The screen flickered to life in a dimly lit room, The faint sound of static and the hum of an amplifier crackling to life broke the silence. A soft, rhythmic tapping started, almost like a heartbeat, followed by the faint, ghostly strum of guitar strings. The dim light of a single, flickering bulb illuminated the scene.
A hand appeared in the frame. Thin, trembling with a faint tremor, it adjusted the strings.The hand bore a long scar that ran from the base of the thumb to the wrist, jagged and pale against the musician's skin. The scar seemed to tell a story all its own, a mark of pain and resilience etched into his very being —a reminder that some wounds never heal. The camera refused to show more than this hand and the guitar, as if the rest of the world didn't matter anymore
No face was visible.
The camera stayed close, focusing on the guitar and the hands that played it, as though the music itself was the only thing that mattered.
The melody began, haunting and fragile, each note hanging in the air like an echo. The strumming grew louder, more deliberate, as a haunting melody began to take shape. And then, the voice:
"Hello there, my shadowed friend, you lingered in my mind.In this dance of life and death, you've left me intertwined.The echoes of your whispers claw deep into my soul,A symphony of heartache in the silence takes its toll."
"I thought I knew who I was before the weight of time began,But now the mirror's cracked, and all I see is someone I can't understand."
The voice cracked with emotion, raw and unfiltered, reverberating with years of unshed tears. It was a voice forged in the ashes of uncertainty, trembling but unyielding. The voice was raw, trembling with vulnerability yet resolute. The tempo shifted as the guitar strings were struck with increasing force, the melody becoming jagged and urgent, matching the tension that built in the air.
"I walk through life like a ghost, nothing ever feels the same,I try to run, but I'm always pulled back to the same damn pain."
"You tell me to keep fighting, but my body's worn and weak,Every breath a hollow ache, every word too hard to speak.What's the purpose of a journey that always ends the same?What's the meaning of survival if I'm drowning in the same damn pain?"
The music slowed, every note lingering, drawn out like a breath held too long. The silence between each strum was deafening. It was as though the music was waiting for something to break. The voice softened, as if whispering into the void.
"Maybe in this song, I'll find the truth I've buried,Or maybe it's just the silence, where my sorrow's forced to stay."
"But maybe there's a reason in this broken, fleeting tune,A flicker in the darkness, a flower in the ruin.If I can sing my sorrow, let it echo through the void,Perhaps the weight of this regret can someday be destroyed."
The tempo shifted again, exploding into a chaotic crescendo.The guitar picked up, frantic now, as if it couldn't contain the emotion pent up in the voice. the sound raw and unfiltered.The words became a cry, a scream, an ache so profound that it broke through the melody itself.
"But what's the point of fighting when I'm just a shadow of who I was?What's the point of trying when the end is never close enough?"
And then—everything stopped. The guitar fell silent, the screen blank for a heartbeat. The hand that had been so steady moments ago now hung limp. In that silence, the weight of years seemed to press down on the figure in the shadows. The screen flickered once more before cutting to black.
Roy Shyam clicked "Upload" with shaking hands, his breath catching in his throat. He leaned back in the chair, his chest tight with a mixture of relief and dread. The song, 'The Last Song,' was live now,—his soul laid bare for the world to see. For a moment, he stared at the scar on his hand, the one that never seemed to fade. Tracing its jagged path with his fingers. It had been years since he'd gotten it—a stupid accident in the kitchen, or so he told himself. But sometimes, he wondered if it meant something more.
The video was already getting views. Roy sat motionless, eyes barely registering the numbers climbing on the screen. A mix of nervousness and exhaustion clung to him like a fog—but deeper than that, there was something else. A growing pressure. Like his mind was trying to split itself in two.
Comments began to roll in, a stream of kind words:
"This hits different. Are you okay?"
"The raw emotion in this is unreal."
"Whoever you are, don't stop making music. The world needs this Mr LastHope."
"This song speaks to me."
He read them, but they felt like echoes in a room he wasn't in. They didn't feel real. None of this did. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate the words—they just couldn't reach him. Not anymore.
Then the wave hit.
An overwhelming wave of pain slammed into him—not physical, but deeper, more disorienting. Like his nerves were firing in the wrong directions. Like his soul had been crammed into a container too small for it. He doubled over, clutching his chest as his heart slammed against his ribs, a foreign rhythm in a body that felt like a stranger's.
He remembered—he remembered it all.
Memories—not dreams, not hallucinations, but memories—slammed into him like a freight train.
His life before it all. The space station. The black hole. The vacuum tearing his body to ribbons.
The scream he never got to finish. The crushing weight of gravity as it folded time and light and everything he'd ever been. His atoms stretched thin like thread until they snapped. The darkness wasn't just dark—it was empty.
Roy gasped, clutching his chest, heart pounding so hard he thought it might burst.
And then—this.
