"What am I even doing?" Said the young man after coming home to his apartment from work, not even having taken off his shoes yet.
His day wasn't good, nor was it bad either, it was just normal. Nothing to take note of and nothing to regret, even though he didn't have to work every day, it was the same as the many he had faced before.
That filled the young man with an incomprehensible sense of dread as if he were drowning in a pool with no surface.
As for the young man, he wasn't someone to take note of either. He was 23 years old, with his short black hair, brown eyes, and a slim yet slightly taller than average physique accompanied by clothing that would be better suited for a casual day out.
Once the man took off his shoes, he went straight for his fridge and reheated some frozen food he had stored in there, as he did when coming home from work.
After he was done washing the dishes, he went into his room and looked out the window wanting to see the stars at night to try and clear his head, however the bright city lights didn't allow him to.
And so he got changed, brushed his teeth and scrolled meaningless posts on his phone he'd forget in the next minute and went off to bed.
This was his everyday life. He hated it.
"A wedding?" He said, a bit surprised. He usually never had to work at weddings, but he wasn't complaining, in fact, he was a little excited for this new job.
He got ready to go out with his overly casual clothing and equipment for his job, then took a ride to the wedding.
Once he arrived, he set up what he had brought and started to take pictures. It all seemed like a blur to him, he thought that day would be different.
"At least I'm getting paid" he thought to himself once he snapped out of his trance, placing his camera down and looking at all the people present.
"It would be nice to be the one being taken photos of in a wedding. Maybe one day." he started to think, and lost his train of thought as he picked his camera back up to finish what he came to do.
The whole day passed in blur, just like any day for him, until the ceremony started.
He broke from his trance once more when he saw those people, up in the altar, he had no idea who they were until now.
People who had lived their lives until that moment, and would now live them together.
He saw two people who cared for each other, people who would have happy moments together, who would see obstacles together, who promised to live their lives together no matter what happened.
He looked up at them and felt sick to his stomach.
He felt sick and wanted to throw up right then and there, he was confused as to why because he had felt nothing wrong with him up until that moment.
Then he started to feel a deep rage towards everyone around him. He had no idea what was happening to him, but he wanted to leave that place, he didn't care what anyone thought of him at that moment.
But despite every part of his body screaming at him to leave, he decided to stay and finish his job.
The moment everything was done, he walked out without saying a word.
The wedding he was at was about a one hour walk from his apartment, but at that moment he had no desire to speak to anyone so he made the choice to walk home instead of ordering a ride.
While he was walking home, he felt a weight on the back side of his head, it didn't hurt him, it was just there, he could feel it pounding.
All the while, he was holding his desire to throw up in the middle of the street.
He kept thinking back to the wedding, how he felt when he saw the bride and the groom up in the altar.
"Should I go to the hospital?" he muttered to himself, wondering if he had eaten something that made him sick.
As he kept thinking and muttering to himself he saw a blurry dot on the pavement where he was walking.
That blurry dot made him lose focus of his thoughts, and he saw it move. That dot was actually a little bird.
A little bird was lying on the street, unable to fly, it probably wasn't able to at that age, defenseless, with no one around to hear its cries, except for the young man.
He was genuinely surprised. At first he hastily looked around for a nest, he then looked for its mother but gave up shortly after.
"How does a bird get stranded on the street like this?" He said, feeling pity for the animal, assuming it fell out of a nest nearby he hadn't noticed.
Then something came to him.
"What if I took care of it? I can't just let this bird die here, that would be cruel, right?" He thought, and felt a sense of true happiness wash over him, taking with it all that he was feeling from the wedding before.
He picked up the bird and practically ran to his apartment. Not noticing anything but the little animal he was holding in his hands.
Once he got to his apartment, he looked for a small box and put the bird inside of it, then ran to his laptop to find out what he could feed it.
For some reason he was disappointed to see that he had nothing that the little bird could eat, even though he knew he only had frozen food in his fridge.
So he went to the store and bought an apple for the little bird, as he saw in his quick searches that some birds eat apples.
The young man cut the apples into slices and tried feeding them to the bird, not expecting much, however to his surprise the bird seemed to enjoy them quite a bit.
He felt relieved as he poured some water in a bottle cap he found and placed it inside the box, then went back to the store to buy more apples.
"I'm going to take care of you from now on." he said to the bird, even though it clearly couldn't understand him.
"You need a name if you're gonna be here. What about Bruno? Do you like that?" The bird didn't react, yet the young man laughed a little. He had no idea if the bird was even a male. He didn't care though.
The next day, the man woke up and went to check up on the bird. It hadn't moved much but the food he gave it the previous day was mostly gone.
Seeing that, he was overjoyed, so he took the leftovers and gave the bird more apple slices and more water as well.
He tried playing with it for a while but the little bird seemed disinterested so he dropped the idea and went on with his day, feeling a little happy inside, however, because of his new pet.
And so a few days passed and the young man felt actually happy. His days were less boring with the little bird, he had someone to take care of now, and even though it never really wanted to do anything except sit in its box, the man felt really happy with the change in his routine.
He sometimes took it out of its box and had it walk on his hand, the bird didn't seem to mind it either but the man noticed its lack of energy.
"I guess this is my time to be happy" he thought to himself as he looked at the animal stuck inside a box.
Roughly a month later, the man went to give the bird more apple slices and water, as that had become part of his routine.
However this time the bird didn't seem to be interested. It looked weak and was barely moving.
The young man grabbed the bird to see if it was sleeping. He saw its eyes and they were open, just barely.
He simply thought it had just woken up, however it seemed to be struggling to breathe.
Thoughts the man ignored ever since he found the bird came flooding into his mind as he felt his heart sink into his stomach.
The young man started to panic internally, not being able to gather his thoughts, then before the man could do anything meaningful, then "Bruno" opened its eyes and took its last breath in his hands.
His mind went blank, then he sat there for a long while, not being able to move. He just sat there, staring at the corpse of his pet in his palms.
After a few minutes, he stood up and sat on his couch with the bird still in his hands
Then he started to cry, something he rarely did.
He cried his eyes out, cried so much that more tears could come out of him, every emotion he kept to himself poured out of him like a broken dam in this one moment.
No one could hear him, but he cried to himself for hours as a feeling of an inescapable dread crawled through every inch of his being.
Afterwards he was left with nothing, nothing except for that feeling of dread. Just like he had felt before.
He left the bird in its box, put on his shoes, grabbed the box again and silently walked out of his apartment.
Five minutes later he found himself digging a hole with his bare hands in the community yard of his apartment complex where he would make a grave for his pet.
"What are you doing, Sebastian?" Shouted a voice from one of the apartments.