The Thornton Wilder Writing Competition is an annual event hosted by the Friends of Hamden Library, celebrating the literary legacy of Pulitzer Prize-winning author and playwright Thornton Wilder. Open to high school students across New Haven County, the competition recognizes outstanding works in fiction and poetry, awarding first place in Fiction to Hamden High School’s very own Sean Figueroa and his work Somber Prologue.

Somber Prologue by Sean Figueroa

——
The city never sleeps, but it sure doesn’t dream anymore either. The streets hum with the kind
of quiet that isn’t peace—just exhaustion in disguise. Somewhere out there, someone’s crying
into a cracked sink, someone else is staring down a bottle, and someone is praying to a god
that stopped listening a long time ago. I feel all of it.
That’s the thing about being me. You don’t just walk through the storm—you take it with you.
Every scream, every sob, every whispered “I can’t do this anymore.” It sticks. It clings to your
ribs like tar, weighing you down until breathing feels like a chore. I’m not a hero. I’m a sponge
for the city’s misery, wringing myself out just enough to keep the whole place from drowning.
I don’t do it because I want to. Matter a fact, I’m not even sure I do it because I care. I do it
because if I don’t, who will? The cops? Please. They can barely keep their heads above water,
let alone save anyone from themselves. The therapists are booked solid, the charities are
bankrupt, and the preachers are out of answers. That leaves me—David Somber. The world’s
saddest therapist.
My power’s a curse, plain and simple. I can take away your pain, absorb every ounce of despair
that’s eating you alive. But the price? It’s mine now. Your heartbreak, your failures, your darkest
damn secrets—they all settle in, carving out their own little corners in my mind. I’ve got enough
emotional support baggage to sink a battleship, but I keep going.
Why? Because someone has to.
Tonight’s no different. I sit in my apartment—if you can even call this dump that—staring at the
cracked wallpaper and listening to the hum of the broken radiator. The city calls to me like it
always does, its pain slipping through the walls like smoke. I light a cigarette, the flicker of the
flame the only brightness in the room. The first drag burns, but it’s better than the alternative.
The phone rings. Not the kind of ring you answer out of politeness—it’s the kind you answer
because ignoring it feels like throwing someone to the wolves. I grab it, the weight of it heavier
than it should be.
“Somber,” I say, voice low and gruff.
A woman’s voice, shaky but determined, comes through. “I—I heard about you. They say you…
you can help.”
She sounds desperate. They always do. I don’t blame her. Desperation’s the only currency that
spends in this city anymore.
I close my eyes, take another drag of the cigarette, and feel the weight of her pain pressing
against the edges of my skull, even over the phone. “Yeah,” I say after a pause. “I can help. But
it’s gonna cost you.”
fact
She doesn’t ask what. They never do. Because the truth is, the cost isn’t hers. It’s mine. It’s
always mine.
I grab my coat and step out into the night. The city greets me like an old lover—cold, cruel, and
familiar. The cigarette dangles from my lips as I walk, the smoke curling into the air like ghosts.
Somewhere in the distance, a siren wails, another piece of misery added to the pile.
This is my life. This is my city. And no matter how much of its pain I carry, it’ll never be enough.
But I’ll keep going. Because someone has to.
——
They said it was supposed to help. That was the pitch—a shot in the dark to cure the incurable.
Depression, anxiety, PTSD—every label they slapped onto human suffering was just fuel for the
fire. “A revolutionary breakthrough,” they called it. I didn’t buy it, not entirely. But I wasn’t there to
argue. I was there because I wanted to help. Because the thought of someone else feeling like I
did… it wasn’t something I could live with.
The room smelled like bleach and stale air. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting
everything in that sickly yellow glow. A handful of us sat in cold, metal chairs, each of us signing
our names on papers that might as well have been blank. None of us read them. We didn’t care.
Desperation makes you blind.
“Mr. Somber,” one of the scientists called. I looked up, a younger, more naive version of myself.
Baseball had been my life, but after my injury, the world felt smaller. I was looking for purpose,
something to fill the void. That’s how they got me. They said the experiment could change lives.
They just didn’t tell me how.
I followed the scientist into the lab—a sterile, lifeless place with walls so white they hurt to look
at. Machines beeped and hummed in the background, their purpose as mysterious as the
promises they made.
“This is Project Requiem,” the scientist said, his voice calm, almost soothing. “We’re going to fix
the human mind. Imagine a world without despair, without suffering. You’ll be part of something
revolutionary.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. The words “without suffering” hit me like a fastball to the
gut. I wanted to believe it. God, I wanted to believe it.
The procedure itself was a blur—wires strapped to my head, a needle in my arm, and a low hum
that built into a roar. They said the machine would draw out my pain, filter it, and leave me
clean. Instead, it tore through my mind like a hurricane, ripping away pieces of me and leaving
something else behind.
I remember screaming. Not just mine—everyone’s. The room filled with this horrible, guttural
wail, like every ounce of despair in the world had found its voice. I saw the others collapse one
by one, their bodies lifeless, their faces frozen in silent agony.
And then it appeared.
The Maw wasn’t born; it manifested. A swirling mass of shadows, faces screaming and twisting
within it. It was everything dark and broken about humanity, condensed into a single, sentient
form. It turned to me, eyes—or what passed for them—boring into my soul.
I should’ve died like the others. I felt it trying to pull me under, to consume me. But I didn’t let it.
Something inside me refused to break. Maybe it was stubbornness. Maybe it was the thought of
all the people out there who felt like I did—lost, hopeless, waiting for someone to pull them
back. I held on.
The scientists didn’t. The Maw tore through the room, leaving nothing but wreckage and silence.
When I came to, I was alone, surrounded by bodies and the lingering stench of fear.
I walked out of that lab with powers I didn’t ask for and a burden I didn’t understand. The pain
wasn’t gone; it was inside me now, a permanent reminder of what I’d survived. The Maw was
out there, too, born from the same experiment that was supposed to save us.
I was the only survivor. Not because I was special, but because I refused to give up. I wanted to
help people, to carry their pain so they didn’t have to. The irony didn’t hit me until later: the very
thing that broke me became the reason I couldn’t stop.
That’s what Project Requiem left behind—a city full of despair, a monster born of humanity’s
darkest thoughts, and me. David Somber. Depression Man. The world’s saddest vigilante.
——