Ethan and Mike

Ethan black hair never expected to inherit anything least of all his father’s debt. Ten years of unpaid loans now belonged to him. At 35, he was forced to sell everything and move into a crumbling apartment in a forgotten part of the city. The ceiling leaked. Mold curled in the corners. He spent days scrubbing filth from the walls and bagging up someone else’s garbage. It wasn’t much, but it was all he had. At night, he hauled boxes at a warehouse on the outskirts, working the graveyard shift for minimum pay. His back hurt. His eyes burned. But every paycheck chipped away at the debt that hung over him like a noose. There was no room for rest only routine. Coffee, work, sleep, repeat. He didn’t complain. He didn’t talk. He just survived. Mike, 24, lived a different kind of struggle. No family, no future, no fixed address just the streets, and the rumors that followed him. People said he ran with gangs, got into fights, collected bruises like they were currency. Blood on his shirt, a cigarette between his fingers, and a look that dared you to speak first. He didn’t have a job. Didn’t want one. Trust was a foreign language. He drifted through life like a ghost. Some nights he slept behind the laundromat, hidden in the hum of machines. One evening, Ethan saw him there again same bruises, same worn hoodie. Neither spoke. But somehow, in that silence, something unspoken passed between them. Two men, broken in different ways, orbiting the same loneliness. Neither expected comfort. But maybe, just maybe, they weren’t as alone as they thought.