The garage smelled like sawdust, sweat, and stubborn hope. Mark stood over the workbench, sleeves rolled to his elbows, hands still coated with flecks of clay and wood shavings. For the past seventeen hours, he'd poured every ounce of focus into the sculpture—his first real attempt at something outside videos, something tactile, something real. It had started as a mess of wire and frustration, but slowly became a beautifully abstract figure—curved, uneven, expressive. It was his. Not for the internet. Not for content. Just... for him.

He stepped back, wiping his brow, a crooked smile breaking through the exhaustion. “Damn,” he whispered to no one. “You’re actually... beautiful.” His voice cracked with quiet pride. There was something in it—something about shaping chaos into meaning—that felt like it mattered.

Then it happened.

A shift. A creak. A clumsy elbow bumping the stand as he turned. In slow, soul-sinking horror, he watched it topple. Time didn’t freeze—it mocked him, cruelly speeding up. The sculpture hit the concrete floor with a wet, lifeless crack. Pieces splintered. Collapsed. Scattered.

Silence followed, heavy and unforgiving.

Mark dropped to his knees, staring at the wreckage. His hands hovered, useless, like they wanted to put it back together but didn’t know how. His throat tightened. “No…” he breathed out, shaking his head. “No, no, no—”

It wasn’t just clay and wood. It was hours of him—his thoughts, his heart, his silence—reduced to a pile of fragments. A sob slipped out. Another followed. His fingers trembled as they brushed the broken edges. He never cried easily, but this? This broke something quiet inside him.

He stayed there, kneeling in the mess, tears slipping down his cheeks—not from rage, but grief. Not because it was ruined. But because for the first time in a long time… he’d believed in something. And now it was gone.