Chapter 1 The Feeling
Chapter 1
I have this strange feeling that I’m going to die soon.
Not today.
Not tomorrow.
Not next week.
Just... soon.
It’s a ridiculous thought. One that appears every morning without fail and refuses to leave no matter how hard I try to ignore it. The doctors say I’m healthy. My heart is fine. My blood pressure is fine. Nothing is wrong with me.
At least nothing they can measure.
Yet every morning I wake up with the same sensation lingering in the back of my mind. Like I’ve forgotten something important. Like there’s a destination everyone else knows about except me.
I stared at the ceiling above my bed.
The same ceiling.
The same crack running through the paint.
The same stain in the corner.
The same room.
The same life.
The clock on my bedside table read 6:17 AM.
I hadn’t slept much.
Again.
Sleep had become something strange over the last few years. I could close my eyes. I could dream. Yet somehow I never felt rested when I woke up. It was as though my body slept while my mind wandered endlessly through old memories and unfinished thoughts.
With a sigh I sat up.
The apartment greeted me with silence.
Not peaceful silence.
Not comforting silence.
The kind of silence that makes you aware of every little sound.
The hum of the refrigerator, the pipes in the walls, the faint ticking of the clock. the silence that reminds you there is nobody else there.
I rubbed my face and stood.
The floor was cold beneath my feet.
Outside my bedroom window, the city was already waking up. Cars moved through the streets below. People hurried toward jobs they probably hated. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked.
Life was happening.
It always seemed to happen somewhere else.
I wandered into the kitchen.
One plate.
One mug.
One chair at the table.
Everything in the apartment felt temporary despite the fact I’d lived here for almost five years.
Nothing felt like mine.
It felt more like I was borrowing a life.
I filled the kettle and waited.
The water began to boil.
Steam drifted upward.
I watched it without really seeing it.
My thoughts had already wandered somewhere else.
They always did.
The past was easy to think about.
The past had shape.
I could remember being twelve years old and riding my bicycle down a hill near my childhood home. I could remember my mother laughing at something my father said while they cooked dinner together. I could remember birthdays. Christmas mornings. Summer afternoons that felt endless.
The memories were clear.
Bright.
Alive.
The future wasn’t.
That was what scared me.
There was a time when I could picture everything.
A wife.
Children.
A house.
A dog sleeping on the porch.
Arguments over what color to paint the kitchen.
Family vacations.
Tiny shoes left by the front door.
Normal things.
Simple things.
The kind of future everyone imagines when they’re young.
Now when I tried to imagine my future...
There was nothing.
Just fog.
A blank page.
An empty road stretching endlessly into the distance.
I frowned.
When had that happened?
When had I stopped seeing tomorrow?
I couldn’t remember.
Maybe that’s how these things happen.
Not all at once.
Little pieces disappearing one at a time until one day you realize something important is gone.
The kettle clicked.
I poured myself coffee.
Black.
Bitter.
The way I’d always drank it.
I took a sip.
Made a face.
Still terrible.
Yet somehow I kept drinking it every morning.
That thought almost made me laugh.
Almost.
Instead I stared out the window.
A little girl walked down the sidewalk holding her father’s hand.
She couldn’t have been older than five.
She was talking excitedly about something.
The father nodded patiently.
The girl pointed at something only she could see.
The man smiled.
The light changed.
They crossed the street.
And just like that they disappeared from view.
Something twisted inside my chest.
A strange ache.
Not jealousy.
Not exactly.
More like nostalgia for something I’d never had.
I looked away.
The coffee suddenly tasted colder.
What’s wrong with me?
The question appeared often these days.
What exactly was missing?
Why did everything feel so distant?
Why did every day feel like a copy of the one before it?
Most importantly...
Why did it feel like my life had somehow already happened?
I was only twenty-eight.
Twenty-eight wasn’t old.
Yet some mornings it felt as though I was standing at the end of something instead of the beginning.
I stared into my coffee.
The dark reflection staring back looked tired.
Maybe everyone felt this way.
Maybe nobody talked about it.
Maybe growing older was simply realizing life wasn’t what you thought it would be.
Or maybe...
Maybe I had become so used to surviving that I’d forgotten how to live.
