I had always imagined the end of my life would be dramatic.
Something grand.
Something meaningful.
A moment where I finally understood my purpose, even if it arrived too late.
Instead, it was quiet.
Just another dull morning in a life that was nothing but a long string of dull mornings.
My name was Jaka.
Twenty years wasted, nineteen before that preparing to waste them, and then… nothing.
No climax. No miracle. No sudden turn.
The world didn't pause for me. It didn't flinch when I fell. It barely noticed.
People only notice a man at the bottom if he used to stand at the top.
I never even got close to climbing.
I failed the university entrance exam.
That was all it took.
Just one failure — and everything that held me up crumbled as if it had only been pretending.
That day was the start of everything falling apart.
Funny, isn't it?
How one moment can feel like the universe personally decided you were a mistake.
I remembered standing outside the test hall, holding the result sheet with hands that wouldn't stop shaking. I thought they were shaking from shock, or anger, or fear. But no — it was humiliation. A humiliation so loud that it roared in the silence of my chest.
I could hear people talking behind me.
"He didn't make it."
"Seriously? After all those lessons?"
"Poor guy. Or maybe he was just never good enough."
That last one hit me the hardest, because I had been thinking it long before they said it.
Not good enough.
Not for school.
Not for friends.
Not for family.
Not for life.
My father didn't yell when he heard.
I almost wished he had yelled.
Instead, he sighed. The kind of sigh a tired man gives when a chair breaks beneath him.
"Try again next year," he said, calm, too calm.
And somehow that hurt more.
My mother didn't look angry either.
She looked… scared.
As if my failure meant the world could crumble at any second.
My relatives called. Told me to be strong. Told me I could try again. Told me it wasn't the end.
Everyone around me kept talking and talking and talking — and I could only hear one thing:
You are a waste.
Maybe they never said it.
Maybe they never meant it.
But the voice in my head repeated it louder than anything they ever could.
I tried to ignore it at first.
Tried to get up in the mornings.
Tried to look busy.
Tried to pretend I still had a future ahead.
But every day felt heavier than the last.
People like to talk about rock bottom like it's a single point in life.
Truth is, it's a slope. A long, steep, slippery slope. Every day you slide down a little farther, until falling feels easier than trying to climb.
I didn't fall in one day.
I sank slowly.
At first, I stayed in my room for a week. Then two. Then I stopped keeping track.
The sunlight from my window felt violent, like it exposed how pathetic I was — sitting in the same clothes, scrolling through meaningless screens, watching people my age celebrate achievements I could only dream of.
Eating only when my stomach physically hurt.
Bathing only when the smell refused to ignore me.
Sleeping not to rest, but to escape.
A parasite. That's what I became.
Living off my parents' pity.
Pretending to be alive.
People say time heals everything.
For me, time did the opposite — it clarified the truth.
I wasn't depressed because I failed the exam.
I failed the exam because I had been broken long before I realized it.
I had no dreams.
No ambition.
No fire.
I had only fear — fear of trying, fear of failing, fear of hoping.
Fear of living.
The exam was just the mirror that forced me to see the monster I had become — a hollow human being who wanted success without effort, respect without strength, support without purpose.
And everyone could see it.
My friends stopped visiting, then stopped calling, then stopped thinking about me.
My girlfriend didn't even break up gently.
She simply said, "I can't drag myself down with you."
And I couldn't blame her.
My extended family stopped checking in too.
Pity turns to annoyance.
Annoyance turns to disgust.
Eventually, silence becomes easier for everyone.
Except for one person.
My older brother.
He came. Every. Single. Day.
Sometimes with food.
Sometimes with books.
Sometimes with nothing but a forced smile and tired eyes.
He sat beside me even when I refused to speak.
He must have thought he could pull me out.
But how do you rescue someone who refuses the rope?
He started talking about his job, his friends, his life.
Pretending I was still part of the world.
Trying to remind me it existed.
"You'll find your path," he said.
"You're not done yet."
"You can still try."
But his encouragement felt like someone pouring water on a drowning man — I never knew whether to drink it or resent it.
Then one day… he didn't come.
Or the next day.
Or the next.
Silence returned, heavier than before.
Later, I learned he had died.
An accident.
A careless twist of fate that stole the only person who still believed I could stand again.
At first, I felt nothing.
Then guilt.
Then grief.
Then guilt again, because even that grief felt selfish — like I wasn't mourning him, just mourning the last person who saw worth in me.
I wondered if he died disappointed in me.
If he regretted wasting his breath on a corpse that refused to admit it was dead.
After that, there was no one left to pretend I mattered.
Life continued, as it always does.
The world doesn't pause for broken people.
Maybe it should have been a wake-up call.
Maybe his death should have given me the strength to change.
But instead, it pushed me deeper into my void.
And that's when the worst truth came:
I didn't even hate myself anymore.
I just didn't care.
Hatred needs energy.
Regret needs longing.
Sadness needs love.
I had none of those left.
I wasn't a tragic figure. I wasn't misunderstood. I wasn't fighting inner demons.
I was tired.
Empty.
A man who simply… ran out.
One morning, I looked at the faded ceiling in my room. The same cracks, the same shadows, the same peeling paint I had stared at for years. I felt nothing. Not pain. Not sorrow. Not despair. Just a flat, dull silence that stretched endlessly inside my skull.
"This is it, then," I whispered to no one.
Not dramatic.
Not painful.
Not even emotional.
Just a quiet end to a quiet mistake of a life.
Some people say in their final moments, they see memories flash by, or feel peace, or hear the voices of loved ones calling them home.
I only felt relief.
Relief that I no longer had to pretend I was still trying.
Relief that the world would finally be rid of the dead weight called Jaka.
No tears.
No regrets.
Just emptiness.
A pathetic, unremarkable ending for a pathetic, unremarkable life.
No one would sing for me.
No one would carve my name in memory.
Time would bury me like dust under a carpet — unnoticed, unneeded.
My story didn't end with redemption.
Or forgiveness.
Or epiphany.
It ended with a thought as quiet as a dying ember:
"I was never meant for anything."
And with that, I let go.
No grand farewell.
No light.
No darkness.
Just… nothing.
A life without meaning, fading without sound.
The world didn't lose anything when I left it.
And for the first time in years, I felt light.
Free.
Forgotten.
And then —
a heartbeat.
Another breath.
A body that wasn't mine.
Pain that wasn't familiar.
A sky that wasn't Earth.
And blood — so much blood.