The Price of Freedom
Vincent spent the next two decades running — from guilt, from responsibility, from himself.
Ibiza. Lisbon. Prague. Always the same story: late nights, loud music, and faces he’d forget by morning.
Freedom, he told himself, was worth the cost.
But now, nearing fifty, his body was failing him. The hangovers lasted longer. The mirror looked crueler. And the doctors’ words — pancreatic necrosis — felt like a final verdict.
“Years of alcohol,” the doctor had said. “You need surgery. You need someone to call.”
Vincent had no one. No wife. No family. Not even a friend who’d notice if he didn’t wake up tomorrow.
That night, alone in his cramped apartment, he stared at the walls and realized the truth:
He hadn’t escaped a cage — he’d built one.