The city was alive with rain, neon, and electricity. Cars honked as they slid through puddles, and streetlights flickered like they were questioning their own existence. I stood under the skeletal awning of a closed café, watching the reflections of the chaos ripple through the streets. Water dripped from my jacket onto my boots, soaking through to my skin. My hair plastered to my forehead. My eyes—well, they didn't see much anymore. Not really.
I had lived long enough to know boredom like a second skin. Life had been a series of gray boxes: wake up, sit at a desk, type meaningless words, pretend to care, go home, sleep, repeat. I hated it all. And I had hated myself for playing along.
I lit a cigarette, drew in the bitter smoke, and exhaled. The smoke mingled with the mist of the rain, curling around me like a halo I didn't deserve.
"You're late," a voice muttered from the darkness.
I looked up. A figure—a man—stood across the street. Probably some street vendor cleaning up early. I didn't care. I dropped the cigarette, ground it under my boot, and shrugged.
"Late?" I said. My voice was low, controlled. "I don't answer to anyone tonight."
Rain beat against the pavement, pounding the city into some sort of rhythm I felt rather than heard. Neon signs reflected in the puddles like fractured mirrors, showing me dozens of faces, none of them mine. They weren't. I had never belonged to this world, never truly.
A black truck skidded in the distance, tires screaming against slick asphalt. Headlights tore through the fog. I barely noticed it at first. Then it loomed closer, faster than humanly reasonable. Reflex or instinct—call it whatever you want—I knew I should move. But I didn't. I wanted to feel the ending.
The truck struck me.
Metal screamed. Asphalt spat fire. Pain exploded in every direction at once. Bones broke, air left my lungs in jagged pieces, and the world fragmented into jagged, fluorescent shards. I felt myself lift, rotate, then slam into the wet pavement. Heat, cold, fire, water, glass, metal—it was all one sensation, overwhelming, beautiful in its brutality.
Faces hovered above me, blurred, distorted. Screams, honks, the hiss of tires. But I was gone. I was leaving. I was… free.
Goodbye, gray life. Goodbye, meaningless routine.