I look around before I do it. I'm looking for something to change my mind, I guess. It's three in the morning. It's pitch black outside, and the only light in my room is coming from the small lamp in the far corner of my bedroom. It's dark, but I can see perfectly. I'm standing in my childhood bedroom, and gazing at the girl in my vanity mirror less than a foot away from me. I know every inch of this room, even with my eyes closed.
Under my feet, a shaggy pink rug, well worn, and in dire need of a replacement.
Behind me, is the bedroom door. A regular wood door, with a brass knob.
To my right, there's a box. The box itself isn't anything special. It's a regular shipment box from the post office. I had just never gotten around to using it. What was inside the box, was what was important. A box full of books and journals I had written and read.
All of the feelings I had bottled up inside all these years was on those pieces of notebook paper, splashes of ink revealing my deepest, darkest secrets. The books were full of dreams and hopes I had for myself, things I hoped to accomplish. Stories that I wished were my life. I wanted a fairytale.
Doesn't everyone?
To my left, my bed, where covers are thrown back, and the sheets and pillows are rumpled wildly, as though there was a struggle that happened on top of it.
Which, there was, but this particular struggle only involved one person.
Me.
I looked at the girl in the mirror again. She had dull eyes, drained and lifeless. Her hair was long and brushed back haphazardly, without a care in the world. Her eyes didn't move from my face, and she was watching me with a steely gaze, silently.
I tried to speak while the girl in the mirror watched.
" Who are you?" I asked, barely choking out the words through the lump in my throat. It felt like a golf ball was blocking my airway, and I tried coughing to clear my throat, at least a little bit. The girl smirked.
Who am I? Silly girl, why would it matter who I am, when you don't even know who you are? Or do you know who you are?, she challenged, crossing her arms over her chest. I didn't have a reply.
Do I know who I am? The question flashed in my mind, over and over again.
I looked down at my toes on the pink rug. As the girl spoke, the lump in my throat grew, and I couldn't breathe. The familiar pain started spreading in my chest, a needle like, tingling warmth. Even if I didn't know who I was, I knew what this feeling was. I turned my back on the girl and sat down on the edge of my bed, cradling my face in my hands as tears left my eyes. These were different tears than they usually were. These tears were the last of me. The last of my hopes, dreams, and happiness.
Crying wasn't making breathing any easier.
There was a black fog climbing up my throat, collecting from the blackest corners of my heart. All the darkest thoughts I'd ever had, all joined together at once and were all remembered at once, causing my heart to race, more tears of despair and sorrow to leak from my eyes, and all judgment I had left, to go out the metaphorical window.
I sprang up and ran to my closet, barely feeling the cool swish of air on my flushed skin. I was burning hot, and ice cold at the same time. I wasn't thinking, my mind blank and empty like a clean, black chalkboard as I reached up under old wishes and clothes I would never wear, to find my savior.
The tightness in my chest loosened slightly as my fingertips curled around the soft, red and white cloud containing my oxygen.
Holding the cloud, I sank down to the floor against the bed and pressed the oxygen against the soft skin of my arm. As the oxygen took effect, drops of vivid scarlet splashed onto my cloud, new patterns in my sky. I gasped the air quietly, and I felt slightly dizzy.
I set everything down, walked to my bed and pulled out something else from under my pillow.
I took slow measured steps to the full length mirror on my wall, the girl in the mirror watching with every step I took. I could see her entire body now.
She wasn't perfect.
She was solid, like the trunk of an oak tree.
But that wasn't any good.
Girls were supposed to be skinny. Skinny like a new sapling, ready to be snapped if the slightest wind blew.
But she wasn't.
I walked closer to the mirror, my grip tightening on the handle of the miracle. The girl raised an eyebrow at me.
What are you going to do? she asked curiously. I looked down at the miracle, my arm still rolling out pearls of red down my skin, and onto the miracle itself, leaving streaks.
I looked back up, and placed the miracle at the edge of my throat, pressing down slightly.
The soft skin at the inside of my throat broke, and more pearls ran down my skin.
My heart was pounding.
thump thump thump thump thump
I moved the end of the miracle to the beginning of my neck.
The girl in the mirror's eyes widened.
thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump
I pressed down, and slid the miracle all the way across, and locked my gaze on the girl.
Her eyes were wide like a deer in the headlights, her hands wrapped around her throat as liquid rubies cascaded down her front in a red waterfall, her mouth in a wide O as she fell to her knees in the mirror.
My eyes began to see black spots, then my vision went away completely.
My mind was blank as I shut my eyes.
I sucked in my last breath, and exhaled as I fell in the corner.
I died at 5:13 AM on September 13.