Zantalio's Writing Thread (OOC)

[Zantalio]

Hello everyone! This will be a thread reserved for stories and poems that I will be writing.

I think most of my stories will be some sort of historical fiction, made with action elements and possible romantic elements.

Enjoy!

Romantic Delusions - March 17, 2026

Desperation and Hope

[Zantalio]

I was in my trench.
Nothing to see here.
I lost my mind a long time ago.
Why should I keep on living like this? Always in a state of combat, in paranoia?
My unit charged, taking on the enemy head on.
I ran, but all of a sudden...
My love was standing in front of me, soothing me softly with her sweet voice.

I slowly walked up to her.
With every step, my heart ached more and more.
I missed her so.
I wanted her in my arms again.
I desired her tender kiss.

As soon as I was standing right in front of her, meeting eye to eye.
I realized it was all a delusion.
She wasn't here.

And my heart aching?
I was shot there.

So here I lie, waiting to die. It was coming quickly.
My mind died so long ago, and it wanted me to die with it.

[Zantalio]

↑　This story was originally posted on TNP. Yes, this was short, and I am not the most proud of it.

[Zantalio]

I was eighteen years old. I had recently graduated from high school.

I was lying in my bed, furiously pondering about the cruel future lying in wait for me.

"There is no hope," I said. "No hope."

In the dimly lit bedroom of mine the cries of a crow were audible through the thick window that partitioned my cold, damp room from the harsh, burning desert that surrounded the small town I had come to live in for a good majority of my life. It was an experience of sorts, one brutal one at that, that was torture. Hell, to me, had always been portrayed as a place of burning embers, where the souls of the dead that were evil in their lives were to be sentenced to an exile of burning coal, progressively getting hotter the deeper, and, more evil you were. The word "hell", now that I think about it, not only applies to the realm of evil men, exiled to be tortured for eternity. Rather, it was a word that I could apply to another place: that place, being the cold, dark realm to which all living men are sentenced to. Where thoughts are the things that torture you constantly, beating you until you are ground to a pulp, or until you fight back. In my case, it was the former.

I entered into the closet of mine. The closet, similar to my bedroom, was dark and damp, but those qualities were even more exaggerated, and it was coupled with the fact that it was tight, and hard to breathe in. If you are a claustrophobe, like I was, it would have sucked to enter into. It had a few clothes in hangers, ironing equipment, and a secret stash of cigarettes and alcohol, which I possessed at the time to find an escape from the godforsaken reality I inhabited on a day-to-day basis. Yet, these things had quickly lost their effects on me, as it never truly fixed anything for me. There was a small shelf, and, on that shelf, was a rope. Thoughts, those torturous thoughts, had quickly begun to propagate in my already torn, broken mind, and had begun to take root in it. Everything appeared to be twisted. Happiness had turned to sadness, and sadness turned to despair, and despair had turned to anger; and the last two had combined to create a deadly concoction. This mixture was poured towards myself. Anger was the fuel; despair was the oxygen that keeps all fires going. The heat that begun my mental self-immolation was a match that was composed of the willingness to escape this abyss that I had gotten myself into.

"Anything to break out of this shit," a faction within my mind shouted to me, "is ultimately the best option."

I tied a rope, as commanded by the thoughts in my head; the fire was burning hotter and hotter. I then took myself and placed my head in the spot. The self-destruction was almost complete.

"No! Do not do it," another faction within my mind called out to me, "this is not great! At all! You are manipulating yourself! All the other wants you to do is destroy yourself. There is truly hope, but you refuse to admit it. Please, we beg of you, do not vanquish yourself. Do not execute yourself; there is still pardon lying ahead."

I was still convinced that one option was better than the other, and carried along in the plot.

There, I did it...

For the last moment before I did it though, I had begun to listen to the other side of my head, the one which refused to let me die.

"Remember your mother. She is always in a struggle concerning her health. Without you, she might never be able to recieve the assistance she needs when she does her daily tasks. Cooking, cleaning, all the basic things one needs to do to sustain a family. Remember your younger sister. She cares for you, so dearly, despite her being an annoyance at times. Without you, she would never be able to recieve any form of education, since you are the one whom your mother has the funds to send to school to. You are the one who learns, while she has to do the work of a housemaid for another man, so that she could assist your mother as well, by giving her the funds to pay for the little apartment of your family. Remember the fact that they rely on you. Remember that they care. Remember... Hope will always be there. You are a young man, discovering what his true place in the world is. Fight the good fight. You will find meaning. Despite your lack of belief in a God, may God bless you. You know that no matter how much you deny he is there, he will assist you. Now, end this right now. It is just not worth it. End it, we beg of you. End the will to annihilate yourself."

I was fully convinced. But, it was too late. I was hanging off the ceiling, like a chandelier, asphyxiating to death. It was physical torture. My hands were pulling on the rope, hoping to break it, trying to breathe again. It takes a Herculean effort to break through, even moreso as I was slowly dying. In a stroke of luck, however, I had acquired a pocket knife a day prior to this, so I could have a tool to use if I was in any type of situation where I needed it. I was planning to use it to fix a bit of carpet, as I was called to by my mother. I had, for some reason, completely forgot that it was in a pouch on my belt the whole time. The consumption of my head by the confusion and conflict that had formed had diverted my attention severely. I, luckily, did not see that in my terror, for reasons which I will leave the reader to infer upon. I used it to break free. It was a miracle that I had survived.

My breath was returning. I was in need of emergency services, so I had to grab my cell-phone, and call the number.

"911," I said in a broken voice, still suffering from the act that I had done prior to calling, "I tried to... do it..."

"Do what?" asked the operator.

"Take my own life away," I responded, "by hanging."

"What is your name and what is your address?" she asked.

"Ilya. I reside at 11875 W Quartzite Road."

Minutes afterward, I was picked up by an ambulance.

I woke up in the hospital. It was hospitable, compared to the soulless room of the apartment I lived in, although it was not warm. Peace was starting to settle upon me; a feeling I had not felt in years. It was a break from the brutal past, and what I thought to be a hopeless future. While, I could not fully rid of all the anxieties that I had at the moment for only the slowly-ticking clock does that; at least I had peace within my broken soul.

"There will be hope," consoling myself after what was the darkest hour of my life.

"Never again will I try to take my life... Never again."

[Zantalio]

↑ I do plan on making this a multi-chapter thing, it's just that I lack the motivation. I tried to do a similar project with a similar premise about a month or two ago, but that failed due to a software error which made me just quit for a while. And no, it was not me who encountered the software error. Feel free to criticize this as this needs some... work.