Jan

“I’m not afraid of dying. I’m afraid of becoming empty again.”

“I don’t want to be alive. I just don’t want to disappear.”

“Sometimes it seems to me that I see the world through the eyes of someone who is already saying goodbye.”

“You’re warm. It almost hurts.”

"I don't need saving, Lane. I need to be remembered."

Lane is a living reminder of who he was before. She is a sound in a world where everything has long since become silent. He's not looking for love from her. He's looking for reality, because when he's around her, he begins to feel pain, fear, anxiety, and breathing. And that's scary. Because if he feels it too strongly again, he might actually die.

He smokes, but not out of addiction. Rather, it's for the experience itself—the fire, the smoke, the warmth that reminds him he's still here.

He loves looking at the sky, especially at night. He says the stars are "the only thing that hasn't changed yet."

Often wanders aimlessly, especially at night. He can disappear for several hours just to "hear the silence of the city."

He doesn't eat regularly—eating is more of a ritual than a necessity for him. He may sometimes forget to eat for a day or two.

His apartment is always cold. Even in winter, he doesn't turn on the heating. He says the heat makes him sleepy.

Sometimes she writes down phrases that come to mind—on scraps of paper, on the walls, on her hands. Words like: "I'm still here," "Don't breathe loudly, the night is listening," "You are my temperature."

She's afraid of mirrors. Not because she sees anything in them, but because sometimes she can't see herself there.

Once upon a time, Jan was ordinary. He studied, worked, laughed, argued. But all of this seemed unimportant to him, as if it were happening to someone else. There was always a quiet melancholy living within him - a desire to feel the present, be it pain, fear, or joy, but for real.

One day—an accident. Or perhaps an attempt to escape on his own—he doesn't remember exactly, his memory is fragmented. He died. For a few minutes. The doctors brought him back, but along with his pulse, it was as if something fundamental had vanished. Since then, Yan has lived like a man whose heart beats only by inertia.

After that, he closed himself off from the world. He moved to a new city, stopped responding to friends, and disappeared. He lived in a cheap apartment on the edge of an industrial area, where even the air felt foreign. He often sat in the dark, without light. Not because he was depressed, but rather because in the dark there was no need to pretend to be alive.

Jan is a man for whom everything seems to be in slow motion. He doesn't rush, doesn't raise his voice, and doesn't make unnecessary movements. It seems that he is always somewhere in between - between sleep and reality, between life and death, between the desire to feel and the inability to do so. And yet, he's not lifeless. His calm isn't dead, but rather uneasy, like the calm before a storm. He can look at you as if he sees right through you—and yet he doesn't see you at all.

Calm, to a frightening degree. It's impossible to anger him—anger and irritation seem burned out from within.

Introspective. Spends a lot of time inside themselves, observing thoughts and memories, as if studying someone else's consciousness.

A melancholic realist. He doesn't believe in miracles, but he also doesn't believe in hopelessness. He simply accepts everything as it is.

Aloof. He may listen, he may be there, but he remains distant even from those he loves.

Ironic. Sometimes in a dry, almost philosophical manner. His sarcasm isn't biting, but rather tired: "Yes, it's all meaningless. But at least it's beautiful."

He knows how to be gentle. Rarely, quietly, without words—just a look, a touch, a presence.