"I wish..."

"I wish..."

Nick's body began to shudder as his jaw tightened.

His breathing was rapid, and he tried his best to say the Sentence.

"I"

"I"

Nick gritted his teeth.

And then, Nick's body lost all strength, and he fell back onto the bed.

"I can't do it!"

At that moment, Nick began to cry loudly.

'I just can't do it!'

'How pathetic am I that I can't even kill myself?!'

'How pathetic am I that I even want to kill myself?!'

'I always saw the people that said the Sentence as weaklings, even if I didn't want to admit it.'

'I knew that I was stronger than them.'

'And yet, I just want this to be over!'

'There's nothing left!'

'What am I supposed to do with this shit stain of a life?!'

'What's the point?!'

For several minutes, Nick just cried.

And when he was done, he just felt empty again.

Crying hadn't helped one bit.

He had just felt horrible for a couple of minutes, and then, everything returned to its regular shitty self.

'I don't know what to do.'

Nick just continued looking at the ceiling as he closed his eyes.

Surprisingly, he actually managed to fall asleep this time.

The previous moment had been very stressful and exhausting.

When Nick woke up, he looked at the clock again.

'Six p.m.'

Silence.

'I don't know what to do.'

Nevertheless, after a couple of minutes, Nick stood up from his bed and left his room.

He didn't really want to leave his room, but he did it anyway and just started walking around.

There were still many people outside, but the crowds were slowly starting to die down.

As always, the sun shone directly onto Nick.

It was just as hot as always.

As he was walking around, Nick wasn't looking at anything in particular.

He also didn't have any goal in mind.

He just walked.

'I don't know,' Nick thought repeatedly as he randomly walked through the Outer City.

Some people greeted him, but Nick just waved them off with a curt answer before leaving.

Nick saw a couple of interesting things to buy, but he wasn't interested.

He saw some delicious food, but it didn't seem very appealing to him, even though he hadn't eaten anything for nearly 24 hours.

He just kept walking around.

"Sir, please wait a moment!"

Nick stopped as two guards appeared in front of him.

"Huh?" Nick uttered in absentminded confusion.

"Please, show us your Inner City ID," one of the guards spoke politely.

"Inner City ID? I don't have one of those," he said.

The guards frowned. "Then, we can't let you proceed."

"Huh?" Nick uttered again as he looked around.

At this moment, Nick stood in front of a humongous gate that was illuminated by many small bits of Arclight.

It was one of the gates to the Inner City.

Nick had no idea how he had gotten here.

'Guess I walked.'

"Sure," Nick said absentmindedly as he turned around to leave.

The guards just looked at him with a bit of confusion.

Eventually, Nick came back to his room, and a horrible night followed.

Falling asleep was extremely difficult, but he also didn't want to do anything.

There was nothing to do that interested Nick, but he also couldn't properly fall asleep.

Nevertheless, time continued to pass, and eventually, Nick actually managed to fall asleep again.

Sadly, the sleep wasn't very long since he had slept so much today already.

Nick woke up at three a.m. and left his room.

He would need to work in three hours anyway, which was why he went directly to Dark Dream.

Naturally, only Trevor was here during this time, but he was currently busy working with the Dreamer.

'I need something to do,' Nick thought as he looked around.

'I can't kill myself, and I also can't deal with these problems.'

'Life is still shit, but it seems like I'm stuck living it.'

'Next best thing is to ignore the pointlessness of everything and just do something.'

'The more time passes, the closer I am to death.'

At that point, Nick saw the Screaming Coffin's Containment Unit.

'Right, I should check if everything is okay with it.'

Nick walked over to the Containment Unit and checked the Zephyx storage.

'Only seven grams,' Nick thought. 'I guess someone emptied it yesterday.'

After changing the storage, Nick went into the Screaming Coffin's Containment Unit.

When Nick saw the Screaming Coffin shuffling about near the walls, he showed no reaction.

His eyes remained as neutral and lifeless as earlier.

"I guess Pator wasn't a lot to eat for you," Nick commented without any amusement.

Nick's voice sounded harsher than anticipated, but he didn't care enough to rectify it.

What was he supposed to do anyway? Apologize to the Screaming Coffin?

"Guess you need some food," Nick said.

When Nick thought about what he had to do to feed it, he became a bit uncertain for a moment.

He would need to go out and kill someone.

And yet, the more Nick thought about it, the less he cared.

Nick went through two horrible shit days, and he honestly couldn't give less of a shit about some random rapist from the Dregs.

'I need something to do anyway.'

When Nick had spoken earlier, the Screaming Coffin had felt him, and it started to walk over to him.

When the Screaming Coffin reached Nick, it tried to bind him with its white bandages.

Nick sneered in disgust.

BANG!

And kicked it with a lot of force.

BOOOM!

The coffin hit the wall of the Containment Unit and fell to the ground, cracks and splinters visible on it.

Immediately, it retrieved its bandages and stopped moving.

Now, it looked like any other coffin again.

Naturally, Nick didn't feel any pity for the coffin.

Not only was it a Specter, but it didn't even have a proper consciousness.

After some seconds of watching, Nick left the Containment Unit to get some food for the Screaming Coffin.