I arrived at the swimming pool. I was with the guys who were there and we decided to do crazy but fun things again, like playing soccer squash with the wall and ourselves. Ball flying over and onto the roof and coming back down etc. During training we were doing shooting and though our coach was shouting at us, we were still laughing behind his back. After training we went over to Subway to have foot-long subs to satisfy our stomachs. 

I was skating through the whole of East Coast again, wondering how many times I have gone down this very same path in the past few years of my life. There was a little boy who was learning how to skate, and his dad was helping him. I grinned, wondering if I should do that when I have a family of my own in the future. It would be fun. But my heart felt heavy. I didn't know why. I seemed to be skating faster than usual, like I was in a rush. 

I was on MSN talking to my three closest friends around, and I was thinking of how I got to know all of them, in a rather accidental way. Haha. It didn't matter what we were talking about, I just felt happy when I talked to them. And the way I was slightly more careful with one of them, well, it made me happy. I wondered if it will be the same when we grow up. But again, my heart felt heavy. I left earlier, like I was rushing off for something.

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I was alone, in a place which seemed almost like a scene plucked out from the Final Fantasy game. I was on a path which had a snake-like carving on it, like the ones you see in Harry Potter. I reached the tip of this carving on the floor and the head of the snake protruded from the floor. In its mouth was this empty space for me to place this card I had in my right hand. I hesitated, although I was in a rush. I stared at the clock; it seemed like I only had 5 seconds left to decide. At the last second when it read 00:00, I placed my card on where it belonged. 

I was expecting something to happen. A bright, blinding flash perhaps? But nothing happened. The surroundings froze. Not that it was not silent enough before, but I felt a sense of finality rushing through myself. I turned to my right and there was a woman behind a black counter with a cash register. She was dressed rather normally, like any cashier. I wanted to hand my card to her, but she motioned for me to stop and wait. 

There was another man to my side, and apparently he arrived earlier than me. He seemed like he did not submit something in time and was paying some sort of a fine. He was looking at me, with a sadness lingering in his eyes; one that I did not quite comprehend. Isn't this supposed to be happy? 

The woman was done processing his stuff and she turned to me solemnly, gesturing for me to hand her my card. I hesitated again. I was trembling, I realised. I turned to the man and asked him, "Will you feel lonely? Is it bitter?" 

I felt a lump in my throat and my voice kind of slipped. I could already feel the impatience of the woman beside me; she wanted me to quickly hand her the card and get everything done as soon as possible. 

The man did not say anything, not even a single word. But his face fell, and when he looked up again, his eyes were red. A teardrop trickled down his face. He turned to leave. 

I reached out my hands to stop him. 

Suddenly, everything faded and disappeared. There was nothing left. I looked around to search for something, a light in the distance? No. The emptiness frightened me. Something dawned on me. I had just lost everything in my life. All that I had just gone through for the past 24 stages just disappeared. I was never going to get back to those stages again. There was no sense of time in this empty place, nothing. Nothing else but memories of my past and the emotions that came along with it. 

You know they say that at your last moment everything that happened in your life just flashes past your eyes within a second? It did. But it did, again and again and again. I was stuck in this place, stuck with the same things to replay in my mind for eternity. 

And I woke up. My eyes stung as they received the glaring light of a new day that shone through my windows. They were soaked. 

It was real, so damn real.