Chasing the Light

The first time Arin noticed the light, it wasn’t in the sky—it was inside him, faint and flickering, like the last glow of a match before it dies. He was fifteen and standing at the edge of a river, staring at the water as if it held answers. The world felt impossibly heavy then, wrapped in silences that others mistook for strength.

No one saw him at night, lying awake with a chest full of questions. Why did life feel so far away? Why did it feel like he was walking through fog while everyone else ran in sunlight?

Years passed. The questions remained, but they stopped screaming. They became murmurs, and then habits. He learned how to smile at the right time, how to agree even when he disagreed, and how to vanish in plain sight.

He moved to the city, chasing purpose. Buildings scraped the sky and people moved like currents. Everyone was going somewhere, fast. Arin tried to match their pace, hoping that if he ran hard enough, he'd forget he didn’t know where he was going.

It was on a rainy Tuesday, in a bookstore tucked behind a bakery, that he met the second spark.

She was seated on the floor, surrounded by open books. Her hair was a storm of curls, and her eyes didn’t flinch when they met his. She smiled, not out of politeness, but recognition.

“You look lost,” she said, as casually as if she’d said the weather was nice.

“I’m not,” he lied.

“Good,” she replied, not believing him. “Lost people make the best readers.”

Her name was Eliya, and she didn’t believe in maps. She believed in stories, in wandering, in listening to silence until it spoke. She laughed like someone who had cried often and without shame.

Arin didn’t know what to do with her kind of light. It unsettled him. But like all things warm, he returned to it.

Days turned into months. He didn’t fall in love with her; he fell into something quieter, deeper. He learned how to sit with himself without fear. He learned that pain wasn’t always something to be solved—sometimes it was something to be honored.

But life, in its strange way, doesn’t always reward healing with permanence.

Eliya left. Not because of him, but because she needed to follow her own shadows. She left a note folded inside a book of poetry:

"Don’t stop chasing the light. Even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts."

And then she was gone.

The ache of her absence wasn’t sharp. It was dull, constant—like walking with a limp you forget to notice. But the strange thing was, the light she had sparked in him... it remained. Small, but stubborn.

Years passed again. Arin changed cities. He changed jobs. But he didn’t forget. Not the bookstore. Not the questions. Not the light.

He started walking—early mornings, late evenings—wandering without direction, as Eliya had once taught him. The city was still loud, still fast, but he found quiet corners. He started noticing reflections: puddles, windows, faces. He realized the light he was chasing wasn’t out there.

It was always inside. Covered, yes. Clouded, often. But never extinguished.

One day, while walking through a street market, he passed a stall selling mirrors. One caught his eye—not because of its frame, but because of its crack. A single line ran down its center, splitting the reflection slightly.

He saw himself then—not perfectly, not heroically, but truly.

He wasn’t whole. But he was real.

And for the first time, that was enough.

Arin started writing—not for an audience, but for himself. Thoughts that had long curled in the corners of his mind began to spill onto paper. He wrote about shadows, about longing, about the spaces between moments.

He wrote about light—not the kind that blinds, but the kind that reveals.

People began to notice. Not because his words were loud, but because they were honest. Others began to share their own shadows, their own quiet lights. It didn’t heal everything, but it made the burden lighter.

And in this sharing, something miraculous happened.

The light grew.

Not into a flame that burned, but a glow that connected.

He never saw Eliya again. But in every conversation with a stranger, in every cracked mirror, in every story whispered under tired eyes, she was there. Not as a person, but as a presence.

Now, Arin stands at the edge of a new river. Older, a little softer, but still curious.

The questions haven’t all been answered. But they don’t frighten him anymore.

He understands now that the journey isn’t about reaching the light.

It’s about learning to carry it.

Even through the shadows.

Especially through the shadows.