Ashen Sorrows

Selfishness

Beep beep beep beep beep bee-clink

"..."

Turning off the source of that annoying sound, I then lazily push myself upwards. As expected, the alluring warmth immediately invaded every part of my body, inviting me to just give up and lay down again. Despite the very nice invitation however, I persisted.

Once I was able to finally lift myself up on the bed without danger of falling back into its wonderful embrace, I attempt to open my eyes. As soon as I did, a blinding light immediately began to overwhelm my vision, and I instictively close it back up again. This time quinting my pupils, I try to stretch out my arms to warm up. That ended up not being the greatest decision.

"Agh! Ouch..."

Hearing the sound of your bones cracking first thing in the morning is not what I would want to get accustomed to, so as quickly as I decided to do it, I stopped even faster. At least it did wake me up as I wanted.

As the pain subsided, I was finally able to open my eyes fully, and per usual, the cabinet was the first thing that I saw. It's door frame was fully opened, exposing all the clothes that I had inside.

Yet something feels odd. No, there is definitely something odd. Even if I'm still a bit sleepy, it's not hard to tell that I'm missing some clothes, and so I set out to search for them. Darting around the room, I pass through many things like empty cup noodles, messy newspapers piles laying on the table, a trash bag that I forgot to take out yesterday, and dinner that I was supposed to eat but got too tired to bother. None of which is what I was looking for, and so despite wanting to stay just a bit longer on my comfy bed, I proceed to position my feet out of the sheets, and gently place them down onto the floor.

The ground was quite cold, abnormally so. It was as if I was walking on bare ice in the middle of a giant floating iceberg, but strangely, I'm not bothered by it. Shaking off the sleepiness while feeling the floor with my feet, I then take small steps towards the bathroom just a bit away from my bed. Gazing into the room, I found what I was looking for, my clothes from yesterday, well, multiple days, sitting in a bag of other unwashed clothing. Knowing that I haven't lost any clothes was good, but this also made me realize that I should really start washing them soon.

Well, I can do it later today. Thinking to myself, I then head over to a table situated at the corner of the room, under a small window. As I walked towards it, I also grabbed hold of a small bag and a cup.

Sitting down onto the chair placed beside it, I reach inside a casket on the table, carefully taking out a small-sized crystal. As soon as I did so, the stone began to glow a crimson red, and I can feel it starting to heat up. Dropping it into my cup, I then conjured up an ice cube to put alongside it. With that, the crystal began to heat up the cube, melting it. As I waited for it to be done, I began to take in the scene displayed through the window before me.

Despite being the same thing everyday, I'm still left in awe as I stare at the city outside. Buildings all varying in sizes and heights, yet they all seemed to fit into one big picture. There was no real order to how each house was built, they were all in disarray with no particular reasoning for how unnecessarily high or big they are, yet somehow, it made everything looked a bit more lively, like there were actual people living here, making their own decisions and choices that no one could make for them, leaving them with various results.

As my mind went on with that weird philosophical thought process however, the ice had long turned into hot water. Tearing up the small bag, I proceed to pull the brown colored powder into the cup, letting it mix into the water. At least, that's what's supposed to happen, instead, it was just staying afloat on the surface.