In a large town a girl named Akira trudged through the school gates,her backpack heavy with unfinished homework. It was just another day in the blur of highschool, where being "that quiet girl" meant being invisible. But in her sketchbook, hidden between worn pages,her worlds came a live stories of friendship, adventure,and a family that never exist in reality.

As she settled into her seat, Akira's fingers instinctively touched her sketchbook deeper into her bag. Her mom's words from last night echoed in her mind.

"Focus on your studies,Akira. Art won't pay the bills." The same argument every day.

But today something felt off. The empty lunch box she'd packed for her self seemed heavier, a reminder that her mom had skipped breakfast again. The teacher's voice faded into the background as Akira's eye drifted to her desk. A corner of her sketchbook was scribbled with a tiny drawing, a girl with a backpack standing alone on a train. The girl looked a lot like her.

As she walk home from school, the autumn air thick with humidity, Akira kept her head down. Don't draw attention. Don't exist. But footsteps echoed behind her, growing louder.

"Hey art geek!" A voice sneered. Kana and her friends blocked Akira's path.

"What's with the ugly drawing? Think you're on artist or something?" Kana snatched Akira's sketchbook flipping through pages. "This stuffs creepy."

Akira's face burned as they laughed. "Give it back." She whispered.

Kana's eyes landed on a sketch of Akira's mom fragile smile, eyes haunted by something unsaid. "Is this your mom? She looks like about to cry."

The girls laughed louder. "Maybe she's crying because she's stuck with a weirdo like you.

Akira's hand trembled as Kana tossed the sketchbook to the ground. "You're so pathetic, Akira."

The words cut deep, but it was the accident shove that Akira tumbling to the sidewalk, her palms scraping against rough asphalt.

Silence fell Kana looked shocked, but Akira didn't see it. She saw the tears she'd held back for week, month, years. The years she'd never let her mom see. Kana and her friends leave her alone, Akira pushed her self up, dusting off her skirt. The pain in her palms was nothing compared to the ache in her chest. She walked home in silence, the sketchbook clutched tight in her hand. When she opened the door, her mom was in the kitchen, fumbling with a broken cup.

"Akira, I'm sorry... I didn't make dinner." The words were a whisper.

Akira dropped her bag and walked past her, into her room. She locked the door and slid down, letting the tears come. Why couldn't her mom see her? Why couldn't her mom protect her? The drawing of the girl on the train track seemed to stare back at her, alone, lost, and forgotten.

The tears came in waves, choking her. Akira curled tighter, her mom's faint calls through the door muffled.

"Akira, open up..." A whispered blow into the air.

But she didn't open the door. Couldn't. Because if she opened that door, she'd have to explain the bruises on her palms, the cut in her heart. The disappointment in her mom's eyes would be the final blow. Akira's fingers found the sketchbook, opened to the girl on the train track.

She'd drawn it months ago, after a similar day. The girl's eyes seemed to plead, Why aren't you enough? The question swirled with her mom's struggles, Kana's words, the loneliness. Akira's chest felt like it was splitting open. She pressed her face into the pillow and screamed, a sound that no one could hear.

The hours blurred. Akira lay there, numb, until the room darkened. Her mom's voice was a faint whisper now. "Akira... I'm sorry... Forgive me." The words trailed off into sobs.

Akira’s eyes snapped open. Her mom was crying for the first time, Akira realized. Her mom wasn’t just distant she was drowning. Drowning in her own pain, her own demons. And Akira was just another weight pulling her under.

The thought cut deeper than Kana’s words, than the asphalt scrape She’s hurting too. The understanding brought no comfort just a sketchbook slipping open. The girl on the train track stared back, her eyes now Akira’s own. Was I ever enough? The question echoed, suffocating and in that darkness, Akira let go.

In the darkness, Akira’s silence was the only sound mumbling. Her mom’s sobs faded to quiet gasps, then nothing. The apartment swallowed them whole. Hours passed, the sketchbook lay open, the girl’s eyes mocking her “not enough, not enough, not enough.” Akira’s throat tightened. Her chest constricted. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t cry. The pain was a living thing, clawing its way out. And then blackness. The kind that swallows you whole. The kind you don’t come back from.

Akira blinked. The world snapped back fluorescent lights, chalkboard scrambling her vision. She was in class. How did she get here? The teacher’s voice was a distant hum. Her sketchbook lay open on the desk, the girl on the train track staring up. But something was off.

The drawing was… different. The girl’s eyes were black as coal now. Her black eyes seeming to bore into Akira’s soul. What’s happening? Why does everything turning upside down? Where is she? She shut her sketchbook, and rubbed her blurring vision.

The class had finished, she started walking on the hallway, all the students staring at her and laughing. As she walked through them, she saw her mother at the school gate, smiling wickedly. As she saw her, once she stepped a gunshot. Her mother, so loud, so intense, so dark.

The only word she’d said to herself. She walked weakly towards her mother, shaking, trembling. She doesn’t know what to do, no tears flowing as she reached her mother her world turned into her reality. It was only a dream.

She shrugged her head, shaking off all that happened. She got up from her bed and ran to her door, leaving the cold and dark room. She ran downstairs to see her mother, sweating cold a grief in her chest that no one can explain.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but still… I don’t want to have the wrong thought of this reality.” She said to herself, catching her breath as she reached down the kitchen.

“Mom…” The words that only spitted out from her throat as she caught her breath.

“Breakfast is ready, Akira.” Her mother said holding a plate with fried egg inside.

Akira’s feelings were drowning in the dark; she felt a big burden in her chest as she saw her mom making breakfast. She stepped closer to the table, her steps silent the only sound she heard was her own breathing. Her hand settled on the chair as she pulled it out, and her mom put down the breakfast she’d made for her.

Akira looked up at her mom. She’d noticed the look on her mom’s face, and felt regret for what happened last night. The thought that she was a burden still weighed on her heart nothing could heal those wounds unless… the longest life she’d wish for would come true.

Both of them ate breakfast in silence, no words exchanged only the sound of spoons clinking against plates. Akira finished eating and got ready to leave. As she touched the door, her mom walked toward her.

“Akira… Here’s your lunch.” She held it out to give to Akira. It wasn’t much, but that lunch could make Akira feel a little better, if only for a moment.

Akira took the lunch her mom gave her. “Thanks, mom. I’ll go now.” A word that flow at the silent surrounding

Akira started walking away, leaving her mom alone in the apartment where her mom was living in that darkness.

Her mom waved goodbye to her, staring until Akira’s footsteps faded. Akira walked on the sidewalk, gripping her bag, looking down as always. She didn’t want to meet others’ gazes; her face was covered by her hair, scared of what people might think about her. As long as she could draw, her life had meaning.

Akira stopped for a moment when a fresh breeze swept over her. She looked to her left and saw trees with pink flowers sweet, colorful, and happy trees. It was a cherry tree. She held her hand out in the air, catching a falling petal of cherry blossoms.

“Do you want to leave that world that doesn’t have any color?” A voice flowed into her ear.

Akira looked everywhere, but there was no one around only her, standing below the trees. She shrugged her head and started walking away. It was only her imagination, she thought in her mind.

The sun started to rise more, casting an orange glow over her surroundings. She sat on a bench under a tree, opened her bag, and grabbed her sketchbook. She admired the place with no more people around at that time. She started sketching on the page, moving her hand up, down, up, down. The motion of her hand, sketching and sketching. She already finished her sketch, closed it, then put it inside her bag. She started walking to her school.