Empty Smiles Novels & Stories

After a long moment, I spoke again. "I should feel something. Relief. Satisfaction. Even sadness. But I don't. I just feel—" I searched for the word. "Empty." "That's not nothing." "No?" "No." He turned to look at me. "Empty means you've cleared out everything that was filling the space. The fear. The anger. The hope. Now you get to choose what comes next." I stared at him. "You always know what to say." "I don't. I just say what I think. You decide what it means."

Slim I sat next to her on the cliff, handing her a cup of water. Surprisingly, my nerves relaxed as her fingertips unintentionally brushed against mine, and I resisted the urge to sigh in frustration. There was something intriguing about her. She exuded an aura of tranquility wherever she went, and it was slowly affecting me. She smiled at me, but her eyes didn't reflect the same joy. I could tell something was weighing heavily on her mind. "Thanks," she said, her voice shaky with the impact of her thoughts. I could sense her anxiety consuming her.

Sky I feel empty, not sad, not angry, not frustarted, it is just like someone took my heart away and closed my chest and told me to live like that I know many people had and even currently be fantasying something like that, but let me tell you it is no roses or does it makes matters better, cause the emptiness I feel is like something inside me was ripped out and never replaced, I wasn’t given no peace I haven’t spoken to Ace since that day.

Everything was like in the previous life. Kaden was very excited. Actually, he was asked by a senior staff to clean the restroom. By chance, Jennifer saw him doing it and decided to reward him with a 0.01% share in the restaurant. How could this not make him happy? Kaden was a young man in his twenties from a rural village with little education. His relatives at home often looked down on him and said he would never succeed. The restaurant’s new policy gave him a chance to make real money, so he was determined to grab it.

I said again, with my lips wearing smile. “W-why? I don’t know, maybe, just sometimes, I don’t really know,” she said stuttering. “You can just say right now. Your cheeks are red miss ma’am,” I said and chuckled. By that day’s afternoon, we already have packed our things up. The whole time we are packing those, I always gaze at Amira but she can’t look at me. She’ll gaze too, but she’s avoiding eye contacts. She is stuttering when I talk to her. That conversation maybe made her uncomfortable. I hope not. Maybe she is just shy about that. I can’t help but to notice how good my mood is for that day.

Not blinking. Not saying a word.

--- --- Clearer. --- --- And finally— --- Free. --- ---

"There's everything to talk about, you're clearly upset..." "I'm not upset." "Then what are you?" I pulled the shirt over my head. "Empty." The word landed between us. "What does that mean?" he asked quietly. "It means I don't have anything left to give this conversation, I don't have anything left to give you." "Eve..." "You wanted me to talk, I'm talking. I'm empty, Damon. Completely hollow. And I don't know how to fix that." He stepped into the room. "I know I messed up yesterday..."

Finishing the job. ****😑****

REGISTRY DISTRICT 10 CORE BALANCE: 100 UNITS REQUESTED EXCHANGE RATE: ONE IMMUNITY LEASE PER SOUL "They're offering an exemption," I realized, the "True Zero" logic in my mind cutting through the silver text with a terrifying, icy clarity. "If we surrender the memory of our scars—the un-optimized errors that made us default—they’ll give us a permanent lease on the clearing. We can live in the margin forever, but we’ll be silent. We’ll be a closed account that never changes."