Chapter Text
Hiacynt would like to think that there is a certain hope to sadness; that all the hardships he had faced in his short life happened for a reason. That the universe did not simply curse him to live a damned life, but one where he could claw himself out of the storm with gritted teeth and stand on his own, bloodied but alive.
He liked to think that all the shit he had gone through, he went through for a reason. That every sleepless night, every bruise to his pride and skin, every moment where he had swallowed down anger until it burned at the back of his throat had shaped him into someone stronger. Someone harder to break.
He liked to think that his fucked up life made him different from other people; more aware of the ugliness that existed beneath polished smiles and rehearsed kindness, more capable of seeing the world for what it truly was instead of hiding behind rose-tinted glasses.
Most people went through life pretending things were better than they were, distracting themselves with routine and shallow conversations, acting as though misery was not stitched into the fabric of everything around them.
Hiacynt had never been given that luxury.
Sadness had followed him for so long that it had become familiar and predictable, that it was easier to carry than hope ever was.
Because hope was dangerous; hope made people believe things could change, and Hiacynt had spent enough years learning that life rarely changed for the better unless you dragged it there yourself with bruised hands and exhausted bones.
Still, he told himself those lies anyway. He repeated them quietly in the mornings while staring at the bathroom mirror, eyes still heavy with sleep and dread; repeated them while forcing himself out of bed for another shift at a company that did not give a shit whether he lived or died; repeated them during long commutes and silent lunches and conversations that barely counted as conversations at all.
Maybe if he said it enough times, it would eventually become true.
Maybe one day all the suffering would amount to something more than survival.
But if he was being honest with himself, brutally honest, then he knew the truth: those thoughts were nothing more than carefully constructed excuses, fragile little lies he fed himself so he could continue functioning without collapsing under the weight of it all.
Because the reality was much simpler and far uglier.
He was tired.
Tired of waking up already exhausted; tired of giving pieces of himself to people and places that barely acknowledged his existence, tired of coworkers who ignored him on a good day and looked through him on a bad one. Tired of feeling as though his entire life had become an endless performance where he smiled at the right moments, nodded at the right moments, spoke at the right moments, all while feeling absolutely nothing underneath it.
Because Hiacynt was not strong, nor was he wise.
He was something broken and ugly, all pieced back together with tape and half-dried glue; a person held together through habit more than willpower, through routine more than genuine desire to keep living. He was a survivor, yes, but a tired and beaten down one, the kind that no longer looked victorious after surviving, only exhausted.
So when he woke up on August 13th, 2026, feeling that ever-present numbness settled deep beneath his skin, he knew what he was going to do and, for once, he did not fear it.
The realization came quietly.
No panic clawed at his throat, no shaking hands or desperate attempts to convince himself otherwise. Instead, there was only a strange sort of calm sitting heavy in his chest, dull and cold and horribly gentle. It felt less like making a decision and more like finally accepting one that had been waiting for him for years.
He stood from his bed with tremendous effort and made his way to the bathroom, feet dragging against old wooden floors as morning light slipped weakly through the curtains. The apartment was silent except for the pipes groaning somewhere behind the walls and the distant sounds of traffic outside.
For a moment, he simply stared at himself in the mirror.
Twenty-four years old, dark circles beneath his eyes, exhaustion etched into every sharp angle of his face. He looked older than he should have; not in the way people called mature, but in the way abandoned buildings looked old, worn down by neglect and weather and time.
And standing there in the dim bathroom light, Hiacynt mourned.
He mourned the little boy he once was, the one who had been full of hope and impossible dreams, the one who used to believe adulthood meant freedom. He mourned the child who swore he would never become his parents, who believed sheer determination alone could save him from turning into them.
Now, at twenty-four, he wanted to tell that little boy that he had succeeded in some ways. That he did not end up a drug addict sleeping in alleyways, that he was no longer selling his body to strangers just to survive another month, that he had found stable work, even if it barely paid enough to keep the lights on.
He wanted to say he was nothing like them.
But Hiacynt had never been particularly good at lying to himself for long.
Because he was exactly like them in some ways, and nothing like them in others.
