Chapter Text
I've always been haunted by the same question: what's the point of my life?
But no matter how hard I tried to find an answer, I couldn't make head or tail of it. And despite all my efforts not to obsess over this question, a seed of doubt had been deeply sown in my heart, growing alongside me at the same pace – side by side, to put it simply.
The very idea of pondering such things was repulsive to me. It interfered with living a full life, and whenever I managed to forget about it, it would inevitably resurface at the worst possible moment.
And it all accumulated into one big routine called life. I was never a damn philosopher, no. I never saw any use for those people in society. They didn't save people, didn't care for the environment... Though I never did anything like that either. I never really got to live a life, only wasted the last years on dreams and grand plans that were never meant to come true... Nev-er!
All of this led to a terrible feeling catching up with me at a fatal moment in my life – a feeling I desperately wanted to rid myself of, but couldn't.
That feeling was called... disappointment. A word with as many letters as the problems it brings.
Each of us has faced this feeling. When parents are disappointed by your school performance. When your best friend is disappointed you weren't there for them at the most crucial moment. When a random passerby, searching for a glimmer of hope to see a spark of light in people's souls, meets you and is disappointed by you and everyone else for the rest of their life.
We've disappointed many people in life, but what about ourselves? Have you ever felt disappointment directed at yourself? When the only person you don't want to see is you? It seems that acceptance is the last hope of getting rid of this vile feeling?
Well, I did. I felt exactly that. Not a day passed when, thinking of myself, I didn't fleetingly feel disappointment in myself, my efforts, my life. And no matter how much I wanted to deny my involvement in this, I eventually accepted a simple truth – I alone was to blame for everything.
I hated talking about my personal life because there was nothing special about it. Nothing damn outstanding, amazing, or even a single achievement. I excelled at nothing, sadly. This only amplified the disappointment in me tenfold.
I hated this feeling because it could easily lead me to another plague – anger. Anger without proper direction always becomes a huge problem for its owner, as it simply destroys the mind, leaving only forgotten glimmers of former humanity.
My wish would have been to start over with my experience and pitiful shred of knowledge. To begin living a new life in the hope that this time, maybe, I wouldn't screw up, but deep down I still knew it was impossible.
However, one fleeting day, something incredible happened to me – my plea was heard and answered by higher powers, granting me exactly what I had asked for all that time.
But apparently, it was a trap, a deal with the devil that fate itself had orchestrated, because the place I ended up was not at all what I had wanted to see.
In this new world, my life became utterly worthless in my own eyes…
———
**Scene Change**
I never can't remember that day and the chain of events that happened to me before that fateful moment... But I will never forget the day after it all.
For me, it was an unusual experience: to find myself in complete darkness, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, and unable to move even my lips or eyes.
All I had was a tangled, giant ball of scattered thoughts and incredible pain throughout my body that made me want to cry and scream, but alas, nothing escaped my throat.
”Where... am I?” – I somehow managed to connect two simple words in my mind. ”What... is this... place?... What's... wrong... with me?”
I was scared, terribly scared; it would be stupid to deny such a natural thing as fear of the unknown. Horrible thoughts about my sudden demise began to creep into my head, but I couldn't even remember my last day.
Ahh, damn, thinking became harder and harder, the pain became stronger and stronger. As if I was being cut apart and reassembled, and I marveled at how I could still think about anything at all.
And time just kept passing; I even started thinking about things like time again. But was it really important right now? Did concepts like time and space even work in this place?
My inner voice firmly told me "no".
My mind was breaking under the weight of pain and fear. At first, it wasn't so noticeable – just thinking slower, but the further this went, the more convinced I became of the opposite. My memory began to disintegrate; the days of my past life vanished from my head, meaning I was losing what made me *me*.
Of course, deep down, I didn't care about any of it. In my life, I had achieved nothing, hadn't become what I wanted to be, though honestly, I'd lived my whole life without a clue about who I would become in the future.
Nothing special, nothing grand, nothing that set me apart from all the other people. The only thing I was somewhat unique in was my tendency to live not for myself, not for others, not for anything.
I just... existed. Only unlike all the other people who lived for *something*, even if their role was as small as imaginable, fate still used them for its purposes – to help or destroy others – while I, in all my time of existence, did none of that... Well, except one thing: my existence hindered others' lives, and even if no one ever told me directly, I still convinced myself of it.
