Alive

Chapter 25: Live A Little

I found the small flight of stairs leading to the fire escape and climbed them, groaning on every step as the muscles in my abdomen were pulled. I pushed the heavy door open, and walked out onto the roof, the cold air hitting my face along with the rain. My bare feet carried me to the edge of the roof, stinging as they made contact with the freezing, harsh surface beneath them.

Countless cars and people roamed the streets surrounding the hospital. Unaware of my predicament, unaware of each sad story buried in the walls of this building. They were merely dots from my vantage point, but I felt as though I possessed a powerful perspective.

Seeing the moving dots on the ground reinforced my theory that each of them are insignificant. If one of the many people littering the streets had never been born, if they weren't there as I looked out onto the manmade world, I wouldn't even know.

In respect to the world, we are all replaceable, forgettable, disposable. However, as I saw two dots huddled together in the miserable weather I realised something. Though two people are meaningless in the world, they can mean the world to each other.

That being said, I don't believe that two people are destined to be together, I think there are many different people that one individual could be compatible with, that they could just as easily fall in love with. There is no 'one', just someone who happened to be in the right place at the right time, with a personality and appearance which attracts another person.

So, imagine that for each of the 7 billion people on Earth there are 500 that they could love unconditionally. If I did happen to take away someone's boyfriend or girlfriend, and they really were in love, it's not the end of the world. Looking at it from an optimistic point of view, I forced them to live a little more.

By taking something that they loved away from them, I pushed them to find something else that made them happy, pushed them to find any of the 499 people left that could make them whole again.

The only thing that can help you achieve a satisfying, fulfilled life, is experience. On your deathbed money won't matter, the grades you got in high school won't mean shit, fake friends who you stuck with to climb the metaphorical ladder of life won't even make it into your thoughts.

The only way that you can measure your life, how well you lived it, is by the experiences you had. That holiday that showed you a beautiful part of the world, losing your virginity to your high school sweetheart, ditching class to go do something crazy with that reckless friend and actually living a little for once. So, if say, Caleb, had a girlfriend, who loved him more than anything, I think that by killing him I gave her an opportunity.

An opportunity to explore this beautiful world and find the next love of her life. While she may have been happy with the same predictable life, kissing the same guy over and over, I threw experience into her world. And when that girl dies, whether it's months from now or in 60 years time, she'll be thankful. Even though she might not realise it, she'll be thankful that she was forced to move on, to experience something new.

Think of life as corridor, and along that corridor there are 100 rooms. Each one of those rooms holds something unknown. It could be absolutely awful, but at the same time it could be wonderful. Sometimes, people open a door and because they like what they see, they stay.

They get stuck somewhere along the line and they refuse to move on, because they believe that none of the other doors will reveal something as great as what they're already experiencing. They're scared that the next room may be filled with pain and loss and all things bad.

But the thing is, if they don't close the door they're on and open the next, they could be missing out on something so much better. Door 38 could draw them in, make them never want to leave, but unbeknownst to them, door 43 is the best one of the lot.

Even if all of the rest were terrible, I'd still want to know. I want to experience every god damn room along the confusing corridor that is my life. And although I don't think I got to open all of them, I feel as though I made it pretty close. Maybe I'm on door 80, or 85, which is still a lot more than most people reach.

One night when I was 15, I held my father's handgun to my temple. I thought that the way things were would never change, but then I thought about my future self. There were an infinite number of outcomes that could've awaited me. I could've become a doctor, a writer, a serial killer, a mother, or I could be 6 feet under, long gone from this world. And I thought to myself; even though right now sucks, I wanna stick it out to see where I'm headed.

Even if the rest of my life had been god awful, I'd still be glad I didn't pull the trigger that night. Because I think the worst thing someone can do in life, is give up. Just end it all because you're stuck on one door. It doesn't matter if the rest of them suck too, the chances are they probably won't, but don't you wanna find out? How could you give up the chance to open all of those doors?

The tattoo on my back seemed to tingle, as if contributing to my internal conversation. 'It's all temporary'.

My thoughts were snapped back to the present as a loud bang made me jump. The police officers stormed up the stairs and barged through the door to the roof, where I stood, shivering. I didn't turn to look at them.

"Miss, please step back, away from the edge." An unfamiliar male voice boomed.

"Elizabeth Bennett, I stabbed her in the chest. Harper Groves, I slit her throat. Jessica Riley, I stabbed her in the chest. Caleb Priest, I put a bag over his head and suffocated him. Dylan Green, I stabbed him in the chest. Hannah Wickson, I strangled her with a pair of earphones. Ashley Emerson, I hit him round the head with a baseball bat. Peter Duke, I stabbed him in the neck with a letter opener. Sophie Carter, I stabbed her in the chest. Mark Dennis, I slit his throat." Silence.

I had just opened door 86, and oh was it an interesting one.