Heavy guilt weighed her down as the force of all those "you can't make it!" remarks crushed her spirits. Kicking pebbles aside and breathing heavily, she walked sullenly. Her streaming tears soaked her shirt faster than the storming rain above. "What is it? What have I lacked, where did the efforts go wrong? All my friends are out there enjoying their youth. And here I sit puffy-eyed, failing even in my fifth attempt, as my 23สณแต birthday passes in misery." She cursed herself, as she stared at the reflection of her broken self in the rippling puddles.
All those sacrifices, sleepless nights, criticism even from friends and resistance to wanting to quit, now all seemed for nothing. Days passed. Nothing changed. Few weeks passed, but she still couldn't redeem herself.
A month had gone by. It was an ordinary day. With heavy eyelids drowsy from obsessively glaring at her phone's screen, she stifled a yawn. Instantaneously, she drifted off into a daytime slumber. Eyes twitching and switching from side to side, she felt the noise around her slowly falter and fade as the edges of reality began to blur.
Somewhere, she was running. Breathlessly running through a fog that stretched endlessly. The air around her felt dense. No ground beneath and no sky above, just an unending space of motion and mist. Thatโs when she heard it: the sirens of the steaming train ahead. She ran faster, and faster still. Yet, the train always exceeded her speed. It kept vanishing into the fog, as she kept chasing it.
When she woke up with a start, heart- racing and in cold sweats, something had triggered inside of herโan unexplainable need to run faster this time. In real life.
Everything felt slightly more different than before, barely noticeable at first...then it grew. She was overcome by a certain burst of energy to step up, to move, to try . Funny. She could already feel herself coming out of her depressive rut. A course of somehow brighter days passed, as she found herself back on her desk, delving into another cycle of solving lengthy coursebooks, sitting for mock exams for hours on end and praying in tears of exhaustion each night.
It was like rewinding time and doing the same things, but this time the experience seemed more amplified. Hit by dopamine rushes and now an even greater fire inside of her, she was convinced she would definitely crack this attempt. The days seemed to blur together, moving by ever- so fast as she poured her everything into it. As if in the blink of an eye, ๐ช๐ต arrived. It was result day. The young aspirant's heart hammered against her ribs as she typed in her credentials. Loading, loading, loading...poor network...try again in 3 seconds...loading...
"๐ญ๐๐๐. ๐ญ๐๐๐๐๐
๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐. "
Her gut dropped. She jolted. A loud, shrill noise echoed through her ears as her heart sunk. The pin- drop silence that trailed through the air aligned with the ringing of her ears. The letters f-a-i-l blurred in her eyes- moist and rheumy, now shutting slowly, as she felt herself slowly droop, fall back and faint. Hours passed. The girl laid still.
The moon dipped and the sun rose, and the sharp rays of the sun cut through the window's glass. The loud bangs of music being played by the college junkies next door partying all night dawned all over the building. With a sore, throbbing headache, her eyelids fluttered open to a world of blurry mess and disappointment. Her arms and legs felt numb. She struggled to her feet. Suddenly, a loud ding came from her phone. Sighing, not wanting to answer any of those "how was your result girl?!?" messages, she still tapped on it absentmindedly. It was an email. โIโm in no mood for spamsโ, she grumbled. She frowned, scrolling further. She skimmed through the words once, twice, thrice- and her breath hitched- it was ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ฎ! No way! It read-
"๐๐ฆ ๐ข๐ณ๐ฆ ๐ฑ๐ญ๐ฆ๐ข๐ด๐ฆ๐ฅ ๐ต๐ฐ ๐ฆ๐น๐ต๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ฅ ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ณ ๐ฐ๐ง๐ง๐ฆ๐ณ ๐ต๐ฐ ๐ข ๐ต๐ข๐ญ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ต๐ฆ๐ฅ ๐บ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ฏ๐จ ๐ฃ๐ณ๐ข๐ช๐ฏ, ๐ธ๐ฉ๐ฐ๐ด๐ฆ ๐ค๐ณ๐ฆ๐ข๐ต๐ช๐ท๐ช๐ต๐บ ๐ช๐ฏ ๐ต๐ฆ๐ณ๐ฎ๐ด ๐ฐ๐ง ๐ฃ๐ฐ๐ต๐ฉ ๐ต๐ฆ๐ค๐ฉ๐ฏ๐ฐ๐ญ๐ฐ๐จ๐บ ๐ข๐ฏ๐ฅ ๐ธ๐ณ๐ช๐ต๐ช๐ฏ๐จ ๐ฉ๐ข๐ด ๐ด๐ต๐ฐ๐ฐ๐ฅ ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ต. ๐๐ฆ ๐ฃ๐ฆ๐ญ๐ช๐ฆ๐ท๐ฆ ๐บ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ณ ๐ด๐ฌ๐ช๐ญ๐ญ๐ด ๐ธ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ญ๐ฅ ๐ด๐ฆ๐ณ๐ท๐ฆ ๐ข๐ด ๐ข๐ฏ ๐ข๐ด๐ด๐ฆ๐ต ๐ต๐ฐ ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ณ ๐ช๐ฏ๐ช๐ต๐ช๐ข๐ต๐ช๐ท๐ฆ๐ด ๐ข๐ฏ๐ฅ ๐ฐ๐ฑ๐ฆ๐ฏ ๐ถ๐ฑ ๐ข ๐ฏ๐ฆ๐ธ ๐ณ๐ฆ๐ข๐ญ๐ฎ ๐ฐ๐ง ๐ธ๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ฅ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ง๐ถ๐ญ ๐ช๐ฅ๐ฆ๐ข๐ด. ๐๐ต ๐ธ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ญ๐ฅ ๐ฃ๐ฆ ๐ข๐ฏ ๐ฉ๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ณ ๐ต๐ฐ ๐ฉ๐ข๐ท๐ฆ ๐บ๐ฐ๐ถ ๐ค๐ฐ๐ญ๐ญ๐ข๐ฃ๐ฐ๐ณ๐ข๐ต๐ฆ ๐ธ๐ช๐ต๐ฉ ๐ถ๐ด."
NovaTech Apex- a top research instituteโone she had aspired to attend since high school had reached out, offering a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work with them. It was the institute she used to stay up researching, bookmarking scholarship pages, watching every alumni interview of since her teenage years. A place that had once felt like a world out of reach. Suddenly it clicked- they'd read the paper she had written in between her exhausting preparations, a beautiful paper she had almost forgotten about.
She stared at the mirror reflection in front of her. A crisp, fresh breeze flew across her damp face from the window she'd left ajar last night. Her hair swept away from her gloomy face, revealing an involuntary smile, which grew bigger and bigger as she validated how exciting this new life was going to be.
All this wasn't a waste after all. It was just a test for her to keep at it, step into her full potential and unlock her true power. As the saying goes, "Sometimes when you think you've been buried, you've actually been planted".
React
