There has been nothing noteworthy about my life. Every chance I get, I prove to the world that I don't deserve to breathe. Utter failure in all aspects of life: love, education, prospects, wealth, and family. To whoever is reading this, do yourself a favor and don't end up like me, wasting away until you pathetically decide to be done with it all. To anyone who knew me ple-
The pencil that I had been using to write this note had snapped and with that any vestige of the legacy I wanted to leave of my miserable life.
I laughed to myself with no regard for whether my neighbors could hear me through the cheap paper-thin walls of our tiny apartment complex.
"WHO THE FUCK WOULD READ THAT ANWAY?!"
I yelled as I crumpled the paper before raising my hand to throw it at the trashcan. Yet, I stopped. Because a stupid part of me thought that someone might've cared enough to read it. At one point in my life, I'd have mailed a letter I'd written to Mom or Dad when we still talked, but those days are gone and so was that version of me.
I tightened my fist around the paper, refusing to let my last scream to the world escape. I tossed it into my grotesque bin overflowing with meals from months past and dried-out napkins. Only for it to roll down to the rest of the trash on my floor.
I don't know how my life reached this point-yet I did but I didn't want to torture myself with the details.
As I think this to myself I hear my neighbor banging on the wall next to me.
"SHUT UP YOU WEIRDO MY KIDS ARE TRYING TO SLEEP!"
A part of me felt kind of bad here I was yelling in the middle of a Monday night romanticizing my suffering, while this guy had a family to provide for and take care of. How our worlds couldn't be any more different. His full of life and mine already dead.
"Oh well, I won't be bothering them anymore soon enough."
I muttered to myself as I got up and walked across my tiny apartment to grab something under my mattress.
It was a gun. Now I couldn't tell you the specifics because I'm not a gun nut but what I can tell you is that it's one of those shitty cheap pistols that'll probably jam on you. Not like I needed some high-end shit for what I was doing. I pulled back the slide and heard the sound of cheap parts scraping against each other. There it was. One singular bullet. I don't need to elaborate on what I'll be doing with this gun... OK fine, maybe I will. Robbing a homeless person of course!
Trying not to get carried away with one-sided conversations with myself I realize the grim reality that I am about to embark on.
I had spent the last of my savings on this gun from some shady guy in the apartment complex. I needed something no questions asked. No way in hell I was getting a gun license with the mental state I was in.
I stared at the gun's chipped plastic parts, the shiny bullet peeking through the gap in the slide. I gulped, the sound cartoonishly loud. So much so that my neighbor could probably hear and think his kids were still watching cartoons.
I slid the cheap pistol into my sweater and got ready to leave my goblin cave.
As I stepped near my front door I turned around and looked at my place.
Trash everywhere with a shitty box spring mattress in the middle of the room. Next to that was a lawn chair and a flat-screen TV on the ground, to the right of the TV was my beloved PC. To be honest this was something I was going to miss the most. My PC was my escape. Countless hours lost in RPGs, crafting characters and worlds where I wasn't a failure. But even that couldn't save me anymore.
I sighed and thought about how I wouldn't be able to play the next installments in my favorite RPG series. Let's hope they had some games in the afterlife at least. With that, I steeled my resolve and opened my front door.
"Shit, I really couldn't have picked a better day huh?" I said to myself as a strong gust of wind and rain hit my face.
I walked over to grab my bike from where I had left it chained only to find that someone had stolen the tires. I looked up as if expecting to see a taunting face by God himself but was only met with rain dropping into my eyes. I blinked rapidly and rubbed my eyes to get the water out.
A week ago I had planned out where I wanted to end it. My whole life I had been against burdening other people with my problems. For me, I thought it was better to suffer in silence than let another person be weighed down by my baggage. This flawed way of thinking might've gotten me to this point but that's neither here nor there. I'm here now and I had decided to do away with myself in the forest on the outskirts of my small town. The thought of my neighbors smelling my rotted corpse through the thin walls made me shudder. That's how I ended up deciding on this location. Usually what was about a 15-minute bike ride took me a couple of hours traversing the harsh weather on foot. I couldn't believe I was putting this much effort into ending my own life. For a second I thought to myself if only I had put this kind of effort into my life sooner.
