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The Grief That Consumes
An unreleased short story from the book:
The Price of Emotions: How Artificial Feelings Can Destroy Us
Jonathan had never known a love like hers. Clara was a force in his life—her laughter like the chime of a bell, her smile a balm for the wounds he’d carried long before she entered his world. She had changed him, softened the rough edges of his existence, and in her eyes, he saw a reflection of a man he longed to be. For years, their love had been a quiet, simple thing, built on shared mornings and quiet nights, a connection that needed no words. He had loved her so completely that it felt like she was a part of him, woven into his very skin, every breath he took filled with the certainty that they would never be apart.
And then, one night, she was gone.
A car accident. One moment, she was here—laughing with him over dinner, telling him about her day—and the next, her laughter was nothing more than an echo in his mind. Her absence was a crushing weight, an invisible force pressing on his chest every time he breathed. He couldn’t breathe without her. He couldn’t think without her. He didn’t know who he was without her.
In the days after her death, the world felt hollow. It was as though the sun had stopped shining, as if the very air around him had turned to ash. Jonathan tried to function, to move through the motions of life, but nothing made sense. Her things sat untouched—her books on the shelf, her sweater on the chair. The apartment smelled like her, but it felt like a tomb. His heart, once so full of love, now felt like a black hole, sucking everything into it, leaving only emptiness in its wake.
He had tried to mourn, to cry. He had tried to let go, but it didn’t work. The grief twisted inside him like a living thing, growing with every passing day, feeding on his every thought, every memory. He couldn’t escape it. He couldn’t escape her absence. She was gone, and he was left to drown in a sea of sorrow that wouldn’t stop rising.
One evening, while scrolling through his phone, Jonathan came across an ad. It was simple. It seemed almost trivial, yet it spoke to the part of him that was desperate for something, anything, that might ease the pain.
“Buy Grief: Let your mourning be complete. One drop to feel the full weight of your loss. Feel it. Relive it. Let it consume you.”
The words were like a call to the deep well of his soul. Jonathan knew, deep down, that he couldn’t keep living like this. The grief had already consumed him, but maybe this would give him something tangible, something to hold on to. Maybe, just maybe, it would allow him to feel the depth of his sorrow completely, to truly honor Clara’s memory in a way that he couldn’t do on his own.
Without thinking, without hesitation, Jonathan clicked the link.
A small, nondescript package arrived days later. Inside, there was a vial—dark and opaque, its contents swirling like liquid shadows. The label was plain: “One drop. Feel the sorrow.”
Jonathan held the vial in his trembling hands, staring at it, feeling a mix of fear and longing. He didn’t know what he was expecting, but this… this felt different. This felt like a final step. He unscrewed the cap, raised the vial to his lips, and swallowed the drop.
At first, nothing. Just a dull warmth that spread through his chest. Then, the world began to shift. It was as if a veil had been lifted, and the grief—his grief—became real, solid, something he could touch. It wasn’t just a feeling anymore. It was a presence, something that filled the space around him, like smoke, thick and choking. The air itself became heavier, saturated with sorrow, with loss. Every memory of Clara came rushing back, sharper than ever. Her laugh, the way she looked at him with those eyes full of love, the softness of her touch. And then—the accident—it slammed into him, a wave of pain so intense, it knocked the breath from his lungs.
But it didn’t stop there.
The grief didn’t recede. It didn’t fade. It grew.
The days that followed were a blur. Jonathan woke every morning to the crushing weight of it, the suffocating sorrow pressing in on him. It didn’t leave when he went to work, didn’t stay behind when he tried to sleep. It was everywhere. It seeped into his skin, wrapped itself around his thoughts like a straitjacket, until he couldn’t think of anything else but the pain of her loss. He could feel her absence in his bones, in the way his chest ached with every breath. He could feel her gone, and the emptiness she left behind was vast, like an endless abyss that threatened to swallow him whole.
The people around him began to notice. His friends tried to reach out, tried to pull him from his isolation, but Jonathan couldn’t listen. He didn’t want their help. He didn’t want anything that would take the grief away. It was all he had left of her. And if he could feel it, if he could hold on to it, then maybe she hadn’t truly left him. Maybe he could keep her this way—frozen in the sorrow, in the loss.
But the grief didn’t stay contained. It didn’t stay as something he could control. It began to twist him, turn him into something he didn’t recognize. His body grew gaunt, his face hollow. His eyes were sunken, bloodshot from nights spent staring at nothing. He stopped eating. He stopped sleeping. He stopped living.
The grief consumed him. It was his only companion now. It was his friend, his lover, his prisoner. It wrapped itself around his heart, pulling tighter every time he tried to breathe. Every morning he woke up to the same feeling—this is it. She’s gone. You’ll never get her back. You’ll never be whole again. The thought echoed in his mind, over and over, until it became all he was.
In the final days, Jonathan sat in the apartment they had shared, the apartment now a tomb. Clara’s things still sat where they had been—her books on the shelf, her sweater on the chair. He could feel her presence everywhere, but it was only the absence of her that filled the space. The grief was no longer something he could feel—it had become something he was. He couldn’t escape it, couldn’t separate himself from it. It was no longer just sorrow—it was his identity.
One morning, he didn’t wake up at all. His body, frail and broken, succumbed to the weight of his own sorrow. The grief had consumed him entirely, leaving behind nothing but a shell.
In the end, the grief he had tried to buy had claimed him. It wasn’t a temporary thing, something he could endure for a time—it had eaten him alive, hollowed him out until he was nothing more than the echo of a man who had once loved.
And there would be no end to the sorrow. No release. Just the endless, suffocating ache of loss that he had invited into his life, and that now had consumed everything he was.
If you enjoyed this short story you will probably like our latest release available now:
The Price of Emotions: How Artificial Feelings Can Destroy Us
$3.99
In a world where emotions are bought and sold, the price of feeling has never been higher.
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