He understood now how bitterness could rot a person from the inside out, how exhaustion could make cruelty feel ordinary. He understood why his parents looked perpetually angry, why they snapped so quickly, why they drowned themselves in substances and excuses and misery. Life wore people down until they became ugly versions of themselves, and sometimes there was no dramatic moment where it happened either; sometimes it was gradual, almost invisible.
But there were lines he had never crossed and never would.
He would never raise a hand to his own blood. Never slip drugs into their food. Never hand a ten-year-old a bottle and tell them to relax because it made them easier. Never force them into becoming a maid, a therapist, a piggybank, or a replacement spouse.
Świetlana would never look at him with fear.
Closing his eyes, Hiacynt let out a slow, shaking sigh before forcing himself away from the mirror. There was no point in standing there any longer, dissecting old wounds that would never heal correctly.
He got dressed mechanically, movements practiced and distant. Hoodie first, then jeans, then old sneakers whose soles were beginning to peel away from the fabric. He tied the laces slowly, fingers stiff with exhaustion, and all the while that same certainty remained lodged inside him like stone.
He knew what he was going to do.
He knew it when he walked out of the apartment without bothering to lock the door behind him.
He knew it when he stepped into a Żabka and bought cheap vodka and bread, ignoring the bored cashier who barely glanced up from her phone. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, harsh against tired eyes, while somewhere behind him a refrigerator hummed endlessly.
He knew it when he sat alone in the park until dusk, feeding pieces of bread to birds as they hopped cautiously around his shoes. The air smelled clean in the way villages often did after summer rain: damp grass, dirt, distant chimney smoke. Children laughed somewhere far away, their voices muffled by wind and distance, and for a brief moment he wondered if he had ever sounded that carefree once.
Maybe he had.
Maybe life had simply beaten it out of him.
He knew what he was doing when he called his little sister, voice rough and uneven as he listened to her answer after the third ring.
“Kocham cię, Świetlana,” he had said hoarsely, staring out toward the darkening sky. “Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, and for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
There was confusion in her voice immediately after, concern rising sharp and frightened, but Hiacynt spoke over her gently, asking about school, about her friends, about the stupid television show she liked watching lately. He listened to her talk for as long as she wanted because nobody had listened to him when he was younger, nobody had cared enough to ask questions unless they wanted something in return.
When the call ended, he sat there for a long time with his phone clenched tightly in his hand.
Then he transferred every last złoty from his account into hers.
It was not much in the grand scheme of things, but it was enough to help; enough that maybe she could leave this town someday, maybe even leave the country if she wanted to. Enough that she would have choices he never had.
Hiacynt knew what he was doing when he returned home after dark and cleaned the apartment until it looked better than it had the day he first rented it.
He scrubbed the kitchen counters until his hands hurt, folded laundry that had sat untouched for weeks, washed dishes carefully, organized drawers, threw away old receipts and empty bottles and useless clutter. The entire time, silence wrapped around him heavily, broken only by the sound of running water and old pipes rattling inside the walls.
By midnight, the apartment looked almost peaceful.
Like somebody decent lived there.
As he sat on his couch, he stared at the bottle of vodka on the table as well as his antidepressants.
He thoughts back to everyone in his life
But there wouldn’t be anyone living there in a while, not after what he was planning to do.
He knew what he was doing as he opened his bottle of antidepressants and swallowed every pill that was inside of there with his newly bought vodka.
He knew what he was doing when his intoxicated brain said that it wasn't enough, and he stumbled his way to his bathroom.
He knew what he was doing as he took out his razor and slit his wrists so many times that his sticky and wet blood made him loosen his grip on the razor and drop it.
Yes, Hiacynt Florian Muszyński was a survivor; the kind who bared his teeth at the world and would happily tell it to fuck off and kill itself on a good day.
But Hiacynt was also a tired twenty-four-year-old, one who carried responsibilities that should never have belonged to him in the first place. He was financially responsible for his ten-year-old sister because his drug-addicted parents could not give less of a shit about doing it themselves, because somebody had to make sure there was food on the table, money for school supplies, and a future worth reaching for.
For years, that somebody had been him.
And for years, he had kept going.
When they found his body a week later, through the odor and rot, they saw him smiling.