But despite knowing the consequences of my existence, I would never have dared to end my life faster by jumping from a height or simply hanging myself. I perceived such an empty action as the greatest weakness any living being was capable of.
So fate did it for me; it finally got tired of watching me and doing nothing and simply decided to remove the trash from the chessboard.
I don't know what awaits me next, but I know one thing for sure: I am deeply disappointed in myself. I hated that feeling; it poisoned my soul like venom for so many years, and the knowledge that I suffered in vain because of it made me think about my final thoughts before the end.
”I hate... life…’’ – I made a very long pause before finally finishing what was started by an unforeseen end. ”...but I... won't end... myself... no matter... what…’’ – in a surge of unexpected fury, I clenched my teeth, my mouth opened slightly, and before my mind was completely destroyed, I shouted the last word louder than ever before. ’’NE-VER!’’
Suddenly, a resonant sound echoed throughout the space, growing stronger and stronger over time. This place, whatever it was, was shaking and breaking apart like my body... or whatever I had.
Then, high above, a bright white glow appeared. Despite the vast distance between us, the light was so intense that even squeezing my eyes shut, I risked going blind.
Like a falling star at high speed, the light began to rush down straight towards me. Unable to do anything, it crashed into my body and seemed to absorb itself inside.
The last thing I remember before everything before my eyes began to fade was the strongest, deepest sense of calm washing over my mind – a feeling I had never experienced in life.
The human body began to disintegrate into glowing shreds of light, more like paper. As this happened, something resembling a living black-and-red substance burst through a crack from the depths of the place.
The substance, like a devilish beast, pounced on the glowing paper shreds and also absorbed itself into the largest shred, staining it the same black-and-red color. Only then was the person's existence completely transferred to an entirely different place.
———
**Scene Change**
Strange sounds echoed in the hospital room – as if carved from thick paper – not quite screams of pain, not quite attempts to stifle them. The walls lacked paint, but didn't seem empty: white, black, and sometimes bluish lines created the sensation that the air itself was drawn. Every object – from the lamp to the syringe – seemed cut out of cardboard and carefully glued to reality.
Amidst this scenery, like an animated blueprint, stood an elderly doctor. He had calm eyes, as if outlined with a fine black pen, and his coat draped over his shoulders like an A3 sheet. He carefully held a newborn in his hands, his thin fingers gently cradling the tiny, barely breathing body.
"Hello, child, welcome to our world," he said as if the baby could understand him.
But who could have guessed that this time, the newborn ”would” understand?
”Welcome... to the world?” – Thoughts, still scattered, tangled, like a snapped film reel, managed to form the words. I understood what was said, though my English was poor. But the meaning... was clear. Too clear.
And, honestly, I wish I hadn't known anything, because when I assessed my surroundings, I almost had a stroke.
”Stop! What new world?! Where am I?! What about my world?! MY LIFE?!” – such loud thoughts made my head ache.
"You're quite active," the doctor observed as the child in his hands squirmed weakly but didn't cry. "Clearly a boy."
He handed the child to a nurse – a fragile woman with a paper face folded like modular triangles. She took the infant as if receiving a sheet into her palms and carried him to another room, leaving the doctor alone with the mother.
"Ahh," the doctor sighed deeply, his previous smile vanishing as he looked regretfully at the woman who now lay on the couch like lifeless paper, showing no signs of life. "I'm sorry. I failed you."
Meanwhile, in the next room, the child was carefully placed in one of the cribs, surrounded by other newborns, and left alone.
The nurse was already walking into the corridor, muttering under her breath:
"Mother died. Didn't survive childbirth... Who she was – unknown, nothing about the father either. The child's fate is decided – orphanage."
And meanwhile, our unfortunate hero was trying to grasp the futility of his situation.
”Why am I small again? Where have I ended up? What the hell was that light then? Why is this happening to me?!” – I tried to hold myself together, but it was futile when your nervous system was poorly developed.
I was silent, but spasms, barely noticeable, passed over my face. Lips didn't cry, and there were no tears – only breathing and mute horror.
”What about death? What was supposed to come next? Where... are my past days? My existence?.. Could it really be true – I died? And now... just reassembled... somewhere else?”
A very heavy, large thought struck my head, terrifying me. The moment I realized it, my mind emptied completely; anger and indignation vanished, leaving only a bitter "nothing."
