She was speaking withhim—the other Balthazar, the man I used to be. Their heads bent together in quiet conversation, the kind that only lovers could share. I stood at the edges like an intruder, a stranger, a ghost haunting a moment that once belonged to me.
Regret carved its way through my chest, unrelenting.
I had come too late.
If I’d only gone back sooner—if I hadn’t wasted so much time chasing revenge, drowning in drink, burying myself in blood—maybe… just maybe, I could’ve saved it all.
But the past was fixed now. Closed. A stage forever set, playing out a life that no longer had room for me.
I wasn’thimanymore.
Too much time had passed. Too much had been lost. And I—what was I now? A shell? A monster? A man cursed to watch joy from the outside, barred from touching the light?
My arms ached to hold my children. To feel the weight of their little bodies against mine. To press their foreheads to my lips, to whisper that I loved them—I never stopped. But I knew that moment would never come. It was a cruel illusion, this place. A perfect world I had already broken.
My heart cried for Zara.
I tried again to speak. To tell her everything I had never said. That I had loved her more than my own soul. That I had never stopped. That she had been the only thing keeping me from complete ruin.
But my mouth formed no words.
Only silence.
Only longing.
And so, I turned away—because staying would destroy me.
I clenched my fists, then threw back my head and screamed.
A raw, bone-rattling roar of anguish tore from my chest and echoed into the heavens. It split the silence like lightning, but still, no god answered.
“Let me feel them!” I shouted, voice shaking the wind. “Let me hold my babies! Let me comfort them—just once!Let me kiss my wife’s lips and remember what it means tolive!”
But there was no reply.
No divine mercy. No miracle.
Only the sound of laughter in the distance… laughter that once belonged to me.
I watched, powerless, as they walked away—the childrenclinging to the other Balthazar, Freya resting her cheek on his shoulder, Zara’s hand entwined in his.
They passed through me like smoke.
Their joy crushed the hollow of my chest, trampling my dreams into the dirt beneath their feet.
And I?—
I was nothing.
Not a father.
Not a husband.
Not even a man.
Just a shadow.
Trapped in the ruins of a life I destroyed.
