You are never taught how to properly shoot yourself in school. If you’re reading this and happen to be you, then this probably isn’t very high on your list of problems. If you’re reading this and happen to be me, however, you can sympathize with the enormous hassle an uninformed suicide can pose.
I push past the cerulean doors, sleek black pistol in my hand and overabundant confidence in my step. I cheerily wave to Mrs. Higgins at the bare check-out desk before stepping atop the worn desk in the center of the library.
“Attention, everyone!” I call with enthusiasm to the students in the room, who are aggravated at being pulled from their deep literary reveries. I receive a few hostile shushes before the object in my hand catches their eyes. Mouths drop. “It has been such a gratifying experience sharing my existence with all of you, but I fear my time in this life has come to an end. No, do not blame yourselves. This is for me. I want this.”
I smile at what a glorious game of Clue this would make. Christie Thomas, revolver, in the library. With the immature grin on my face, I press the icy metal to the roof of my mouth. One…Two…
Three.
Being shot with a pistol is easily the best way to die. Look at Titanic, when 1st Officer Murdoch shoots the gun at his temple to end his life before the frigid water can. Or Robert Frobisher in Cloud Atlas when he decides being dead is better than the hell he endures during life. They pull the trigger, crumple, and one close-up later, they’re dead. It’s instantaneous, painless, and completely bad-a**.
That being said, imagine my shock when my eyes flutter open not to the tangerine clouds of heaven or Saint Peter’s Giant Book of Divine Admittance, but to the panicked face of Mrs. Higgins. Her garish winged glasses are teetering on the apex of her celestial nose. Her mousy brown hair jiggles along with her shaking body, face flushed so that her peacock-blue eye shadow is the only color left on her face. Gasps circulate the otherwise silent room like the whooshing of waves on the shore. Whoosh. “Is she alive?” Whoosh. “She’s crazy!” Whoosh. “Why would Christie do such a thing?”Whoosh.
Coming to my senses, I frantically pat myself down, making sure that this nightmare is real. No, no! Why am I not dead? I even stick a finger into my mouth to check that the bullet went in. Sure enough, my index finger finds the hole in the roof of my mouth and tunnels up it until I am on the verge of touching reaching my cranial cavity, and I stare at the brain smatter on the desk in disbelief.
“It was supposed to be quick,” I whisper to no one in particular. I feel angry tears smarting my eyes. “It was supposed to be quick!”
I reach for the discarded gun, causing those in line of my fury to take a step back. In a final act of desperation, I press the muzzle to my stomach and pull the trigger again. Again.
Again!
I click until my body is ridden with as many holes as a rotten apple. Still, I don’t die. However, I feel the onset of…something. My vision blurs at the edges and I suddenly feel sleepy—like slowly being put under anesthesia. It’s happening. I know that by now my stomach acid is seeping into the other organs, eating away at them. Chemical cannibalism. It is only a matter of time before it reaches my slowing heart and I die.
Most of the students have take cover behind the bookshelves while Mrs. Higgins calls the police in hysterics, both hands on the beige receiver. “She’s dying! Can’t you do something? HURRY!” she cries into the phone.
I spot Jessica Markovic behind SOT 721, her eyes burning into mine. “Why are you doing this?” they seem to ask.
My legs give out from under me. I can feel my sense of reality slipping; I want to succumb to the numb darkness that is pressing down on my consciousness. Easier than falling asleep, they say.
I look at Jessica again. She’s no longer cowering behind the books, but standing erect, as if to take a moral stance against my death.
Why am I doing this? I tentatively press back against the darkness. It has no effect. Wait, no. I don’t—I don’t want it anymore. I feel a jolt of adrenaline as I realize this is a mistake. Make it stop. Hot tears now flow freely from my eyes, but I am paralyzed. Make it stop! It is no longer a whim, but a demand. I need to survive. I’m too young to be a corpse. PLEASE MAKE IT STOP! I thrash once more against Death. I’m scared. Then it’s still.

I smell seawater. A ragged surface rakes the back of my neck. A cool mist licks my sticky cheeks and I become aware that I’m not alone. I lurch forward, panting as if I had just run a mile.
Ugly green waves thrash against the rocky cliff I sit on, threatening to devour the slimy surface in one wet gulp. The steel blue sky is oppressive, and a certain darkness dulls the colors still as if covering them with a grimy film. Rain. It is raining.
Something stirs from the shadows between two columns that dared be called rocks. “Welcome.” A boy my age steps into the light…or lack thereof. He is dressed in all black: jet black hair sweeps across his forehead, a plain black tee stretches sickeningly across his skeletal figure, worn black converse sneakers provide little to no protection for his feet, and his pupils bleed into his irises like ink. His clammy skin has an ill green pallor. Everything about him is wrong.
I back into the corner of the clearing we stand on, so confused I feel I could cry. But my tear ducts are empty. My mouth is dry. I blink in confusion, and realize my eyes are dry, too.
The boy tilts his head threateningly, unblinking and amused with my reaction. “Oh, tut, tut, tut. Did I scare you? How bad of me. Bad boy. Bad, bad boy.” His colorless lips contort into a smirk that makes my skin crawl.
Where am I?
“Good question,” he answers my thoughts. “Complicated question. This is what you wanted to be. This is the future, the past, the in-betweens knit together by lost souls in a twisted nightmare that never ends.”
What the f***? “I don’t follow,” I manage.
He takes a small step closer, shoes sizzling against the wet rock as if on fire, and I gasp. From here I can see why he looks so…wrong. His green skin is decaying. There is a festering gap where his cheek should be and through the gruesome hole, I can look at his fang-like teeth from any angle. Flaps of skin dangle at such precarious angles on his arms, neck, and hands that it is a wonder they don’t fall off and expose the thinning strings of muscle that lie beneath.
I cringe. You’re a corpse.
Satisfied with my realization, he recedes into the darkness again until all I can just make out is his emaciated figure. “You look surprised. And here I was, hoping we could be such good pals, yet you can’t even stand to look at me. It’s a shame, really, because I do so like to look at you.”
I growl at him. “Go to hell.”
He pauses to smile demonically. His ink-black eyes flicker in the darkness. A fire burns from his stare, searing my innards until I feel I am part of the flame. Then the boy whispers…
“Already there.”