But that thought had been cut short by painful memories of me putting nothing but effort into people who didn't care about me. Over time caring for people like this eventually whittled away at the person I was. No, now I'd be putting this effort into myself. One final act of self care or whatever you'd call it. I chuckle like my whole life was some sort of elaborate joke.
I had finally arrived at the spot on top of a large rock deep in the forest, the rain drumming on the leaves above, drowning out the world. If only the moon was out tonight, it might've been a beautiful scene to go out to but the world never cooperated with me.
I pulled the gun out of my sweater and pulled the slide to see the bullet still chambered. I turn off the safety. Now that I think about it what is the optimal way to do it? You would think I had researched more about this but it slipped my mind I guess. The last thing I wanted was to not die and suffer some brain damage. I point the gun to the side of my head... like this maybe? Who knows maybe I'd unlock a persona if I did it this way. I sighed and held the gun turned around with two hands and pressed it against my forehead. No this didn't feel right. I wince thinking about putting myself into a vegetative state. That's worse than death I think. Then I remembered a manga character who had tried to do it a certain way.
"Guess I learned something after all."
Without skipping a beat I put the gun to the roof of my mouth. Unfortunately, my body was not as ready as I was. I gagged with the introduction to the barrel of the gun deep in my mouth. I pulled it out and put the gun on my lap and shamelessly put my face into my hands.
"Fuck this is humiliating, good thing no one's watching."
I look up and quickly turn around to try and catch some sort of camera crew filming my last moments.
Instead, my gaze is met with a deathly looking dog whose rib cage is protruding from its sides. The poor thing must have been starving out here. I notice that there's a collar on it with a name tag. I wish I could see what it said but looking at it now the dog didn't look too friendly. It was baring its teeth and growling at me. He must've run away or worse was abandoned out here. The dog was a mutt through and through, its patchy gray fur matted with mud, but its eyes burned with a desperate hunger that mirrored my own. I put my hands out to not agitate the dog. Then I gently descend from the large rock in an attempt to calm the dog.
"Who's a good doggy? Cmon it's okay. I don't have any food but I could go get you some."
I inch closer to the dog. It was scared. I felt bad for it but I was in no shape to take care of another living being let alone myself. I couldn't deny my nature though... maybe just this one last act and then I'm out of here. Maybe there was a number I could call on the name tag. As I stepped closer the dog's growl became more and more vicious. In that moment a flash of light had lit up the whole forest. The dog's collar glinted in the bright light, a tag reading 'Rocky' with words etched beneath: 'Nobody owes nobody nothing.' Fitting for strays like us.
Then suddenly the source of the bright light sounded off to what seemed like the whole world. It was the loud clap of thunder that had erupted from the bright flash of lightning moments prior. This noise startled me but sent the dog into a rampage.
It lunged at me. I probably should've seen this coming. It was starving and on death's door. It was either the dog or me in its mind. It tackled me to the muddy forest floor. I instinctively put my arms between me and the dog to shield myself from the bites. As it was chewing at my arms and tearing away the sleeves of my sweater I remember my gun. As I kept shielding myself with my right hand I reached for the gun in my pocket with my left. As I pulled it out the dog's violent attempts at my life only became more ferocious. At this point, the dog had reached the bone in my arm but the pure adrenaline caused me to fight through it. I pressed the gun against the dog's snapping jaws, my arm screaming in pain as it tore into me. Then I pulled the trigger.
*click clack*
The gun had jammed… I wondered why I was trying so hard to save my life. For a fleeting second, I imagined a world where I fought back, where I lived—but that wasn't me. I dropped both arms along with the gun into the mud beneath me and let the dog feast.
The dog went straight for my throat, a nasty snap echoing as blood gushed, the coppery taste flooding my mouth. As I looked up at the dark clouds, rain poured onto my face, but I couldn't be bothered to clear it from my eyes. As the rain mixed with my blood and combined with the mud below, I lay feeling empty. There was nothing satisfactory about my ending. Not as much as I thought it would be.
In a gross attempt to speak with my current condition, I tried to say "Nobody owes nobody nothing." But all that was heard was gargling noises of the blood spilling from my throat. I could not say it but it was something that I'd take with me to the afterlife.
My vision faded, the dog's growls and chomps dissolving into a hollow hum. When I opened my eyes I stood in a starless void, face-to-face with a towering figure crowned with a deer skull.