He sucked in a sharp breath, the air tasting wrong, like plastic and blood and newness. Like he wasn't supposed to be here.
"No," he choked out, voice thin and cracking. His muscles trembled. His bones ached. His skin felt tight over this frame, like he hadn't fully grown into it—or maybe like he had grown out of it long ago."Not again. I was supposed to be done."
He staggered to his desk, knocking over papers, headphones, anything in his path. His hands were shaking—these hands. They weren't his. Not the ones he remembered. Not the ones that once held test paper in his original life, that once clutched a metal console in his previous life, that once reached for someone who could never come back. that once reached for airlock door that he couldn't reach.
He stumbled to his desk, knocking over empty cans and scattered sheet music. He tore open a drawer, rummaging blindly until his fingers hit glass. A mirror.
He yanked the mirror toward him.
He stared.
And the reflection made his breath catch.
It was him. But not.
The face in the reflection stared back—alive, yes. Breathing. Blinking. But wrong.
His skin was paler, his jawline sharper, his eyes slightly different in color—just enough to notice. His hair was styled differently. His posture was unfamiliar. The scar on his hand was still there, constant, like an anchor tethered to some version of himself.
But it wasn't him.
Who the hell was this Roy?
He leaned closer to the mirror, almost pleading with it. His voice broke into a whisper, "Who... am I now?"
Every cell in his body screamed with displacement, like his soul had been stapled into someone else's skin. There were faint marks beneath the surface—scratches of other lives, other timelines—that hadn't fully faded. The more he looked, the more alien he felt. And yet, somehow, he knew this body. Its habits, its scars, its memories—all were accessible, like a book he'd already read but never lived. The old Roy's memories were still there too, etched deep, refusing to be silenced. They overlapped with this new life, layered like ghosts behind his eyes. He knew everything this version of him had done, every friend he'd had, every lie he'd told, every late night strumming a guitar and whispering lyrics into the dark—and yet none of it felt like his.
He tried to move, but even that felt off. His limbs were out of sync, like he had to relearn how to exist. His sense of self was scattered across realities—an average high schooler who died screaming, an unlucky scientist ripped apart by cosmic force, and now… a musician with calloused fingers and a quiet room full of someone else's memories.
Three lives. Three deaths.
Each one peeling away another layer of who he thought he was.
And now, he was just the echo. The one left behind to remember it all.
He leaned in closer to the mirror, as if it could tell him something. Anything.
But all it did was reflect a man who no longer knew the shape of his own name.
And still, the questions clawed at him:
What does it mean to live, when the life you wake up in isn't yours?
What does it mean to leave a mark, when the world forgets you every time you die?
And what does it mean to keep going… when every part of you screams that you shouldn't exist at all?
Tears welled in his eyes, but he didn't let them fall.
Because if he started crying now… he didn't know if he'd ever stop.
The silence in the room pressed down on Roy, thick and suffocating. He barely noticed the soft padding of footsteps from the hallway until the door creaked open.
"Roy?" A gentle voice called, breaking the stillness. "Are you alright?"
Roy froze, his gaze still locked on his reflection. His mind was still trapped in the storm of memories, those other lives that bled together in a blur. He didn't know what to say—what to feel. The stranger staring back at him seemed so far removed from the person he once was. Or maybe he was always this way.
His mother's voice pierced the fog of his thoughts again, softer now, with concern. "Breakfast is ready, hon. You need to eat before you head to school."
Roy blinked, pulling himself out of his daze. He rubbed his eyes, trying to shake off the tears and the weight of everything. His chest still ached, his heart still raced, but he didn't want to burden his mother with any of it.
"Yeah," he whispered, his voice cracking slightly. "I'm fine."
His mother hesitated for a moment, then entered the room fully. She stood by the door, watching him carefully, her eyes filled with a softness he couldn't bear to meet. "If you need to talk, I'm here, you know that, right?"
Roy nodded, though he didn't really know if that was true. It was hard to explain what he was feeling—or if there was even anything to explain. Maybe it was better to pretend, to say nothing and go on like everything was normal like how the old Roy had been doing it for years.
"I'll be down in a minute," Roy said, forcing a weak smile, though it felt more like a mask than anything genuine.
His mother didn't push. Instead, she gave him a small nod, her lips pressing into a thin line of quiet worry before turning to leave the room. The door clicked softly behind her, and for a moment, Roy was left alone again with his thoughts.
He stood there, staring at his reflection once more, the questions swirling, the pain clawing at his insides. His face, the same, but not the same. His hands trembled as he traced the scar on his wrist again, the jagged reminder of everything that had come before.
"Maybe in this life," he whispered to the empty room, "I'll find the answer."
With a heavy sigh, he forced himself to move, walking out of the room and heading downstairs, the familiar scent of breakfast in the air. It was the same, like everything else. But somehow, it all felt different.