The dining table was chaos in the way only family tables could be. Half-empty plates, wine stains spreading across the cloth, bread torn by impatient hands. The sll of roasted lamb clung to the air, mixed with garlic, spices, and the sweetness of pastries still waiting in the kitchen. Children laughed too loud, sugar making them restless, while the adults spoke over one another in tangled conversations that had no beginning or end.
It was New Year's Eve.
The television glowed in the corner, half-muted, showing celebrations from across the world. Sydney's fireworks, Paris's crowds, New York's rehearsed countdown. Nobody watched. The TV was there like the ticking of the clock, a background pulse.
Until the announcer's voice cut through. Calm. Steady. Detached.
"…Authorities have confird the death of a young man earlier this evening. The individual, twenty-two-year-old Lassen, jumped from the roof of a high-rise building downtown shortly after midnight. Ergency services were on site within minutes, but the young man was pronounced dead at the scene. Witnesses reported seeing him standing alone for several minutes before the fall. According to police, no scream was heard. The incident is being treated as a suicide."
The words rolled across the bottom of the screen, white on red, repeating the na once, then twice, before fading. For a mont, the room froze. Forks paused. Glasses stopped midair. Silence hovered just long enough to feel uncomfortable.
Then it broke.
The uncle coughed, poured more wine. The father reached for salt. The mother scolded a child for spilling soda on the carpet. The noise resud, like nothing had happened.
The program shifted seamlessly to comrcials. Perfu, laundry detergent, a montage of smiling faces shouting "Happy New Year." Bright lights erased the shadow in an instant.
Only one person had noticed.
The youngest child, a boy with sticky fingers, stared at the screen, eyes wide. He tugged at his mother's sleeve.
"Maman… soone jumped. They said his na. Lassen."
She followed his gaze, but the screen was already showing fireworks. She sighed, brushing his hair gently. "Don't think about that, chéri. It's not for you. Eat your cake." She placed a sweet in his hand, as if sugar could erase the thought. "Co, it's the New Year."
The boy didn't eat it. His eyes stayed on the television's glow.
The father grunted, half-annoyed "Another one who couldn't handle life. Happens all the ti."
"Not in front of the kids" the aunt snapped "They'll get ideas."
The grandmother, silent until then, shook her head slowly. "In my day, people endured. They didn't give up so easily" Her words carried the weight of habit, not cruelty.
Conversation shifted again, pulled toward safer ground: football scores, politics, the cost of groceries. The na "Lassen" disappeared as quickly as it had co.
But the boy whispered it under his breath, tasting it like a secret. "Lassen…"
No one heard.
On the television, the broadcast lingered on the story for a brief mont. Grainy footage of flashing ambulances. A stretch of pavent cordoned by tape. A white sheet, blurred for decency, covering a still body. A witness speaking nervously to a reporter: "He just stood there, like he was waiting for sothing. Then he stepped forward. That was it. No sound. No hesitation."
The cara cut back to the anchor, smiling as if nothing had been said. The countdown resud. Ten. Nine. Eight.
The family leaned forward, glasses raised, shouting with the chant. Children clapped, their excitent drowning everything else.
Seven. Six. Five.
The boy whispered the na again, barely audible in the noise. "Lassen."
Four. Three. Two.
The mother kissed the father's cheek. The aunt spilled her drink and laughed. The grandmother muttered a prayer for the New Year.
One.
The fireworks outside erupted. The sky tore open in a storm of color, thunder shaking the windows. Voices shouted, music blasted, the world drowned itself in joy.
And in the streets below, not far away, a young man's body lay cold, ignored, while the city cheered its way into another year.
Elsewhere
In a café in Paris, a television showed the sa banner. Custors glanced at it between sips of champagne. One shook his head "Another one? At New Year's?" His friend shrugged. The music grew louder, the story forgotten.
In a cramped apartnt in Cairo, a family saw the footage. The father muttered "What a waste." His daughter asked "Why would soone do that?" The mother silenced her: "Don't ask questions like that." They returned to their tea.
In New York, the news scrolled silently across a giant screen in Tis Square, but nobody read it. The crowd was too busy shouting the countdown, faces lit by fireworks.
Everywhere, the story was the sa: a headline, a na, a detail swallowed by noise.
And so the New Year began.
Laughter, kisses, resolutions, fire.
And the death of a young man nad Lassen slipped quietly into nothing, like he had never been there at all.
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Author's Note – Final Words
To everyone who has walked this path with , thank you.
From the very first chapter, this story has been a strange journey, one that began with loneliness on a rooftop and ended with silence under the fireworks. Lassen's world was born out of despair, imagination, and the question of what a single forgotten life could an. Along the way, there were battles, conspiracies, alliances, and even the shadow of the universe itself. But at its heart, it was always a story about one young man who simply wanted to escape.
Writing this novel has been both a burden and a gift. A burden because of the weight of the thes, the hours spent building worlds and tearing them down. But a gift because every word was read by you. You gave aning to Lassen's existence by following his story to the very end. Without readers, there is no novel. Without you, there is no Lassen.
I know the ending may feel heavy, perhaps even cruel, but that is the truth I wanted to leave behind: sotis, entire universes exist inside a single fragile mind, and when that mind is gone, so too is the world it carried.
If this story made you feel sothing,sadness, reflection, even the smallest spark of understanding or a smile from Lassen and system's sarcasem, then it has done its job.
Thank you for your ti, your patience, and your hearts.
This is the end of Lassen's tale.But the act of telling it, of reading it, will always remain.
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