He only wanted to be happy again. That was all. Nothing more.
Not famous. Not rich. Not perfect. Just... happy. And maybe, if the world was kind, a little tappyagain too.
He liked that word. Tappy. Like the rhythm of light shoes on wood floors, like afternoons with no weight on his chest, like laughter that rose without effort. But something had moved in.
It didn’t crash through like a storm or snap like a bone. No, it had seeped. Through the cracks of small defeats, into the quiet of lonely dinners, beneath the hum of fluorescent lights where joy used to live.
He tried fighting it.
With music. With movement. With lists of things to be grateful for. He smiled until the corners of his mouth ached. He told himself he was okay. He danced. Some days, the rhythm even came back for a while.
But the thing inside him didn’t leave. It watched.
Sometimes, it whispered.
"You don’t really want to get better."
He tapdanced harder.
Some nights he heard himself on the floor, the beat frantic, desperate, fast enough to cover the cracks. Fast enough to silence the voice. But no matter how fast he tapped, it was faster. No matter how bright the room, it waited in the dark corners, patient and still. He told no one. After all, he was supposed to be healing. People wanted to see him trying.
People needed to believe he could recover.
And then one morning, he woke up and didn’t recognise the voice in his own head. It was smiling when he wasn’t. Laughing when he wasn’t. Tapdancing when he couldn’t move.