Maybe life is a virus 🦠

   A decaying city at tiwlight. The air was thick with dust and the scent of rain, but no rain fell. Neon signs flickered against the gloom, advertising pleasures that no longer satisfied him. Somewhere in the distance, laughter echoed--too distant, too foreign. A man called Searcher felt a deep sense of emptiness and disconnection from a world that felt like it was dying but it hadn't stopped breathing.                      Everything around him contradicted itself--light in the shadows, beauty in filth, noise in the silence, clarity in the mist...

   Searcher sat alone at a rooftop bar, staring at a drink he handn't touched. She was supposed to be here. She always was. She was the only person who made life feel real, bearable, meaningful. But she was gone now. Their relationship was never defined...too fragile, too uncertain. Yet she was the only glimpse of warmth he ever had.

   A flashback to their conversation a few weeks ago replayed in his head as she talked about how beautiful life was, even in suffering. He remembered scoffing, telling her that life was a parasite feeding on itself. She didn't argue, instead, she smiled sadly and said:

   "Maybe life isn't the problem. Maybe we just don't know what it's for."

  Her words lingered, but he dismissed them--he was too stubborn to believe.The bartender casually mentioned that there was a car crash--a woman matching her description died instantly. The world blurred, noise rushed in. Searcher didn't react, not at first. He only nodded, took his drink and walked but inside, something shattered irreversibly. He walked for hours, waiting for the universe to prove him wrong but nothing happened, no sign, no meaning.

   The silence of the world confirmed it: Life was exactly what he thought--a meaningless, self-consuming disease.