Nick Matthews. This name certainly does not mean anything to you, but behind it lies the story of a boy, who has experienced loneliness in its true manifestation.

Since childhood he did not know much grief. He was well educated, courteous and wise to his age. He rarely talked back to his parents, which only made them love him more and more. He was a bright child, and with such a potential! He could’ve received a Nobel Prize and then think about the eternal for the rest of his life. But time went by, and things in the family got worse. The boy’s father, Scott, got sick. First otitis, then inflammation of the lungs. It seemed that the chain should have been broken by his speedy recovery, but fate had decided otherwise. His life ended when he was forty-six years old. Despite the family’s wealth, it has not been possible to cure him. On the day of the funeral, looking at his father’s lifeless body, Nick felt that burning, all-consuming sadness for the first time. He has long mourned for his dad. He looked at photos in the album, reviewed recordings on cassettes and DVDs, indulging in memories.

And it was supposed to end there, with the death of Scott in Nick’s life, the black line should’ve been over. But this was not enough. On the twentieth birthday of Matthews Jr., his mother, Stacy, had a stroke. She couldn’t even make a sound as her heart stopped beating. That day, Nick lost his last relative. All the family wealth has fallen upon the young man like a tsunami. Business, unfinished deals, unsigned contracts and much more - all this collapsed on the shoulders of poor Nick, almost driving him insane. As time went by, he’s stopped giving so much time to grief and focused more on important things like running the family business on a profitable path, but that did not negate the fact that life has taken away everyone who was dear to him. The fire of hope and curiosity no longer burned in his eyes, replaced by a depressing mist of despair.

On one of these evenings, when he was resting from the endless paperwork, he went to a restaurant. Having ordered his «as usual», which consisted of a steak of marble beef and red wine, he stared at one point, unsightly and without blinking looking somewhere at the table. He had long lost taste for life, but did not decide to drown his grief in alcohol, drugs or women. No, he just accepted his fate and waited for the long-awaited light to clear the fog that had covered his existence.