Beyond A Substitute
That night, in the mirror room, he’d seen himself as he truly was—a man marred by regret, worn by sorrow, yet still capable of longing for something real.
Now, as he sat down before the supplies, his mind wandered back to everything he had done to hold on to a life he never truly wanted. Kingsley’s eyes traced the edges of the blank wooden board before him. In his quiet interior, he whispered, “What protects me now?” The question stung, not because the answer was obvious, but because every word had its own weight.
Then, without knowing why, he reached for a magazine and began flipping through the pages.
A page tore beneath his fingers as he paused on an image of a lake at dusk—muted purple s
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