feel something, anything, but the numbness wouldn’t let go.
A few neighbors and distant acquaintances had come to pay their respects, offering quiet condolences and sympathetic glances. They kept their distance, unsure of how to approach the broken boy who seemed so lost. It didn’t matter to Leon. Their words, their gestures—they all felt meaningless, like echoes from a world he no longer belonged to.
The priest’s voice faltered for a moment before concluding with a prayer. The attendees bowed their heads, but Leon didn’t move. His gaze was locked on the coffins, his throat tight as he forced himself to take a step closer. He let go of his grandmother’s hand, ignoring her worried look, and approached the graves.
He knelt down, the cold earth biting through the fabric of his trousers, and placed a trembling hand on the edge of his mother’s coffin. The wood was smooth, unyielding, and it sent a fresh wave of despair crashing over him. His lips quivered as he tried to speak, but no words came out. What could he say? How could he say goodbye to the two people who had given him everything, only to be ripped away in an instant?
“I’m sorry,” he finally whispered, his voice barely audible. His fingers curled against the wood as tears threatened to spill again. “I’m so sorry...”
His grandmother came forward and knelt beside him, wrapping her arms around his frail form. She didn’t say anything, didn’t try to console him with empty words. She just held him as he shook silently, her tears mingling with his.
The graves were slowly filled as the ceremony came to an end. The sound of dirt hitting the coffins was unbearable, each thud reverberating through Leon’s chest like a hammer. He wanted to scream, to cry out, to claw at the earth and stop them, but his body refused to move. He stayed still, staring blankly as the final handfuls of soil were placed atop the graves.
When it was over, the attendees began to disperse, offering their final condolences before leaving. Leon remained rooted, his gaze fixed on the fresh mounds of earth before him. His grandparents stayed close, their grief heavy but their love unwavering.
And yet, for Leon, the world had never felt so empty.
---
The walk back to the house was heavy with silence, a silence that wrapped itself around Leon like an unyielding fog. His grandparents walked beside him, their presence steady but subdued, as if they were unsure how to bridge the chasm of grief that was losing their daughter, compared to Leon who had lost his mother and his father. The house came into view, its once-inviting presence now cold and unfamiliar. Workers moved briskly in and out, hauling boxes and furniture onto a truck parked in the driveway. Each piece of his childhood, each fragment of his life with his parents, was being packed away, erased from this place that had once been his sanctuary.
Leon’s heart clenched at the sight of the "For Sale" sign planted firmly in the front yard, its bold letters announcing what his voice couldn’t: this wasn’t home anymore. This house, which stores his earliest memories from when he was born, where his parents had celebrated birthdays, where they had cheered him on as he practiced being a hero, where laughter had once filled every room—it was being emptied of everything that mattered.
As they neared the mailbox, Leon stopped, his gaze fixed on it as though it might provide some answer, some reprieve from the relentless ache in his chest. He reached out with a trembling hand and opened it, retrieving the small bundle of letters inside. Bills, advertisements, and then... one letter that stood out. It bore the hospital’s insignia, its clean, white surface betraying none of the weight it carried.
Leon stared at the envelope, his breath catching in his throat. His fingers curled around it tightly, as if he were afraid it might slip away. It was here. The letter he had waited for, dreaded, hoped for. His grandparents called his name, their voices soft but worried, yet he didn’t respond. The world around him blurred, the workers, the house, even his grandparents fading into the background. All that mattered was this envelope and what it might contain.
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"Leon, we believe in you." His father’s voice came unbidden, clear and strong in his memory, a beacon of encouragement from a time that now felt impossibly distant.
"Powers or no powers, you’ll always be our little hero," his mother had said, her voice full of warmth and love, the kind of love that made him feel invincible.
The words rang in his ears, mixing with Mila’s steady reassurances: “You’re enough just as you are, Leon. You don’t need powers to be amazing.”
Tears prickled at the edges of his eyes, but he blinked them away and turned sharply, clutching the envelope as though it were the most precious thing on earth. He broke into a run, his feet pounding against the ground as he darted past the workers and into the house. His grandparents called after him, but their voices were distant, barely registering as he dashed through the halls.
