Pain.
Throughout his body, all he feels is pain.
From the moment of his birth, he was hurting.
When he came from his mother's womb, he was said to be frail and hardly weighed 3 pounds. He didn't cry when he was born, and had to be spanked for a whine. His mother and father were bad people; they wanted a son that they could live through, that they could put forth to studies and sports, not a weak child.
So they gave him up, left him at that hospital, and went off somewhere to try again, possibly. But this is not about his parents. Jin, now a young man, lies hooked up to wires and fluids on his hospital bed. His body is frighteningly pale, and he is bone-thin. He eats every day, or he tries to, but nothing seems to work. He was born with a condition that eats at his bones, and nobody can do a thing but slowly watch him rot.
The pain was unlike anything most people would ever experience. It was worse than a headache, than a stomach ache, than a bone fracture, and yet, to him, it didn't matter. He had long learned to live with it; to Jin, it was more like a tooth ache through his body.
Jin currently lies there, looking up at the ceiling. The TV is on in the background, cartoons probably, but he wasn't entertained. He had a window to the right of him, which brought in natural sunlight and allowed for some fresh air, but every now and then, he would hear the sounds of laughter, of joy, of happiness from those below or passersby outside.
They sounded free, happy, everything he wasn't. He wished to use his 2 legs, he wished to dance, find a date, and watch a movie with friends. He wished to go for a lake swim in the countryside. He wished to do prank calls and ding-dong-ditches with his friends; he wished for it all, yet nothing came. He wept at night and asked God why he had forsaken him, why it had come to this, why he couldn't be free.
When things got too bad to bear, he just slept, and on some occasions, Jin would just stare at nothing in the dark. He didn't have any friends, any lover, any parents; he only knew a select few people for the majority of his life. Those people, being nurses and doctors, who, in their eyes, didn't hold much care, didn't feel much for his life, and only cared for the money their job brought. Jin didn't blame them; he wasn't angry at them. He questioned if he would do the same. In the end, he understood he would. Because he want's to be free.
Jin would do anything to walk on two legs, to score a goal on his friends, to make a game-winning, buzzer-beating shot over 2 guys, and yet his dreams were only dreams. Recently, Jin was truly coming to terms with his life. He had been holding on so much, and yet nothing but pain and sorrow came from it. At 10 years old, the doctor said he would only live 6 months more, and yet he lived now, to the ripe age of 19. Jin didn't call it a miracle; he called it his will.
He willed his living; he wanted this, and so he lived, simple as that. At any moment, Jin understood he could give up; he could just let go of the hell he called life, yet he didn't, because he held onto the shortening chains he called hope. He struggled day and night, and hated his decision, his own willpower.
Jin wanted it all. He wanted a normal body, he wanted a job, he wanted to go to school, he wanted friends, yet he was trapped. Here in the bed, here between this confined room, hooked up to machines like a robot, he wanted it all. The ability to wonder, and to wander. Jin was teetering on the edge of living, on the edge of self-worth, and on what would change in the world upon his death.
"Who would remember me?" He asked himself most nights.
And yet, in the end, the conclusion was always: "No one."
Jin then understood that people like him weren't entitled to anything. It didn't matter if you were sick to death, poor to starvation, or ugly from head-to-toe; guys like him aren't even bottom-of-the-barrel, hell, they aren't even included in the barrel. He knew that nobody was coming to save him, that he had to be his own hero. He would, if he could move, that is.
2 months away from his 20th birthday that nobody celebrated, that nobody ever mentioned, Jin's eyes lost the last embers of light. He didn't want a bite of that metallic-tasting, medicine-induced rations the hospital called food; he just wanted to lie there, to think, and to waste his days. The pain was becoming worse, far-far worse, he lied to himself, it wasn't just a tooth-ache feeling through his body, it truly hurt.
Like thousands of needles and glass shards prickled through his skin at every movement, at every head turn. His muscles were so weak that he doubted that he could even raise his arm at this point. 20 years of a miserable existence, and the only thing that kept him going wasn't the doctors, wasn't the nurses, wasn't friends, but himself. His will, his hope, his fire. And yet right now, that fire was wavering, being blown away by harsh truths and reality.
Until it was all gone.
He burned his fire.
His light was extinguished.
After 20 years of suffering, Jin finally let go.
His hope had long shattered to bits, and yet he prevailed nonetheless.
But right now, he gives in.
"...It's...all over," Jin said in a strained, mellow voice.
A single tear rolled down his cheek.
Jin closed his eyes and never opened them again.