He looked up. The pit he had fallen into felt infinite, damp, and cold. Jagged rocks lined the walls, stained deep red with his drying blood. Above him, a pinprick of light shone like a taunting fairy, flickering dimly—an elusive thought or a dream mocking his harsh reality.
He glanced at his bloodied hands, scraped raw from relentless climbing. A sharp twinge shot through him; the adrenaline was wearing off, and pain rushed in like a tide. Curling up in a corner, he cried himself to sleep, the ache a grim reminder of his plight.
In his dreams, he revisited a life filled with big aspirations. Like any child, he had dreamed of success. He kept his head down, avoided trouble, and focused on his studies, struggling yet graduating with good grades. But the real world had revealed itself as a cruel illusion.
Years later, he wandered the streets of Lagos like a ghost, the relentless sun both alerting and numbing him. “We’ll get back to you.” How many times had he heard those words? Each time igniting hope, only to extinguish it. “But I did everything right,” he muttered, trudging through the bustling crowds, desperation weighing him down.
He found solace at the bottom of a bottle, where judgment ceased. Each sip promised forgetfulness, warmth, and a fleeting sense of control. Night after night, the bottles beckoned, whispering, “This world offers you nothing; we bring comfort.” “Just one sip, for old times’ sake,” they coaxed.
But one sip led to days lost in a haze, waking in a gutter, unable to remember the last 72 hours. “Never again,” he would promise, though the bottles smirked back at him. “You need us more than we need you. You’re ours now, and there’s no escape.”
He had become a captive, obedient to the whispers of his captors. The bottom of the bottle had transformed from sweet respite to a dark abyss, its jagged walls painted in his own blood. Each attempt to escape ended in failure, leaving him staring at the taunting light above—the fairy that danced just out of reach.
Resigned to death's embrace, a thought pierced the darkness: Help! He screamed, a word foreign to him. He had braved life’s challenges alone, but now, at the end of his rope, he had nothing left to lose. “Help!” he croaked, blood bubbling in his throat, tears streaming down his cheeks, “help!”
As darkness closed in, he felt warmth instead of cold. “Don’t give up, man. There’s hope for you yet.” This voice didn’t belong to death. Straining to see, he spotted outstretched arms reaching toward him. Hope—sweet, forgotten hope. He reached out, weak yet willing.
Help had come. Who would have thought?
