I've come to accept that everything must end and that there is absolutely nothing we can do to prevent that. So, why am I afraid? Is it because the concept of there being just nothing scares me? But I know how it feels to be invisible, I know nothingness. I also know this one pair of brown eyes, common looking yet unique. The only eyes that ever looked at me and saw me the way I saw myself...I knew the kid those eyes belong to. He was nothing to the world, one in billions, but he was still a lot more than me. There was no one else.
I remember when I was younger, when he would still take me outside. I loved the outside world, full of life and new experiences. The way the first warming, hesitant sunbeams in a long time announce that spring is right around the corner. A crisp autumn breeze messing up my hair. My glasses fogging up in cold weather. I always tried to be polite to new people, but they never even noticed me. So, realising that my efforts were futile, I soon began to mess with them, to pull funny faces behing their backs, all kinds of shenanigans. His reaction was priceless, just like the people's faces when the boy in front of them suddenly started roaring with laughter without an apparent reason.
It was always intriguing to see the world change, how small, unnoticeable differences every day added up over time, making things into altered versions of themselves; like a marathon, not a sprint. Still, looking back, it felt like the latter sometimes. The weirdest thing about change was that it didn't affect me the way it affected him. He grew taller every year, he started to become more serious and had less and less of this childlike sense of curiosity and wonder. I stayed exactly the same. Soon, he didn't take me out anymore, he didn't talk to me as much as he used to, and when he did, I could feel shame and disbelief in his words. He was hiding me, but I didn't know the exact reason why. One day, I asked. He turned his gaze away, and, looking at the wall behind me, answered: "I'm not a little kid anymore. I should've stopped talking to you a long time ago." As he left the room, I hear him mutter "I'm sorry" under his breath.
From that day on, I started getting weaker. I was experiencing change now, but it wasn't the kind I had hoped for. Everyday, upon coming home, he was greeted by me in his room. Over time, he stopped replying. And as the weeks turned into months and the months turned into years, I faded away in a slow and steady way.
He opens the door and walks in, then sighs as he throws himself onto his bed. I'm sitting in the corner, arms wrapped aroung my knees, unable to stand up. "Hello...h-how was your d-day?" I try to sound cheerful, but the weak, raspy voice that comes out of my mouth doesn't sound like me anymore. He looks at me, a shadow of my former self, now almost as transparent to him as I was to others all along. "Listen...ah...I don't need you anymore. I hate to break this to you but...you're not even real. " Suddenly, I understand that these are my last moments. I'm dying, somehow, even though I was never truly alive to begin with. I'm not angry, I don't blame him. My vision is fading. As I try to look at my hand, I see that it has now completely dissolved. I'm not afraid anymore. I don't have to fear the nothingness, because the nothingness is me.