Self-Promotion! *cough*

I figured that, for my second post of the month, I'd show you guys the first chapter of my original story, Angels. It's... kind of sketchy, but that's because I'm doing it for NaNoWriMo, where editing is not allowed. If you have any tips or praise or criticisms or whatever, fire away! I don't mind.






Chapter One: Forever Silenced?

Have you ever read The Five People You Meet in Heaven? Well, my story kind of starts out like that. I say ‘kind of’ because my story doesn’t start when I end up getting killed from a dysfunctional carnival ride while trying to save a young girl. I’d never get an awesome death like that. Instead, I die for a totally stupid, selfish reason – slitting my wrists. In my defense, it was an accident at first, but that doesn’t exactly justify the fact that I was cutting myself in the first place. What can I say; I have a problem coping with my issues. But that’s not the point. The point is - I died. I died in a horrible way, lying on a cold, linoleum floor all alone, watching the blood seeping out of me and not being able to do anything to stop it. I died with the sound of a 911 operator shouting frantically in my ear when I didn’t respond. I died with the realization that although I’ll never go to college or get a career and have two point five children, at least I won’t have to be in pain anymore. And in those days, I had a lot of pain. I can’t remember it too clearly anymore, but I assume that is was there.

Death isn’t like what people think it is. It’s a lot… darker. Heaven is nothing but a big black void, actually, or at least that’s the way it is in my heaven at first. What does that mean? Well, here, let me start at the beginning.


I died in December. It was snowing. The air was fresh and ice cold, and as I trudged home from school one afternoon it made the hairs on my arms stand up and my teeth chatter. The roads were filled with dark gray or brown slush, which only seemed to amplify my bad mood. Life wasn’t exactly good when you’d been rejected once again by the guy you were madly in love with, who just happened to be your best friend, and the girl that he was in love with was your worst enemy (in your mind, anyway), who was so much more prettier and smarter and more popular than you. When I looked in the mirror back in those days, I saw nothing but inadequacy, and it broke me. I believe it was the first time that Terrell – the aforementioned boy – rejected my love when I came from school and cut myself. I realize that it’s a bad idea to formulate your opinion of yourself based on that of a boy, but whoever said teenage girls were logical? The cut that killed me was ironic in that it was an accident – I had slid that razor over my flesh (across the street, not down the road) when the phone rang, loud and hard.

I jumped. The house had been dead (pardon the pun) quiet before then, and the blaring noise shocked me. The razor went wild, slicing much deeper and closer to my wrist than I had intended. And then the blood oozed out; bright red and angry and beautifully dangerous.

I didn’t think it was that serious. It seemed superficial at first, just one of those cuts that bleed a lot very quickly but really didn’t require more than a bandage. But after I pressed a wet towel to the wound and went on with my business, I started to feel woozy. I removed the towel, and though five minutes had passed it was still bleeding. In a panic I called 911.

“I think I’m dying,” I told the operator, sitting cross-legged on the bathroom floor. I glanced up at the clock. 4:30 P.M. My dad would be home soon, and needless to say he would be very displeased if he found his daughter bleeding all over his clean tiles and bath rugs.

“What is the nature of your emergency?” The operator - a woman - answered in a bored, you’re-so-not-dying tone. Idly, I remember thinking that that’s not the impression someone trained to help you is supposed to give off.

I glanced down at my wrist, wiping away another large puddle of blood forming on my arm. The gash underneath it was ragged and ugly. “I slit my wrist.”

The operator made an ‘hmm’ sound. “Are you suicidal?”

“No. It was an accident. Are you calling an ambulance or what?”

“What is the address of your current residence, ma’am?” I told her. “An ambulance is on its way, ma’am. In the mean time, I want you to follow my instructions carefully, okay?”

I peered under the towel again, feeling nauseous. “Okay.”

“I want you to apply pressure to the wound with a clean towel. Don’t move it for any reason.”

I guiltily replaced the towel on my wrist and pressed hard, wincing from the pain. “Okay, I did that.”

“Good. Now make sure to keep it elevated - above your chest, okay? Keep calm, and breathe deeply if you start to feel nauseous.”

I nodded even though I knew she couldn’t see me. Really though, would dying be so bad? I had diabetes and asthma, and my best friend didn’t want anything to do with me anymore. My parents were divorced and I was often depressed. Why else would I have been cutting in the first place? I looked at the old scars adorning my forearms and legs, and I began to wonder. What would it be like if I died, I thought? Wouldn’t it be great if I didn’t have to deal with this shit anymore? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I didn’t have to worry about getting good grades when I really couldn’t care less? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could just sleep forever, instead of living the life everyone else wanted me to lead? Who was to say that I hadn’t been working up to suicide in the first place? I hadn’t necessarily believed a year ago that I would start cutting, either. As more and more blood left my body, I was scared, and yet, I was at peace. No more dealing with the harsh realities of life. No more watching the world go to hell around me. It’s not that I believed in an afterlife or anything, but I was happy to admit that if I died, I could be completely, utterly, at peace. No more pain. Just… nothing.

And it was with this stupid belief in mind that I took my razor in hand and made another cut; this time, I actually did go down the road. It hurt like a sonuvabitch, and I found myself crying out in pain as more blood spurted all over the place. After a couple minutes, however, the pain subsided, leaving me comfortable, unequivocally, numb. I allowed myself to smile even as tears slipped down my cheeks.

“Miss? Miss?” The operator called frantically. “Are you still there? Please answer me so I can now you’re still conscious.”

“It’s all right,” I slurred, my eyelids drawing closed. “I don’t need help anymore.”

“Miss?! What do you mean? Has the ambulance arrived?”

“No,” I answered, lying belly up on the floor. I removed the towel from my arm and let the blood ooze on to the rug. I didn’t need help to die. I could do that all by myself. I do remember thinking that it was sad to die alone, though, watching as all my blood from my arm seeped into the cracks of the tiles and into the fibers of the bathmats. But I didn’t exactly want my parents to see me like this either… The blood was such a bright red, it was intoxicating. It’s amazing how full of the stuff we all are. I’d never seen so much blood – outside of the movies, anyway. After that little observation, there was nothing. I can only assume that I fell unconscious before I finally died.

But I was there when my dad found my body thirty minutes later, the sight of blood so appalling that it caused him to fall to his knees. I remember reaching out to him, but having my hand fade right through his big, soft warm body.

It’s odd being a ghost. I whispered my final goodbye before everything finally faded away.