Three days after the incident…
Backpack on his shoulders, his mind clouded with doubts and fog about the future, Jack had finally made his decision: he would go to school, despite everything.
Jack was only eighteen, a teenager whose mind had never carried the weight of responsibility. Suddenly, after his father's death, he had to take on responsibility. Even with his older brother around, the feeling of loss was heavy, as if part of the world had collapsed.
Life was not easy; they were poor but content. After two months of deep depression, Jack began to emerge from the dark tunnel, his mind maturing, and a few white hairs appeared on his head. He accepted the truth and reality, ready to face life with a more mature mindset.
During this phase, his daily life was filled with thoughts he imposed on himself and comparisons with other teenagers. He sometimes felt regret, especially for his shortcomings toward his father while he was alive, but he knew that his younger mind simply could not understand more.
He remembered that dark night when the ambulance arrived under the house, trying to take him to the emergency room in hope that he would recover, after his struggle with advanced gastric ulcer. The scene was etched in his mind: his mother crying, embracing his two brothers, while he tried to be strong, comforting his older brother, keeping his own tears to himself.
"Why were you absent, Jack?"
asked the student administrator.
Jack answered in a quiet voice: "My father… he's gone."
The short sentence carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. The administrator's expression softened slightly, but Jack barely noticed, his attention consumed by the storm of anger, hatred, and emptiness now dwelling inside him.
A friend, perhaps not a true friend, approached boldly and said,
"So now you're fatherless! I don't know how you feel, but I'm glad to see you like this."
At that moment, Jack's expression changed completely. He was no longer the gentle boy everyone knew. Anger, hatred, and resentment filled his face, and his fingers curled, waiting for the right moment to release everything.
Perhaps this was the beginning of the dark side of Jack's once kind and friendly personality. Sometimes life places you with people who are not to blame for not knowing how to treat others, and it is not your fault they didn't act toward you correctly—but it is your fault if you accept their treatment without setting boundaries… and this is exactly what Jack was about to do.
Thus, the careless teenage boy began transforming into someone else… someone who knew he could never return to who he once was, and that the path ahead would hold new challenges, perhaps difficult, perhaps dark.