Did he slam the door, only to find himself crouching moments later, staring out through its keyhole? His breath hitched as his eye strained to see the world he'd just shut out. He wasn’t ignorant of what he had done—not in the slightest. The weight of it settled at the bottom of his bowels, heavy and unrelenting, as though his very core had been replaced with lead. As the adrenaline drained, a cruel slideshow began to play in his mind: the happiness he had cast aside, the smiles he would never see again, the warmth of accomplishments now turned to ashes, and the faces of family and friends that dissolved like mist when he reached for them.

The images lashed at him, each one sharper than the last, until his thoughts boiled over, livid and chaotic. He had done everything exactly as planned—every step, every detail meticulously executed. How could he have known that after crossing that line, after seizing the one thing he thought would liberate him, he would find himself shackled by an agony far worse? That the line he crossed wasn’t a door, but a wall, locking him into a cage of his own making.

Now, lying on the ground, his body writhing like an earthworm coated in salt, he could think of nothing but regret. Every fiber of him screamed for release—from the pain, from the realization, from himself. He wished, desperately and futilely, that he hadn’t done it. But wishes, he knew, were the cruelest jest of all.

When he had it, it was nothing close to great. It was like a grimy, rough-cut cabochon, dull and seemingly worthless—a thing of no significant value to the untrained eye. He never held it with pride, nor treated it with care. Yet now, as it tumbled from his grasp, slipping irreversibly into the void, a sudden and unbearable clarity crashed upon him. His heart clenched as he winced, then yelped, his cries echoing into the void, desperate and raw.

He begged for help—a help he knew, deep down, would never come. The weight of that knowledge bore down on him like a crushing tide, and he felt the bitter sting of regret sear through his soul. What he had dismissed, overlooked, and underestimated was now the singular loss he could not endure.

Leaving a trail of blood seeping from his body, Jude's movements were slow and strained, his slithering crawl a desperate attempt to reach the door. The bathroom, once a place of solitude, now felt like a tomb closing in on him. Each inch closer to the door drained him further, his strength evaporating with every breath. The cold floor beneath him felt like ice, but he had no strength left to feel it fully.

Twice, his shaking hands failed him when he tried to turn the doorknob. The effort was too much. The door, just a few inches away from his grasp, seemed like an unreachable promise of escape. The third attempt came, and with it, a painful realization—his body could no longer obey. His mind screamed for survival, but his limbs betrayed him. As the door finally creaked open, it was already too late.

With a final, agonizing tremor, Jude felt himself falling, a sudden weightlessness taking over him. The world blurred, spinning away as consciousness slipped from his grasp. There was no sound, no moment of clarity, only the cruel sensation of free-fall before he slammed against the cold, unyielding floor. The world went black.