Failure.

  That’s the word that defines my existence.

  From the moment I stepped into elementary school, I realized there was something wrong with me. I was the fat kid in the back of the room, the one no one picked for the teams in PE, the one no one invited to play. Always isolated, always on the sidelines. I watched the others laughing, forming bonds, dreaming of the future… but for me, the future never seemed real.

  Time passed, but nothing changed. I became just a shadow in a crowd that didn’t see me. No self-esteem, no purpose. A heavy body and an even heavier mind. I found refuge in empty pleasures—pornography, addictions that numbed me, that made me forget, even if just for a few minutes, the void growing inside me.

  High school was just another cycle of disappointments. Everything I tried, I failed. Every little spark of hope that appeared was crushed by reality. Relationships? Never happened. Dreams? They were just illusions that shattered before they could even be reached.

  And then came adulthood.

  When I left school, the world opened up in front of me… and soon swallowed me whole. I was thrown into a job that meant nothing to me, a cycle of identical days, a routine that killed me slowly. Wake up, work, go home. Repeat. Like a broken machine programmed to exist but never to live.

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  The only thing still holding me here was my family.

  And the memory of my grandfather.

  He was a strong man, a real man. He worked the land from sunrise until the last light disappeared on the horizon. Sweat streamed down his weathered face, his hands cracked from constant labor. He never complained. Never hesitated. And I… I did nothing.

  I stayed inside, pretending I didn’t see. I knew he needed help. I knew he couldn’t keep going alone. But I never moved. I never moved.

  Then he got sick.

  Cancer took him too quickly. One day he was there, and the next, he was gone. And me? I cried. I mourned. But deep down… I knew the truth. I wasn’t just crying for the loss. I was crying because it was too late. Because all the time I had to be a worthy grandson, I wasted. Because I was weak. A coward.

  And now, here I am.

  Standing, with a rope tight around my neck.

  They say that when we’re about to die, our life flashes before our eyes like a movie. But what I see is not a movie. It’s a nightmare.

  Every mistake. Every regret. Every wrong choice that brought me here.

  The wind blows through the open window. The wood of the ceiling creaks under the weight of my body. My hands tremble. My heart beats like a mad drum, knowing it’s about to stop.

  And then…

  I jump.

  The pain comes like an electric shock, a crushing grip on my throat, an instinctive desperation as my body struggles against the inevitable.

  The air runs out. My vision fades.

  I am dying.

  Finally…

  Darkness.

  Silence.

  But then…

  A distant sound.

  An alarm clock ringing.

  And when I open my eyes…

  I’m no longer there.