”So, everything I experienced before... everything I suffered, everything I learned, everything I lost... was all in vain?”
My tiny body froze. My face became calm – the kind of calm only masks possess. But beneath it seethed a silent, painful ocean.
”My former life vanished... just like the meaning of this new one. Everything that defined me... is gone. If I am no longer me… then why do I still exist?”
This thought barely whispered even inside my head, but its sharpness echoed with a crunch somewhere inside me. It struck not as a question, but as a verdict.
”Life has no meaning. Because it simply became worthless in an instant…”
After that, the boy thought no more. Cruel reality had dealt a treacherous blow when he was at his most vulnerable.
And now he was closer than ever to unraveling the question that had tormented him throughout his past life.
———
**Scene Change**
A year passed.
Three hundred and sixty-five days since I appeared in this world – a world where everything seems built from graph paper and ink lines. In that time, much changed... though, to be honest, almost nothing changed.
My body grew just a little, as it should at this age. But my mind... it remained the same. Older than this paper flesh. Worn out. Burdened with memories of a life now hard to call significant in any way.
I still don't know why I ended up here. I don't know who orchestrated this reboot or what price I'll yet have to pay for it. But one thing I understood clearly:
everything I once found meaningful turned out to be blurred, like ink on wet paper.
The orphanage was damp and empty. High ceilings, lined wallpaper, windows without glass – just empty rectangles through which a gray, faded sky peered. Colors here weren't pigments but shades of charcoal: white, black, a faint bluish tint, sometimes a dull yellow from old lamps.
Children laughed. Children played. Children hugged. But it all felt like... like a stage play in which I had received neither a role nor a ticket.
I sat by the window. Watched the wind rustle the thin paper trees. Occasionally, birds flew between them – also paper, with black dot-eyes and overly precise wings.
”Why strive here, when it can all be destroyed by a single gust – as easily as my past?”
Inside me, there was no anger. Not anymore. Only a thick, viscous disappointment remained. The kind that slowly drips down consciousness like an ink drop on damp paper.
”I am nothing again. Became no one. Needed by no one. Even in this, new world... I became emptiness.”
The orphanage had its own rules. Some children quickly found friends. Others – found families. Sometimes they even laughed sincerely. But not me.
I didn't make friends – didn't want to. Or couldn't. Or, more likely, I simply wasn't given the chance. I was avoided – adults with strained smiles, nannies casting cold glances, children who seemed to sense that someone sat beside them... someone far too alien.
”Someone like me shouldn't have appeared here. A mistake. A glitch. A crumpled sheet, accidentally not thrown in the trash.”
In this world, I am utterly alone. No one needs me, not even this strange world woven as if from paper and devoid of the many colors I remembered from my past life... No, not like that. From now on, I'll call it my "past existence," not "past life," for the latter holds no meaning.
So, those colors I remembered from my past existence aren't here. They exist, they didn't disappear, but there are few of them, and in most cases, they're pale, replaced by either the black or white of the paper. And despite everything in this world, including all living creatures, being made of paper, here this simple material has become the foundation of the entire universe.
And, I'm certainly not one to talk about beauty out loud, but this world seems even more alive to me than my previous... Ahem, my past existence.
"Children! FOOD! Drop your idiot games now and march to the tables while I'm still kind!" – the nanny's piercing voice scraped against the ears like a rusty nail on wood.
The children scrambled up at once, running in a race. Those who couldn't walk were scooped up and carried. No one carried me.
"If you wanna eat, walk yourself! And don't think of dawdling, I've seen you walk. Quite confidently too, you little wretch!" – the same woman threw out, not even bothering with a name.
I stood up slowly, not taking my eyes off the window.
Clouds in the sky. Dark, inky, as if someone had spilled ink on the backdrop. Rain was coming soon, maybe even a thunderstorm.
”How you annoy me,” I thought, distracted from gazing at the beautiful dark clouds outside. ”I do have a name, you know.”
Of course, I had one. It was given to me in my past existence. Here, for some reason, I don't have one. Just called "kid," "that one," "son of a bitch," "freak."
And even if someone decided to give me a new name here, I would protest immediately and firmly declare another.
”My name is Magomed... Just Magomed. My mind is nineteen years old, my body is one.”
This is my story of living in a world where everything is paper. Where everything looks beautiful but tears easily. And where even the life given to you from above might just be a new page in someone else's album.