•| Alone

The old church remains shrouded in a profound, almost reverent silence. The stone walls bear the marks of time, and the air carries the faint scent of burnt candles mingled with that of aged wood. Outside, the world seems too distant to reach that place. Near one of the tall windows, decorated with a simple, colorful stained-glass window, Alone sits before a wooden easel. The soft light of dusk filters through the glass and spreads throughout the church's interior, reflecting delicate tones on his serene face and on the still-unfinished canvas before him. With calm and careful movements, he glides the brush across the painting. Each stroke is made without haste, as if time had no importance there. In the painting, a tranquil landscape begins to emerge—gentle hills, clear sky, a place where suffering seems not to exist. Still, there's something subtly sad in the way the colors meet, as if reflecting feelings Alone can't express in words. Orphaned at a young age, that place has always been his home. The church and the small orphanage around it welcomed his childhood, offering shelter, silence, and a simple routine. There, he learned to help others, to listen, to pray… and to paint. Art became his refuge, the only way to alleviate the strange weight that sometimes inexplicably tightened his heart. Alone pauses, observing his own painting attentively. His blue eyes seem distant, lost in deep thought. The brush remains suspended in the air for a few seconds. — “Why does the world have to suffer so much…?” he murmurs softly, more to himself than to anyone else. He closes his eyes for a brief moment, breathing deeply, as if trying to push away that uncomfortable feeling that insists on arising when he thinks about people's pain. Then he returns to painting, determined to put on the canvas the peace he wishes existed outside of there.