Close-up of Kaito's tired eyes half-open, the reflection of a dreary ceiling light flickering. His expression is blank, exhausted.
No dialogue.
A messy desk cluttered with unpaid bills, a half-empty coffee cup, and a flickering laptop screen showing an unopened email.
Caption (Kaito's inner voice, faint):
"Same day. Different misery."
Wide shot through the window — cold rain drizzles onto a gray city street. People hurry by, heads down, faces hidden under umbrellas.
Caption:
"Everyone moving forward. Me? Just... here."
Medium shot of Kaito putting on a dull black coat, slouching as he steps outside.
No dialogue.
Close-up on his feet as they step onto the cracked sidewalk, puddles reflecting the muted city lights.
Caption:
"Walking. Not living."
Wide panel showing Kaito at the crosswalk, the pedestrian light flashing green. He's distracted, looking down at his phone.
Caption:
"Or maybe... leaving."
Suddenly, from the left, the bright headlights of a speeding truck fill the frame, blaring the horn.
No caption.
Extreme close-up of Kaito's eyes widening in shock.
No caption.
Pure white page — no image or text.
The white was not an escape. It was an endless expanse of emptiness that swallowed every flicker of life, every pulse of hope, every echo of meaning. It was a void so absolute that even the faintest whisper of a memory twisted into agony before fading into nothingness.
He found himself trapped in a liminal space, suspended between existence and oblivion, where time dissolved and moments fractured like brittle glass. Each shard was a splinter of his past — jagged, unforgiving, and bleeding pain.
He saw his sister's face, blurred and distant. Once a beacon of light in the darkness of his youth, now a ghost who no longer called, no longer waited. Her laughter, once a balm to his restless nights, was now a hollow echo reverberating through a cavernous emptiness. He had turned away, left her to fade, and the weight of that abandonment crushed him relentlessly.
Memories of his friend surfaced next — Haruto. The warmth of camaraderie tainted by the cold sting of betrayal, a friendship severed by his silence and neglect. The bitterness of broken trust clawed at him, sharper than any wound inflicted by another's hand. He saw Haruto's face, twisted with confusion and hurt, the last look before he vanished from Kaito's life forever.
Then, the ghost of Aya appeared — the woman he loved and lost, not to fate or circumstance, but to his own numbness and fear. The quiet moments they never shared, the apologies he never voiced, the promises he never kept — all played out in brutal silence. Her eyes held no anger, only an emptiness more piercing than hatred, a void carved by his own cowardice.
He tried to scream — tried to reach out, to claw back some semblance of salvation — but the void was merciless. It swallowed his cries whole, extinguishing them before they could take form. His hands, trembling and desperate, passed through shadows that offered no solace.
Time lost meaning. He was adrift on a sea of regrets, each wave dragging him deeper into the cold abyss. The weight of years he never lived, relationships he never mended, dreams he never chased, bore down on his chest like a crushing stone.
His body lay broken somewhere in the real world — a husk of flesh and bone disconnected from the soul that writhed in torment. Yet here, in this silent prison, he was more alive than ever — painfully aware, unbearably awake, condemned to relive every failure and lost chance.
No light awaited him at the end of this journey. No salvation, no reprieve. Only the slow decay of hope, a merciless erosion of will, until he was nothing but a hollow shell, a man who died a thousand deaths before his body even drew its last breath.
The void whispered that this was his punishment — eternal exile within the ruins of his own mind. A life unlived, a love unearned, a future forever lost.
And so he drifted, forever caught between the fading echoes of what was and the cruel silence of what would never be.
The first breath.
A cry torn from the depths of a small, fragile body that had just emerged into a world already spinning too fast.
The sterile white walls of the hospital room loomed above, humming with the cold efficiency of machines and muffled voices.
"Healthy," the doctor announced, voice clipped and professional, as if ticking off a checklist.
A nurse wiped the slick wetness from the newborn's face, revealing eyes wide and searching — though they saw nothing yet.
In the next room, voices whispered with quiet exhaustion.
"It's a boy," his mother murmured, her voice raw but distant, eyes glazed from hours of pain and fatigue.
"Your son's perfect," his father replied, though his tone lacked warmth. It was the sound of obligation, not joy.
No one held him yet. No one named him.
The world was waiting for Kaito, but no one waited for him.
The sterile smell of antiseptic filled the room, sharp and unyielding—like the world itself.
Kaito's tiny chest rose and fell, a fragile rhythm amidst the quiet hum of machines.
His mother's face was pale, shadows cast beneath her eyes that never fully closed. She barely glanced at the small bundle in the crib before turning away.
"Is he breathing well?" she asked, voice barely above a whisper.
The nurse nodded, efficient and detached. "Strong lungs. No complications."
His father stood stiffly by the window, hands clenched into fists, staring out but seeing nothing. "When can we bring him home?"
"Not for a few days," the doctor said, stepping in with a clipboard. "We want to monitor him for jaundice and make sure he's feeding properly."
His father's jaw tightened. "Right."
His mother shifted uncomfortably, exhaustion making her distant. "I just want this over."
There was no celebration. No warmth. Or anything of the sort. Just eerie silence.
Days passed in a blur of white walls and hushed voices.
Nurses came and went, their faces a revolving door of tired smiles and professional concern.
Kaito's cries pierced the silence, unanswered except by the beep of machines and the shuffle of feet.
He was a presence, but no one truly saw him.
His first world was clinical and cold.
And somewhere deep inside, the first cracks of loneliness began to form.