There were too many rooms in the house, and yet not a single place felt warm.
From the outside, it was the kind of mansion people slowed their cars to stare at white walls, glass balconies, lights that never went off even at midnight. Inside, servants moved quietly, footsteps soft, voices careful, as if sound itself was unwelcome.
The boy who lived there sat alone most nights.
He was born with everything people dreamed of. Wealth. Security. A future already paid for. His parents' names appeared in magazines, their smiles framed beside words like visionary, self-made, successful.
But none of those words ever reached him.
At dinner, his chair was often empty not because he was absent, but because his parents were. Meetings. Flights. Deals. Celebrations in places he never saw. When they did sit across from him, their eyes were always somewhere else on phones, on thoughts that didn't include him.
He learned early that asking questions led nowhere.
So he stopped asking.
At school, the other children noticed the cars that dropped him off, the clothes that didn't wrinkle, the way teachers smiled too carefully around him. They decided who he was before he ever spoke.
Arrogant. Spoiled. Untouchable.
The truth was simpler and far lonelier.
He didn't know how to speak.
Words knotted in his throat, tangled before they reached his lips. When teachers called on him, his chest tightened. When classmates laughed, he wasn't sure if it was with him or at him. Silence became easier than explanation.
So he watched instead.
He watched friendships form and break. Watched laughter spill across desks. Watched life move, while he remained still.
At home, silence followed him like a shadow.
Years passed like that.
Then came the night everything broke.
It was supposed to be a celebration someone's wedding, some distant connection he barely remembered. His parents argued on the drive there, voices sharp, exhaustion bleeding through polished words. He sat in the back seat, staring out the window, counting streetlights to drown them out.
He never saw the truck.
Metal screamed. Glass exploded. The world flipped, then vanished.
When he woke, the ceiling above him was white and unfamiliar.
Pain came later.
First, the weight. The wrongness. The realization that something fundamental was missing.
Doctors spoke in careful tones. Words like paralyzed, permanent, recovery uncertain floated through the room like strangers.
His left hand didn't respond.
His legs didn't respond.
His parents lay in another room. They never woke.
The funeral passed in a blur of black clothes and hollow condolences. People cried loudly, dramatically. They spoke of loss. Of legacy.
They didn't speak to him.
After that, they came one by one.
Relatives. Advisors. Friends of his parents. They smiled, patted his shoulder, spoke gently while papers were placed in front of him. He didn't understand most of it, and no one bothered to explain.
Assets shifted. Accounts closed. Decisions were made for his own good.
By the time he realized what was happening, there was almost nothing left.
Except a small, wrinkled hand that held his without hesitation.
She was old so old that time seemed to move more slowly around her. She had once been his caretaker when he was small, before money replaced presence. She took him into her modest house without asking for permission or payment.
For the first time, someone stayed.
She cooked simple meals that smelled like comfort. Told stories about birds how some flew high, how some stayed close to the ground, and how all of them still belonged to the same sky. She laughed easily. She listened patiently.
And slowly, without realizing it, he learned how to smile.
Years passed again.
This time, they were gentle.
He turned twenty-two in that quiet house.
On the morning it ended, he woke early.
The house was too still.
He called out. Once. Twice. His voice cracked with panic. No answer.
Dragging himself toward her room with his one working hand, nails scraping against the floor, something warm filled his mouth. He screamed until his throat tore, until the world rang and rang and rang.
No one came.
Desperate, shaking, he reached for a matchbox near the table. A small flame bloomed. Cloth caught fire. Smoke rose.
Someone will see, he thought. Someone has to.
The heat grew faster than hope.
As flames wrapped around him, pain disappeared. So did anger. So did regret.
Only darkness remained.
And in that darkness, for the first time in his life
He felt light.