"Run to your destination."

It was always easier said than done. The melancholy music of the rain; the leaves beneath me dancing in gay to the rhythm. Curious eyes peeping from the misty windows transfigured by the beauty of nature was an overwhelming sight to be captured by my mind.

But today was not the day, nor was tomorrow, or was any other day in my life because tomorrow never came, yesterday never ended, and the present stayed hidden.

There was always a voice inside me, trying to break through the enveloped memories that never unfurled, deep down the memory lane and a part of my darkness.

I had begun to live a life bent towards the past, working in reverse to the phenomenon of change, defying the universe and how it worked: The number of steps I took towards my past never mattered. The future was always there, pulling me into a new place, forcing me to converge with the world that once repelled me. Once again, I looked back at the receding past, only to never get it again.

"What are you thinking about, tiger?" My mom's voice reached my ears, interrupting my trail of thoughts. I turned around to look at her. Her blond hair swayed along with the beats of the wind, producing a silent and unheard melody. Delicate features adorned her face, with her chocolate brown eyes locking mine with concern.

She didn't look like me, or rather, I didn't inherit her features. When I was young, she used to point at the sky and tell me that I was god's gift, that I was a star destined to guide the lonely travellers trapped in the dark.

But that slowly faded away when my childishness morphed into maturity. I had become the lonely traveller, and I was the one to be guided by a star.

"Nothing much, mom. How's work?" I questioned, raising my eyebrows. A look of concern took over her face but got concealed with a smile. Very typical of her. After all, everyone had years of experience in masking their emotions.

"Nothing new, Zuri. We're working on the same project, but there's not much improvement. Hopefully, I get a promotion soon, so we could move to a better house and live lavishly," she replied. There it was again; hope. It was something that I loathed. Yet it was an inevitable part of our life. It was something which was merely a possibility, or rather, a mere mirage in someone's memory, sunk deep within.

"Hopefully, mom. Hopefully. It's just a possibility. Why think about something which could probably never happen?" I turned my gaze to her face. She looked calm, as if ready for my question. Though, at the same time, there was a tinge of sadness to it, just like an empty emotion living inside me, rotting day and night.

"Tiger, life is full of possibilities. It's those possibilities that push you to work even harder. Just come to think of it, would humans even survive if they didn't hope for something good in the grimmest of times? Of course, they wouldn't. In life, change is inevitable. Under it, comes our emotions accompanied by our possibilities. You asked me a question. Why not reframe it to something better? Why not think that it would happen rather than it would not?"

"I guess... I just don't want to face disappointment," I shrugged my shoulders half-heartedly.

No, I had faced disappointment all my life, disappointed in myself, disappointed in the girl I had become, disappointed in my past that kept pushing me to the future.

"You won't. You'll never face it if you don't think of it as a disappointment," she smiled slightly.

"I don't understand," I pursed my lips in confusion, waiting for an answer.

"You'll understand in the later years of your life, tiger. When you're young, you get subjected to the world's beauty. You get brought up to believe that everything is possible and that everyone you love is immortal. Only when time passes; you will begin to learn that not all colours of the rainbow are under your gaze all at once. You're subjected to the world's abject poverty, and you begin to get a taste of what life is all about. And once you reach the peak of maturity, whether you like it or not, you're given responsibilities that you had once thought of as child's play. Next comes death. You've inevitably been ripped apart from your family and forced to live a life of isolation and guilt. And once you come out of it, you're full of contradictions. That's life, tiger. Isn't it fascinating?"

"It surely is, mom. Life can be sometimes difficult to love; feels like giving up on it once in a while. But, if you cross out all the negative points, I'm sure living life is worth it," I chuckled slightly, looking at her.

"Don't you see your opinions taking a toll now? You are naturally happy when you think positively, but if you think pessimistically, you tend to think of life as a hindrance," she held my shoulder, flashing a warm smile.

"Now, isn't it already time for you to sleep? You have a big day tomorrow," she patted my shoulder in a passive rhythm that seemed to convey a message I could not quite decipher.

"There is nothing special tomorrow, mom," I sighed, lifting her hand to put it away.

"Come on, tiger. You never know what might happen tomorrow," she beamed at me, and I could not help but reciprocate the same. After all, everything can be solved with emotions. A simple smile had the power to make someone's heart flutter, wherein sadness could shatter someone's life. It was all about how well we presented ourselves to society.

"Go to sleep soon. The sun rises after a night, and tomorrow is a new day, so be ready for it," she said, heading to her room, wherein I stayed put, plastering the same fake act I had performed in front of people countless times.

"If tomorrow comes."

Remember, life is like chess. You make one wrong move, and you're defenceless all of a sudden, with the voice in your mind threatening to let you down. Slowly, you break down and let your guard free, paving way for your opponent to kill you and leave you empty with no emotions left to dwell upon: You have the power to destroy; not your opponent, but yourself. You get forced to ruin your life, to live a life of oblivion.

On the other hand, once you make a sacrifice, you are deemed worthy of it, you have all the power in your hands, the strength to destroy others, the importunity to rule over others. It gives you happiness at first, but it slowly turns into resentment and remorse, and after it all, your sacrifice was not commendable. People tend to look at your success and not your sacrifices. Once that is deemed worthless, you begin to demolish your own emotions altogether, plotting against your actions.

