He opened the timer application.
The white glow from his screen blasted his eyes. Numbers morphed. Seconds flew by, and by the time he realized what he was seeing, the only thing he grasped was the black outline of forms whose meaning he could no longer understand.
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00:00:30
…
A cold sweat came over him.
How can only be this much time left?
His expression turned bitter. The corner of his mouth curled down, with his eyelids covering more than half of the whiteness of his eyes. What was refusing to change, however, was his eyebrows. They were still in a position he had always had them in. Didn't rise or drop. They rested low on his forehead, covering the upper part of his eyelids.
That's just who he was—but now, that false narrative began to fade.
The timer didn't stop.
No matter how much more time he needed to face the reality he'd spent his whole life running away from, no matter how jarring he felt watching those clumps of black pixels converting pixels of white to black as they slowly drifted with the breeze that swayed his bangs, the timer kept decreasing with each second.
His forehead compressed, wrinkles forming on his skin.
He glanced above, shifting his eyes to a different part of the screen. At the corner, a small phone icon was displayed with the number 6 on it. His finger slid down from the top of the screen, pulling open the notification shade.
Next to the phone icon, the notification was displayed:
6 missed calls from MOM.
The screen split, the upper half showing the menu, the lower the timer.
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00:00:15
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With the tip of his right index finger, he turned off airplane mode and enabled his mobile internet. In an instant, his notification panel filled up with phone icons, one after another, less than a minute between them. After the number '99,' only a '+' icon was shown.
He pulled the panel back up and entered his messages.
With his fingers in position, he waited for the touchscreen to appear. Then, he started typing. Beneath his name, small bubbles danced as his fingers moved from one letter to another. Tiny tremors resonated in his fingertips.
When the message was almost done, he stopped.
His thumbs were circling above the screen as though he were holding a joystick in his hands.
Breath hammered in his chest.
The letters, they were gone. Some hid behind cracks.
His fingers trembled. Sweat coated his forehead, heart pounding.
All he saw was the unfinished message:
[I LO—]
He glanced below.
The lower part of the screen displayed the time:
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00:00:10
…
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Watching as the countdown slowly ticked down, he closed his eyes. A rhythmic clock sound echoed within. Each was like a thunderstorm, trembling inside the darkness. Visions of lightning bolts split the blackness of his mind, ripping everything apart.
A faint voice he shouldn't have heard reached him:
Remember… Remember why you are doing all this.
As fast as it came, the voice had already disappeared, leaving only the man there.
Small pictures of memories flashed before him. His entire life passed through him, from the cafe, all the way to when he was just a little kid.
One particularly vivid scene played out within him, showing detailed images from various angles:
A tiny hand holding onto a small pen, moving his arm across a sheet of white paper as he lay on the pastel parquet. He kicked his little heels as he wagged them rapidly. Not even the scent of his mother's Sunday dinner could make him drop the pen from his hand. Only his high-pitched, off-tone humming echoed in his ears.
When that scene faded, another took its place.
This time, there were no visuals. Other than a small giggling sound filling his mind, nothing was there. It was just one insignificant sound he kept in his memories. He couldn't even remember the tone of her voice. The texture of her voice was gone too. But there was one thing he couldn't forget, even if he wanted to.
Along with that fragment of his life, his phone's glare manifested from the darkness.
Having remembered all that he had forgotten, a keyboard began to take shape from the void. And with that, a bright white layout appeared, illuminating its black fog surrounding it with colorful lights, circling through all the vibrancy the rainbow had.
He imagined putting his hand on the keyboard, then pushed the keys down. Hearing the springs bounce. Feeling the soft touch of the letters pressing against his skin. Sticking to his skin before letting go.
When the last key was pressed down, his eyes opened wide.
The remaining part of the message spread before him: [—VE YOU]
He glanced at the timer.
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…
00:00:07
…
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Before he pushed the send button, his hands stopped.
He inhaled, sipping in so much air he could hardly hold it inside.
From his memories, he opened up the emojis' panel, swiping through all the regular yellow circle faces until he got to the red heart icon. It was barely out of the part where the cracks overcame the screen.
He chose that heart emoji and switched back to the regular keyboard panel.
[…❤]
Still feeling something was missing, he stopped his fingers from pressing the send button.
His hands moved and pressed the letters down.
[…MOM❤]
After a second look, it didn't sit right with him. Even if he had spent some time searching for it, he ended up deleting it.
[…MOM]
Just before sending, he realized that this one was not ready either. It felt unfinished. As though he could change what he couldn't. He didn't like that.
Some extra characters got added.
[…MOM!!!]
That too, wasn't good either. It was too forced.
Even if someone changes, something never will. In the end, he decided to change it again.
When he reached the point where the characters he had put down were good enough for him to convey what he never could, he lifted his fingers, no longer moving them back. Though even now, all he was able to do was depict only one side of himself, never finding the right path to reach the others.
But he had to send it as it was. Even in its imperfect state, his heart would shatter if this message never reached who it needed to.
So in the end, he pushed the button down.
[…MOM!]
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…
00:00:03
…
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.
The message was successfully sent.
He exhaled, his lips parting.
"You were right…"
His voice was barely above a whisper.
"I did hold something inside…" He cracked.
His eyebrows caved in.
Tears escaped, flowing down his face, leaving that stinging pain behind.
In his heart, the words lingered:
Forgive me…
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…
00:00:01
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For the last time, he looked up.
The sun was blazing. The storm covered the sky.
His skin was warm, glowing from the light, lighting up the summit.
Tears dropped on the ground, sinking into the soil.
In his last moment, a white flash came before him. Everything, including the ground, was bathed in pure white.
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Then…
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00:00:00
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The void followed.
And me with it.