There was once a boy who lived young and died young. He knew that he would live no more than twenty- the doctors had told him so as a child. At the time, perhaps he did not grasp this concept, the fine line between life and mortality, the way white could fade to black so abruptly. As he grew older, he recognized that death would come for him sooner than everyone else. He would not experience the finer things of life, let alone adulthood. He would not experience growing old or settling down, he would not do many, many, many things. Yet he persisted. Why? He asked himself. Why do I have to be the one to shoulder this burden? There was no answer. Life and death were equally silent in that regard. No matter how much he asked, no matter how much he begged, there was no answer, no solution, no way to fix things. And so the boy grew and lived and died. The boy became as silent as life and death themselves, his questions answered by the plain, cold expanse of nothingness, the loss of existence, the short, short life of a single being. And that was the life of a boy who lived young and died young.