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Dreadhorse Chapter 11
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As the evening descended into a calm quietness, Lor closed his suitcase and sat beside it, his mind a whirlwind of chaos. He couldn’t help but feel as though the world was a puzzle with missing pieces, and try as he might, they never seemed to fit. He found himself staring blankly at the walls, the little mementos of life that adorned them, each whispering a different story, yet all together, reflecting the same confusion that plagued his mind.
His thoughts kept circling back to Dred, that handsome young man whose charisma seemed to wrap around him like a comforting cloak. Dred had always been the person Lor trusted implicitly, the one who seemed to hold a key—an understanding that Lor felt he lacked. But now, doubt was creeping in. Had his faith in Dred been misplaced? Was he, like the workers at the data center, merely spinning on a merry-go-round, going nowhere?
Dred’s response earlier echoed in Lor’s mind. He had stammered, hesitated—an anomaly in his usual stream of confident discourse. The realization struck Lor like a lightning bolt: Dred, so composed, so seemingly in control, didn’t have the answers either. The world wasn’t conspiring against Lor; it wasn’t conspiring at all. It was simply indifferent, and the clarity of this bleak revelation left Lor feeling exposed and vulnerable.
For so long, he had woven intricate narratives to make sense of his surroundings, wrapping them tightly around his mind like a protective balm against chaos. It was easier to believe in conspiracy, in a plan, however nebulous, than to accept randomness. But sitting there, with his suitcase ready and Dred’s unfamiliar uncertainty still echoing, he understood that his stories were just that—stories. Elaborate tapestries that obscured the simple, unsettling truth: he had trusted the wrong person, and now, he didn’t even trust himself.
All his life, Lor had assumed Dred was the lodestar in the murky confusion of existence. But the truth was harsher, simpler—Dred, just like him, was as much a prisoner of the same existential carousel, his direction no clearer, his path no more defined. Perhaps that was the real conspiracy: not that there was one, but that they were all searching for meaning in a world that offered none.
In that quiet realization, a strange calm washed over Lor. He was no longer trapped by unanswerable questions or crippling self-doubt. A kind of freedom lay in accepting the uncertainty, in choosing to let go of the narratives he’d spun for so long.
As Lor rose to turn off the lights, he paused by the window, looking out into the night. The stars were dim pinpricks of distant fires, indifferent to the world below, unflinching in silence. No answers lay in them, nor in the reflections on glass. But now, Lor understood—perhaps it was enough to simply embrace the journey, even if it was all just a merry-go-round. Even if it only went in circles.