The thought lingered.
Heavy.
Uncomfortable.
And for reasons I couldn’t explain...
It stayed with me long after I left for work.
The city was already awake by the time Noah stepped out of his apartment building.
Morning sunlight reflected from rows of windows high above the street, turning glass towers into pillars of gold. Cars rolled steadily through intersections while people hurried along the sidewalks carrying coffee cups, backpacks, briefcases, and grocery bags. Everyone seemed to be moving toward something. A destination. A purpose. A person waiting for them at the end of the day.
Noah shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and joined the flow of pedestrians.
He wondered what that felt like.
Not the walking.
Not the working.
The belonging.
There had been a time when he assumed it would happen naturally. When he was younger, the future had seemed less like a mystery and more like a promise. One day there would be someone. One day there would be a family. One day there would be a place that felt like home. He had never questioned it because nobody ever questioned it when they were young. You simply assumed tomorrow would bring the things you wanted.
Then tomorrow became next year.
Next year became five years.
Five years became ten.
And somehow the life he imagined had never arrived.
The office building stood ahead of him, tall and forgettable against the skyline. Noah entered through the front doors and rode the elevator to the seventh floor. Around him, people stared at their phones or exchanged small conversations about traffic and weather. Noah listened without listening. He could probably spend an entire day surrounded by people and still feel alone.
His desk sat exactly where he’d left it the night before.
A computer monitor.
A keyboard.
A small potted plant that should have died months ago but stubbornly refused to.
Noah often felt a strange respect for that plant.
It survived despite receiving the bare minimum.
Some days he felt the same could be said about himself.
The hours passed quietly. Emails became reports. Reports became meetings. Meetings became more emails. The work itself wasn’t difficult. It was simply endless. By noon, Noah found himself sitting alone on a bench in a nearby park with a sandwich he barely tasted.
Children played around a fountain while parents watched from shaded benches nearby. A little girl with pigtails chased pigeons across the pavement, laughing every time they escaped her. Her father followed a few steps behind, pretending to be exhausted by the pursuit. The performance made her laugh even harder.
Noah found himself watching them longer than he intended.
The sight stirred something inside him.
Not jealousy.
Not resentment.
Something sadder than that.
A longing for a life that had never existed.
His gaze drifted downward.
The sandwich remained untouched in his hands.
There were moments lately when Noah felt as though he were standing outside his own life. Watching it happen rather than living it. Days came and went with such frightening speed that entire weeks seemed to vanish when he wasn’t paying attention. Sometimes he would wake up on a Monday and suddenly realize it was already Friday. Sometimes he couldn’t remember what he had done the day before.
That frightened him more than he liked to admit.
Not because he was getting older.
Because it felt like he wasn’t creating any memories worth keeping.
When he was younger, every year had felt enormous. Summers seemed endless. Holidays felt magical. A single month could contain enough memories to last a lifetime.
Now entire years disappeared into the fog.
The afternoon eventually came and went. By the time Noah left work, the sun had begun its slow descent toward the horizon. The sky was painted with shades of orange and pink, the kind of sunset people stopped to photograph. Noah noticed it only briefly before continuing home.
His apartment greeted him with the same silence it always had.
The same couch.
The same empty kitchen.
The same faint hum of the refrigerator.
No messages.
No missed calls.
No reason to hurry through the door.
He tossed his keys onto the counter and stood there for a moment, listening.
The silence wasn’t unusual.
Yet today it felt heavier.
As though the apartment itself had become tired.
As though the walls had grown weary of watching him come and go alone.
Noah slowly lowered himself onto the couch and leaned his head back. Evening shadows stretched across the room while the city outside continued its endless movement. Somewhere below, people were meeting friends for dinner. Families were gathering around tables. Couples were sharing stories about their day.
Life continued all around him.
And for the first time in a long time, Noah wondered if he had somehow been left behind.
The thought settled heavily in his chest.
He closed his eyes.
A strange exhaustion washed over him. Not the kind that sleep could fix. Something deeper. Something older. The sort of weariness that came from carrying invisible things for far too long.
What happened to me?
The question slipped quietly through his mind.
No answer came.
Only silence.
And for the first time, that silence felt frightening.
