New world

He had finally seen the light...

In the end, it finally hit him: the reason why he was always depressed, why he had lost all meaning of the world, why he had forgotten to pause in the midst of nature to smell the roses. He had lost sight of all that was beautiful, all that was real.

For in the end, it is not what we strive to be that determines us, but who we are; and he was artistic, captivated by the mystery with which art in all its forms manifested itself. He had always been taken aback by its ability to represent the world in brighter colors and more vivid lights.

For even in the darkest of nights, lying sleepless under the stormy clouds and sheltered from the thundering roars of the wind, art would save him from the cruelty of the real world. He would write, listen to some tunes and even sketch if he felt like it, knowing that with his bare hands, he could carve out a brand new world, filled with promise, innocence and faith, where the shadows lie afraid from the daylight and the butterflies rejoice in perfect harmony.

He had finally come to peace with that thought. For too long now, he had been constantly running away from it, hiding in the nearest corner, shutting down his talent as well as his life as a whole with it. Where had it led him? This denial that he carried for as long as he could remember, a burden he wished he could get off his shoulders. Today he could. The sun was bright, and for the first time in many years, he could see its light shining upon him. He engaged himself in writing; he wrote for hours, and for the first time, there was nothing to pull away his hand, nothing to stand in his way.

His world made sense again; for too long he had struggled to find his own identity, for too long he had followed the masses. And for too long, his soul was lost in a deep sea of questions. Where am I? What is my purpose? He would wake up panting, his forehead covered in sweat, his head filled with these existential thoughts. He often daydreamed, seeking answers or perhaps a way to liberate him from this uncertainty, this doubt he had vis-à-vis his own person. A shadow of his former self, he searched day and night, in an attempt to unlock this mystery, but every time he dug deeper in his soul, every time he got closer to the truth, he was immediately shut out. His thoughts resurfaced, and so did his heart, as he felt the aftermath of his buried feelings, the thoughts he had chosen to banish a long time ago, and that seemed out of this world today.

It was a twisted cruel fate, one that was too absurd to for any human being to handle, let alone deal with. Such were the atrocities of his thoughts; he had become so unreal, so disconnected from himself and the world surrounding him, that he finally sought to transcend it and escape to a better place.

But how can you escape, when you are trapped inside a cave, and everyone is breathing down on you? He had been there before. The anxiety, the suffocation and the suffering of it all were too real and painful to remember. He needed to escape, and he searched for a tool, until it finally hit him: A mended sword lying on his bed sheet, and a cracked shield sitting beside it. He gripped the sword tightly, and struck the shield once. He felt a vibration up his spine, and it resonated in his soul.

He then repeated the movement several times, and it breathed a fresh air of life into him. The wet ink dried up as if it was hand carved into stone. He had opened the gates to a new world, a world that he would learn to treasure later in life, and one that would ultimately come to rescue him from the pits of darkness that he longed in for what seemed to be an eternity.

He stepped into his new found sanctuary, unsure of where it would lead him exactly, but his vision was blinded by a bright light, and he felt warmth that had become strange to his heart.

He entered the gates of utopia, brimming with confidence; unsure of what was waiting for him on the other side; for that alone was another tale, one that he had not yet come to write in the book of his life.