Either way, you get destroyed and defenceless.

This was life, and people knew how to play it well.

Defenceless; I was. No leads over the past years, just the pent-up of vengeance. The anger to destroy me, for not being able to show my inner voice that I was capable of, of inking the dreadful past.

"I've to sleep. Have got a big day tomorrow." I began to convince myself, taking deep breaths in and out.

If tomorrow ever comes.

It will. Tomorrow will come. Better than today. There I was again, fighting against my voice, convincing myself of the only thing I was afraid of: When I was young, I was scared of never waking up once I went to sleep. It slowly turned into fear, a deathly illusion of my mind, playing the silent lullaby over and over again until I submitted to it.

If tomorrow ever comes.

Turning off the lights, I headed to bed, clearing the thoughts off my mind. Sleep engulfed me as my eyes closed with a sigh.

Tomorrow never comes if you get stuck in the past.

White walls everywhere, accompanied by the loathing smell of blood. I felt the saturated colour dominating the room, bringing back broken memories. Did it mean peace? Happiness? Or was it sadness? No, it was the emblem of death, the emblem of death and sorrow.

People chose to run away from death, and they began to convince themselves that white was the emblem of peace. In this world, there is no gender. It's always our emotions that build up our character and mould us into who we are now. An angry person is worshipped, and a sad person is shunned. In the end, a happy person becomes the comforter. Everyone is given a role in the society they're forced to uptake.

This was the life people were oblivious to.

The stench of blood reached my nose, with the sound of deathmatching with my heartbeat, choking it slowly. I've never felt more suffocated in my life. The blood in my veins thronged for an escape, wherein I screamed in pain, trying to let go of my fear.

The white walls were a huge contrast to my emotions. They were trying to destroy the only thing I had left in me, trying to get a hold of my fear and remove the facade I had been putting up with for so long. I was getting suffocated in an illusion I wished to escape from:

The walls were closing up on me, with the mirrors mirroring my vengeance, the fury to destroy myself. I saw myself miserable, trying to break away from my cocoon and fly, fluttering my wings. But my thoughts were prisoned, just how my body was sewed.

Everything I saw was darkness, with my fingers crawling up my face to point out my mistakes. With my voice playing my past over and over again like a broken radio.

If tomorrow ever comes.

If only the past could be forgotten.

Tomorrow already came; I was living in tomorrow. I was living in tomorrow that was a part of my past. Living in a part of the present I was afraid of. Had I defeated my voice?

Tomorrow never came, Zuri.

Drops of blood began to drip from my eyes, falling on the surface, paving away. Every drop held a memory; it held pain and despair; it held my very own existence. The crimson red liquid moulded with the white floor, concealing it completely. With every drop, grew my fear. It was not the fear of life; it was fear of death. It was the fear of losing myself or rather, losing someone I loved.

The walls began to cry, its loud shouts screening my vicinity. The cries slowly turned into the laughter of a maniac. The laughs continued to ring in my ears until they faded away into the blood.

The walls were mirroring my emotions, my masked smiles and the tears behind them. Or were they?

Ropes of blood began to choke me, blinding me with its anger. They screamed that I was a killer, and I involuntarily chanted the same thing. The killer duet went on for a while until it faded away into my strangled voice, a monologue.

My eyes were filmy, the crimson liquid screening my vicinity. Was it blood, or was it my eyes filled with blood instead of tears?

In oblivion to my eyes laid a bed, in the middle of the room, with a patient in it. Draped in blood, with the liquid flowing out of her body, she looked like a corpse who had been devoid of any emotions, as if she were a sinner and never deserved to live. Was it me who was a sinner, or was it another conspiracy I never knew?

I went closer to her, ignoring the voices in my head. The blood still dripped, and the walls still laughed. It was a complete nightmare, and I was living in it. Slowly, I reached out to her face, holding it in my fingers that seemed to tremble a lot. They skimmed over her delicate skin, moulding with the tainted miseries of my life.

I began to stagger back slowly, falling into a cliff with no end, with the delicate face I had seen haunting me. I fell into an open ending and a closed opening, trying to break out from my thoughts.

The eyes were closed, yet I already knew who it was.

If tomorrow ever comes.

It was my mom.

Tomorrow never came.

I was not stuck in the past, neither was I in the future. I was stuck in my thoughts, in the monster I had created.

The mirror in front of me bore its eyes into mine. It was seeing me, observing my every step, trying to redeem my mistakes but to no avail.

Was I looking at the mirror, or was I the mirror?

I saw myself getting torn, ripped apart from myself, wherein the one in the mirror laughed at my miserable state. Was I laughing at myself?

No, I was laughing with myself, with my voice and with my eyes. The blood that coursed through my veins, and with the blood in which I slowly began sinking in.

It covered my feet, then slowly began to rise, drenching my clothes in the blood of whom I loved, as it slowly moved up to my nostrils, suffocating me. Passive retaliation was useless here; I saw my mom's blood drain from her body, covering up mine and grabbing hold of me as if I were a prisoner.

Then I saw myself in my reflection, covered in my mom's blood and eyes, devoid of any emotions.

As if the present never came to an end. 

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