✓ | The Crown of the Dead

Prologue

I think it's a jolly good joke.

You know, that no one makes it out alive.

No matter what you do during your time on this earth, no matter how good a person you are, you die. Black or white, male or female, gay or straight, Christian or atheist.

We're all part of a rigged game; all racing to the end in which we all meet the same inevitable finish line.

I like to think of it as a one way street. One direction out. No turning back.

That's why I think that if you've been through a lot, you cherish life more. You cherish the people you're surrounded by. You cherish your family.

Five years.

(Five isn't my lucky number. Mine's four. Bia's is twelve.)

Five years with your name erased will make you cherish everything you have. Especially your family.

After that dark part of your life passes, you're greeted by the overwhelming sun. This doesn't mean your life is better than it was before the dark, but it feels so liberating-- finally seeing light after being encased in darkness for so long. It means more. You learn to cherish the light.

The dark also changes you. It teaches you not to be selfish, and it keeps you on your toes. The ever looming threat of death is now very prominent for you; much more visible than before.

Your reflexes are heightened, because you know, you know, that at any moment the world could go black, and you could make your way down that one way street, without the privilege of saying goodbye.

I truly believe that's a privilege.

Saying goodbye.

Not many of us are that lucky.

I was one of the unlucky ones.

Dying feels nasty. Especially if you're stabbed right through the middle. There isn't really any way to properly describe it-- the pain isn't on a scale anyone can wrap their mind around.

It feels like, well, you're dying.

Which doesn't feel great.

I think it's more surprising than anything. Blood soaked shirt, a sword sticking out of your gut. You don't have time to think "huh, how did that get there?" You just slowly register the fact that your time is up. That this was always going to happen. That you never would've known; never could've prevented this.

And where do you put your hands? This was a true dilemma for me. As I was dying I just didn't know where to put my hands. I held them out at my sides, like I was waiting for someone to come hug me.

Oh, and when your knees give out. You see, it's hard to stand after being impaled in the gut. They slowly buckle from underneath you, and you tumble down onto the ground. If you're lucky, falling will make the sword come out, and you'll die a little quicker. Blood loss.

But here comes the worst part.

The attempted goodbye.

I said I wasn't one of the privileged ones; one of the lucky people that were able to say farewell before moving on.

The last thing I truly registered, the last thing I truly heard, was a scream. An ear-piercing scream, one that would've had the ability to shatter windows had we not been in the literal depths of Hell.

That was the scream of a girl who had been through far too much, who had lost far too many people, and who had just shattered into a million pieces right in front of me.

She tried to run. She tried to get to me from where she was standing, but someone stopped her. Don't ask me who. My vision was dancing, and I couldn't see anything but the blurry outline of a wailing child. A child.

It was slow. It hurt. It just felt wet and hot and painful, oh gods was it painful.

And then... it was over. My vision went dark, and I don't remember anything immediately after that.

To put it simply, I died.

My time was up.

You probably thought this story would begin with something other than an in depth explanation on what it feels like to be killed.

You're also probably startled because now you've been spoiled. The protagonist dies! Oh no! How will the story ever go on?

Well, I'm not the protagonist. If I were the protagonist, this book would just be an angsty teenage sob story. No side plots to make things interesting. And let's be honest, no one wants to read anything that boring.

I'm not your narrator. I'm not going to be giving you my sage advice all throughout this story. No stupid metaphors about death.

You see, I'm not even in this part of the story. Well, I'm not anywhere near the beginning at least.

I'm going to hand you over to a better narrator, because no matter how awesome I think it would be if I were to narrate, this isn't really my story.

So here we are. I'm getting the privilege to say goodbye, something I was robbed of before.

Goodbye.

Farewell.

Until we meet again.

Peace out fuckers.

A/N: The time has finally come! This is me, officially posting my second gen pjo fic. It's been almost EXACTLY a year now since I've started writing this, and I'm so proud of how far I've come. I hope you enjoy!!!