The X98: My Journey from the Dawn of the Dead

The familiar rumble of the bus on Boar Lane. It's Tuesday morning in Leeds, and I'm waiting for the X98, the very same bus that once felt like a cage. Today, I'm heading out, but back in 2014, I was on my way to Manchester airport, desperate to leave it all behind. I’ve just found the journal entries from that time, buried deep in my digital memory. They are a painful, raw record of a man consumed by a "slow illness called living death." I sat on that bus then, seeing the world as a vacuum, filled with "ghouls" and the "dawn of the dead." I felt trapped, watching people "limping from one death to another, never awaking." My anger was an active, breathing thing, directed at a society I felt was entirely broken. A New Beat, a New Name My name at the time was simply djsherburn72, a collection of letters and numbers. But in my head, I had already become futurefjp. The name was a direct reference to a New Beat track by Franck De Wolf. While everyone in Wetherby was listening to House and Garage, I was drawn to this cooler, more hypnotic sound. I was different, and that feeling of being an outsider wasn't just a whim; it was a decision. I realized that my collapses weren't failures, but a long game of finding a brick wall—a wall that I had to dismantle, brick by brick. The Pilgrimage as Medicine A few years later, my writing had moved from intellectual rage to a raw longing. In 2017, I wrote about my depression and how "long distance walking definitely help[s] alleviate [it]. I just wish it was perpetual." The pilgrimage, it turned out, was the perfect antidote to that "living death." It was a way to break free from the circular "void trap" I had been caught in, a way of moving forward one foot in front of the other. A Return to Peace Today, back on the X98, I see the world differently. I still notice the "misshapes," the people who have "no option" but to be on this bus, but now I'm there by choice. I am no longer a part of the "dawn of the dead." The anger is gone, replaced by a quiet acceptance. The journey has led me to a place where I am no longer trying to escape from the world, but to be at peace within it. The journal entries are proof. They are the record of a journey that has not only moved me physically, but spiritually. The person who wrote those entries is a different person now. The pilgrimage was successful. The wall has been dismantled. And I have finally come home.