Survival is overrated.

Living is messy.

In that moment, the nameless boy understood: This was the end. He was going to die.He would cease to breathe. Cease to be. Cease to hurt. It would be easy.But he didn't want to die.

It ain't worth livin' forever if you're just livin' for yourself.

It was little more than a weak flame flickering under the weight of his melancholia, but it was there. A splinter of possibility. Maybe he didn't want to die.Maybe, just maybe, he wanted to live.It didn't burn away his sadness. It didn't make his future appear any less dark.But it was there—hope, perhaps, or something like it—and it was enough.