The Last Bottle

In a worn-down neighborhood on the edge of a forgotten city, lived a man named yacine. His face was etched with years of hardship, and his eyes always held a distant sadness, like a man permanently stuck in yesterday. Once a promising mechanic, yacine had a golden touch with engines and a laugh that could light up a room. But life hadn’t been kind. His mother died when he was just sixteen. His father, unable to cope, sank into his own bottle and disappeared from yacine’s life soon after. Left alone, yacine tried to stay afloat, but grief was a heavy weight, and alcohol offered a cruel kind of comfort. One drink became two, then three, until the only thing left in yacine’s life was the bottom of a bottle. He lost jobs, friends, and eventually his dignity. People in the neighborhood would shake their heads as he stumbled home each night, talking to ghosts that only he could see.

The only person who stuck by him was his childhood friend, .Omar he always tried to help—dragging him to meetings, cleaning him up, even giving him small jobs to get back on his feet. But omar was too deep in his own hell to listen.

Then came the night everything changed.

It was raining. Omar and Yacine had been drinking again—against omar’s better judgment. Yacine insisted on another round, and Omar tried and defeated, gave in. They left the bar laughing, soaked in rain and liquor. Omar said he’d drive

Yacine remembered shouting, "You're too drunk!"

Omar laughed. "So are you! What’s the difference?"

Minutes later, the difference became clear. The car veered off the road and slammed into a pole. Yacine woke up in the hospital with a broken arm, glass in his skin, and omar's mother screaming in the hallway.

Omar was gone.

The funeral was small. The weather was cold. Yacine stood in the back, shaking not from the cold but from withdrawal and guilt. He hadn’t just lost his friend—he’d helped kill him.

That night, Yacine home and poured every bottle he owned down the sink. The smell of alcohol made him sick. He spent the next three days shaking, sweating, crying, and screaming. But he didn’t drink.

He went to a rehab center. He went to meetings. He told his story. People listened. And slowly, yacine began to change.

He found work again, not as a mechanic, but as a volunteer speaker in schools, warning kids about the path he had taken. He told them about omar—how friendship couldn’t save someone who didn’t want to be saved, and how his death gave yacine a second chance.

Over time, the community that had once pitied him began to respect him. He opened a small garage named “omar’s Hands”—a tribute to the only man who never gave up on him. He hired people in recovery, gave them a chance just like the one he'd been given.

Yacine ever touched alcohol again. But he kept a single empty bottle in his office—cracked, dusty, and unopened.

A reminder of who he once was.

And WHO HE CHOSE TO BECOME