THE DESCENT BEFORE THE CLIMB

Cracked roads laying in a sprawling, ruined city swallowed by time, buildings leaned like dying giants. The sun set, casting long shadows on Searcher as he walked through the wreckage, torn between his cynicism and the lingering whispers of his past. Wandering through the ruins, his hands shoved into his coat pockets, he saw a group of scavengers, surviving on scraps, their laughter hollow but real. A memory of his lost over flashed before his eyes: she was laughing in the rain. He clenched his fists in strong denial of hope.
"Laughter means nothing. They're just distracting themselves from reality." He convinced himself that life was still a virus, consuming itself endlessly. Yet...his chest tightened. The contradiction ate at him.
Stepping over fallen debris, something caught his eye--a mural, half-intact. I was an old painting of a tree, with roots breaking the concrete. Below it, words were etched in fading ink: "Even in ruin, life finds a way." Searcher hated that it stirred something up in hm as he grit his teeth and tried to walk away, but his feet felt heavy. He then realized something terrifying: If life truly was meaningless, why did he keep searching for answers? Why did he feel something pulling him forward, despite everything?
The storm arrived, thunder rumbled, the wind howled and as the rain poured down, Searcher collapsed against a broken wall, breathing heavily. He punched the ground, his frustration spilling out.
"What do you want from me?" he shouted at the sky, half to God, half to himself but there was no answer, only the storm's relentless force.
Something about a single flower, growing from the cracks, swaying in the wind, stopped him cold. He stared, rain-soaked, breath shaky making him think to himself that maybe despite the virus, something beautiful fought to exist. Wrestling with his belief that life was meaningless, he knew deep down that his own search contradicted his despair...

Author's Note

Thanks for the reviews so far, hope to get more☺️