sol.ace_r

I woke deep inside a cold, damp rocky cave.
In an eternal darkness where not even a handful of sunlight could reach, I began my day like a wound-up machine. It was a morning when even lifting my eyelids felt unbearably heavy. I couldn’t remember what I had dreamed the night before, but my body felt heavier than yesterday—and my heart far heavier still. Despite having slept deeply, the fatigue had not faded at all. Instead, there was only the dull pain of muscles stiffened throughout my body. From the tips of my fins to my tail, every nerve throbbed. It was an unpleasant sensation, as if every bone and piece of flesh inside me were moving out of sync. Before yesterday’s exhaustion had even fully lifted, a cold current announcing the start of yet another day seeped into the cave and wrapped itself around my body. It felt like a whip.
Wake up. Move. There’s no time.
That was what it seemed to whisper.

The cave always smelled the same and stayed the same temperature—damp, fishy, lifeless. It felt less like a sanctuary and more like a waiting room preparing me for the next bout of pain, like a vast tomb. Every morning, in this familiar discomfort, I had to begin my day without expectation or anticipation. Instead of hope for something new, only the suffocating dread of another exhausting repetition pressed down on my chest. Often, even breathing felt bothersome. All I wanted was to close my eyes and fall back asleep just like this. But I knew all too well that I couldn’t. The faint sound of water currents outside the cave, the movements of other whales, felt as if they were urging me onward.

The moment I left the cave’s entrance, I was met by the endlessly stretching “restless sea.” True to its name, this sea never rested for even a single moment. There was not a single calm day. Massive waves surged endlessly, and within them countless whales swam fiercely, each at their own pace. The sea felt like a gigantic racetrack, a battlefield for survival. Everyone was desperate to move forward. Stopping, even for a moment, was unthinkable. To stop meant being swept away by the following currents, pushed aside by other whales, or having one’s very existence forgotten. It was a breathless repetition of days. I woke at the same time, went out into the same sea, repeated the same actions. Deep underwater, where I couldn’t even tell whether the sun was rising or setting, time seemed to be measured only by the number of tail strokes. A day was nothing but a meaningless chain—beginning with thousands of tail beats and ending with tens of thousands more.

My days flowed in a fixed pattern, as if programmed. The first task was to find food. I had to comb through the vast, deep sea in search of small schools of fish or clusters of plankton. The process was mechanical—charging toward whatever appeared before my eyes, opening my massive mouth, swallowing cold seawater along with my prey. There was no taste, no pleasure. It was merely a necessary act for survival. Filling my stomach was like refueling to perform the next task. I couldn’t move if I was hungry. But even when I was full, there was no joy—only the knowledge that I would have to keep swimming. Sometimes I even thought it would be easier not to eat at all, to simply starve. But instinct moved my body anyway. I obeyed a primal command: survive, move. That command was etched so deeply within me that it felt impossible to refuse with my own will.

After eating enough, the next task was movement. I had to travel long distances along predetermined routes. It felt as though I were simply being carried along the massive currents created by countless other whales. There was no room to change direction or control my speed. I just surrendered my body to the flow and moved my tail. Each tail stroke strained my entire body, pushing against the resistance of the water. Thousands, tens of thousands of strokes—that was my day. There was no time to think, no space to feel. I just had to keep going forward. I didn’t know why I was on this path, or what lay at its end. All that mattered was that everyone else was on it too, and that I couldn’t leave the group. No one ever said what would happen if I strayed from the path. Only vague warnings drifted around: It’s dangerous. You’ll fall behind. Those vague warnings felt more terrifying than any tangible danger. Fear of the unknown.

Ahead of me, I could see other whales slicing powerfully through the currents—their fluid movements, their relentless speed, their confident, unwavering advance toward some goal. Some moved in tightly coordinated groups, creating enormous waves together. It was almost awe-inspiring. Each time I saw them, I compared myself to them and sank into deep helplessness. Why couldn’t I move forward like them? Why did every moment feel so heavy and tedious? Why did I feel like I was drifting alone, unable to blend naturally into the group? They seemed to speak to one another, to laugh together. Their sounds were lively; their movements brimmed with vitality. But my voice never reached them, and their sounds shattered meaninglessly before me. I felt like a shadow following behind them. A loneliness, as if I were left alone in the middle of the vast sea, swallowed me whole. Even within the group, I felt like an outsider. I couldn’t hear their conversations; their laughter never reached me. Each of us was simply moving at our own pace, in our own direction. I felt like nothing more than a tiny dot drifting through the ocean, not truly a part of it. My existence felt unbearably small and insignificant—as if no one would notice if I disappeared from this vast sea. Whether I stopped or kept going, the sea would flow on unchanged. That cruel truth made me feel even more alone. I was just a small component in a massive system.
What was all of this even for?
The questions circled my mind, but I had neither the time nor the strength to find answers. I just kept moving my tail.

How much time had passed? How long was a day? How far had I traveled? How much had I eaten? None of it mattered. Only the faint sense that time was passing remained. My body grew unbearably heavy, and even moving my tail became painful. My fins throbbed, my gills struggled to breathe. My skin stung from friction with the cold currents. All sensation seemed to be numbing. I had no strength left. My mind had been exhausted long ago, and now my body, too, was announcing that it had reached its limit. Each tail stroke felt like it might tear a scream from me. But I couldn’t stop. I must not stop.

In this sea, stopping meant elimination. Even a brief pause meant falling behind, and eventually not surviving. That fear crushed my heart. The rough currents of whales behind me felt threatening at my back. Their speed seemed to grow faster, their movements more ferocious. If I stopped, I felt I would be swept away, lose my direction, be injured—or have my existence erased entirely. The obsession with survival tightened around me like a vice.
Don’t stop. If you stop, it’s over. If you fall behind, you become nothing.
It felt as though the voice of the world was echoing in my ears, powerful enough to trample my fragile will. Fear—fear of falling behind, fear of disappearing. In this sea, stopping felt the same as death. Even if not physical death, then the death of existence: vanishing without anyone remembering.

But even that fear could no longer overcome the exhaustion and helplessness I felt. The signals my body sent were overwhelming. I truly couldn’t take another step forward. My body began to sink, as if it had turned into a massive block of iron. I had passed the limit of what willpower could endure. Even trying to move my tail felt meaningless. All strength drained away. I couldn’t move a fin, just as if I couldn’t lift a single finger. Every nerve in my body seemed to scream, Stop. I couldn’t endure the pain any longer.

In the end, I slowly stopped moving my tail. I tried to endure with the last of my strength, but my body no longer obeyed my will. My massive form tilted and began to sink into the cold water. The noise of the restless sea faded away, and silence wrapped around me. The sunlight pouring down from above quickly dimmed, then vanished completely. No matter where I looked, there was nothing—only thick darkness. Toward the deep abyss where no light could reach, I descended slowly, very slowly. The world’s whispers—stopping means elimination—could no longer be heard. I was simply sinking. As if pulled by gravity, as if letting everything go. I had no strength left to endure. If sinking like this could free me from this endless exhaustion and helplessness, that was enough. I didn’t want to hurt anymore. I didn’t want to be lonely anymore. I didn’t want to be compared anymore. I didn’t want to continue this meaningless race. And so I drifted away from the surface of the restless sea, sinking into an unknowable darkness. Into a state of nothingness, where no thoughts or emotions remained. Only the cold current brushed past my body. Downward, downward. Endlessly. Freed from all the noise and pressure of the world, I sank deeper—into my own, solitary silence.