The once-familiar walls of the house seemed alien now, stripped bare of the photos and decorations that had made them feel alive. The echoes of his hurried footsteps bounced hollowly off the empty spaces. He ran past boxes stacked like gravestones in the hallway, past the rooms that had been reduced to shells of what they once were. His chest burned, his legs ached, but he didn’t stop.
This was it. His last hope. His parents’ words rang louder in his ears with every step: “You’ll be the one who never gave up... the one who made people believe in hope again.”
Leon reached his room and pushed the door open, his breath hitching at the sight. It was empty. The bed where his mother had tucked him in each night was gone. The shelves where his father had placed his first action figures were bare. The room was nothing but walls now, stripped of the life and warmth it had once held.
His legs felt heavy as he stepped inside, each movement weighed down by the memories that clung to every corner. But his hands moved with purpose, tearing open the envelope and unfolding the letter inside. His eyes scanned the words, each one driving a spike deeper into his heart.
"We regret to inform you..."
His hands trembled as the letter slipped from his grasp, fluttering to the floor like the ashes of a burned dream. He stared at it, his vision blurring with tears.
“Negative: After extensive examination, we have concluded that the faint essence within Leon’s body will not be strong enough to manifest into a superpower.”
The weight of those words settled over him like a suffocating blanket. He didn’t have a power. He never would.
The realization hit him like a tidal wave, drowning him in a torrent of despair. His knees gave out, and he collapsed onto the cold, bare floor. His small frame shook as sobs erupted from deep within him, raw and uncontrollable. He pressed his face into his hands, the tears streaming down his cheeks hot and unrelenting.
"I love you... son. Never forget that," his father’s final words echoed, sharp and piercing now, no longer comforting.
"You’re brave, Leon... braver than you know. But you must live, please live on my precious son," his mother’s dying plea rang hollow in his ears.
And Mila’s words... Mila, who had believed in him, who had told him he was enough: “You don’t need a power to be amazing, Leon.”
He cried like he had never cried before, his voice breaking into raw, guttural sobs that tore through the stillness of the empty room. Each sound echoed back at him, hollow and unrelenting, as if the walls themselves mourned alongside him. His dreams—dreams of becoming a hero, of making his parents proud, of proving to the world that he was worthy—were no more. They lay shattered, their pieces too jagged to piece back together.
The hope he had clung to, the fragile lifeline that had kept him moving forward, was ripped away in an instant, leaving a gaping void inside him that he couldn’t begin to fill. He had failed them all. His parents, whose last breaths were spent believing in the hero he could become. Mila, who had stood by him, her faith unwavering even when his own wavered. And himself—the boy who had once dared to dream so big, now crumbled under the weight of his own despair.
Leon buried his face in his trembling hands, his tears spilling freely, soaking his palms. The pain was relentless, pressing down on him like a storm with no end. He cried for his parents, their love and sacrifices echoing in his mind like haunting whispers. He cried for the home he was losing, the place that had been his safe haven and was now a hollow shell. He cried for the heroes he had once idolized, who had abandoned him when he needed them most. And he cried for himself—for the dream that had died before it had even been born, crushed under the cruel weight of reality.
The sobs came harder, each one tearing through him like a jagged blade. His chest heaved with the effort to breathe, and his throat burned, raw from the cries that refused to stop. He had nothing left. No family. No home. No dream. And now, not even the faint glimmer of hope that had been his last lifeline.
Leon slumped forward, his body curling in on itself as the weight of it all became too much to bear. The emptiness swallowed him whole, a darkness so profound it felt alive, clawing at the edges of his soul. This was his reality—harsh, merciless, and unyielding.
The boy who had once dreamed of standing tall as a symbol of peace, a beacon of hope, was no more. All that remained was a broken child, collapsed on the floor, his tears pooling around him like the remnants of something once beautiful. The shards of his hope lay scattered around him like shattered glass, glinting faintly in the dim light but cutting too deeply to ever be held again...
Dreams
"Dreams are fragile things—beautiful, fleeting, and all too easily crushed beneath the weight of fate. Yet, in their shattering, they reveal the truth: our yearning for a fantasy that is not grounded within our reality. Everyone has the right to dream, but not everybody will have the fortune to achieve them…”