'I am going to kill myself.'
In a dark corner of the world, where rarely anyone sets their lurking eyes, walked a boy with sullen eyes, that felt that the very world was against him.
'But how...?'
He wanted to kill himself. But it wasn't a spur of the moment thing. He had thought it through for many days, and many more nights. His arguments weren't bad either.
He believed that life had a purpose. He believed that every life had a purpose. But he knew that his "purpose" had run out.
The small bit of money left by his parent's untimely and unlikely death gave him food and housing, but it wouldn't last.
After all, Nikola had not eaten for the last three days; his stomach grumbling on his way to the corner-store. He was incredibly hungry, but even if he wasn't, that wouldn't change the fact.
He was resolute. It was an honourable will for an disgraceful action. But he had given it enough of thought; and his mind wasn't going to change. Jumping out in front of a car seemed messy, he barely had enough money in his pocket to buy instant-ramen, which for some reason, he decided for his last meal, so buying pills wouldn't work either.
For a year now, ever since he dropped out of the third year of High School, he had been trying to convince himself that his life had purpose. When he was little, he wanted to be an engineer--something to do with computers. He loved watching videos about VR, and was extremely happy about the evolution of artificial intelligence.
However, during the end of his second year, just before his parent's passed away, he was caught cheating on a test with AI; and accordingly was suspended for three weeks. He had never seen his parents so disappointed in him.
For three weeks he remained shut off in his room, a true Hikikomori lifestyle. Nikola and his parents were fairly close all throughout his life, eating late dinners and talking freely with them. More than anything, he loved his parents. But he was offended, he felt betrayed!
School was boring, school was tiring... He had friends, plenty of them... So what was so wrong with a bit of help! After a week or two of doing this, he realised that the teachers were none the wiser. He grew careless, and was caught red-handed when writing an important paper.
This is the future, he confidently said.
He wasn't much wrong. Technology continues to change the world. Creative spheres were being violated by artificial means. Computer science, programming, you name it and artificial intelligence had begun to replace it.
"If you don't use AI, you'll be left behind!"
That was the general consensus of the 21st century.
Was Nikola simply a great observer of a global paradigm shift, that he would come to be part of this greatness...? It wasn't so simple. But one thing was true: Nikola used it only because it was easier and not better.
But it didn't matter. Soon the three weeks were over, and he bitterly agonised over it in his room, listened to sad music feeling betrayed by his parents. When they knocked on his door, still respecting his privacy, he would shout at them. "Get out! I don't want you here!"
He always felt a bit guilty, knowing that it was partly his fault, but so what! He was apart of a technological revolution.
But those were just excuses.
No one checked up on him during those three weeks, none of his so-called friends called, and his social medias remained dry. His friends, who had also been so eager and reliant, weren't caught, and he took the fall for them, he felt. So he was even more bitter at them.
Anger coursed through his veins. Dissatisfaction at the world. A world that he wanted to change. He looked through job applications, anything that could use his youthful view of the world.
But he found nothing... nothing yet, he reassured himself, but he would. And when he would, he would become someone great. The Nikola Tesla of a Brave New World!
Then came the afternoon when two police offers knocked on his door, "Are you Nikolas?" In his mind, he wanted to rudely reply, 'No, I'm not Santa Claus!' but he didn't have the time or the effort, after all, he was an angry shut-in for the past three weeks
"Y-yes... W-what is it?"
"I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this."
"Ahem... our condolences."
"No... are you... kidding me?"
His face twisted in anger, in confusion, then at once, despair.
"I'm sorry for your loss."
"Fuck, damn it!"
He didn't know what to do, what to think, what to believe. One second they had been here, irritatingly knocking on his door... And he had been so angry... so damn angry...
Nikola fell apart shortly after that. He never returned to school and dropped out shortly after. He received a small settlement that he blew quickly on useless products to appease his grief. Without anyone to call to him, to scold him, even to "get him back on his feet" He slithered deeper into a grand despair.
Eventually, as his apartment became riddled in filth, his eviction notice was clamped shut on the door. His pockets were mostly empty. He was down on his luck, and nothing was going the way he wanted it to.
The dreams he had had faded away without leaving so much as a mark. His ambitions became meaningless. His life, nonsensical.
In despair, in sadness, in grief, in anger. He could not express himself, and drowned himself in any vice he could utter. Internet games, gambling and pornography. He spent most of his money, and a sickening smile made it's way slowly unto his face. The deep hollow feeling sat like a ball on the lower part of his stomach. A constant stomach ache longed for something... and end...
Life was miserable... He wanted a way out and he was now resolute to take it...
'Damn it... I should have just gone with them... I should have begged them to follow along... Then I would have died with them... Why... Why... Why did they leave me behind...?'
Once upon a time, Nikola felt that every question had an answer. Now he knew they had none. This technological revolution never felt so insignificant as now. The future was something he did not care for, still stuck in a hurling abyss of the past.
He bought instant-ramen with his last bit of pocket-change, when he got to the apartment, he trenched through the filth, to get to the microwave. 'Ah...'
"Ha-ha-ha!" He began to laugh aloud... his laughter reached his neighbours, believing him to be mad, knocking loudly on the thin walls. "The electricity's been shut off."
'Ha...'
He stuffed his face with the crispy and cold instant ramen--having poured the seasoning on top. His face, although red from the cold, and his eyes red from tears, still looked similar to the boy he had been a year ago. Sharp, whimsical, intelligent. His short-black hair, which had grown out and unkept over time, now hung like curtains over his pale and white face.
Nikola continued to shift between a harrowing laugh and a sorrowful cry, knowing not if either of them was the true state of his emotions. By the end, he had eaten the crispy noodles, and in a melodramatic way, he even though, 'Even these noodles have left me...'
It was the end now... nothing was left...
He left the apartment, and headed down the stairs. In the corner of his eye, he could see that someone was there waiting. Clearly, the blurry figure stood there. A feminine character with bright blue eyes, that looked bright even in the dark.
But then, reality began to change before his eyes. The figure shifted in and out of existence, and so did the stairs, the ground and the sky from which rain fell.
The skies seemed to be turning in on themselves, large vortexes grew out from nothing and disappeared as if from nothing. Then, the world was quiet and still. A hollow silence filled the abyss which the world to Nikola seemed as.
Then suddenly, from that stillness, exploded life.
Nikola, for one reason or another, found himself in another place.
As the vortexes in the skies glitched out of existence, the rainfall that had plagued his waking moments, faded into an intense hot-spell, and a world which he did not recognise.
But he did recognise it, but only slightly. Concrete that had cracked. Paint that had long been scraped away by wind and weather. Symbols, letters, that he did not recognise. Graffiti that painted the city in a somber light.
Nikola found himself in the future.
'Eh?'
...