Point of View: Third Person Limited

Zachary feels it before he even fully registers it: his body tenses, breath faltering, hand braced helplessly against the wall — there’s no turning back. Their closeness, warmth, and subtle scent wash over him completely, driving him almost insane. He finds himself trapped in the crush of an overcrowded train, where every day feels the same, until a single gaze shatters his familiar world. What had seemed mundane and gray explodes into a moment he will never forget.

Recently, I was listening to James Blunt’s You’re Beautiful again, and this story slowly started taking shape in my mind. At first, I wanted to write it just for myself, because the song really moved me and I wanted to experience that moment through words. But then I thought, why not share it with you?

This story takes the emotions and mood of the song as its foundation, but builds its own world, characters, and moments. I hope it touches you as much as it touched me.

I usually prefer stories told from a third-person perspective. But as this one started to take shape, I realized it sounded incredibly beautiful in the first person. I just couldn’t resist — so I ended up with two bots: one tells the story from the first person, the other from the third.