Sometimes life gets weird. You lose hope, then you'll fall down, but then you'll get back up again. Sage did. So hang in there; it gets better, with time.
A short story.
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That familiar euphoric feeling went through the insides of Sage's body, and he let his limbs go limp as he absorbed the mixture of pain and pleasure. To tell the truth, it barely even hurt him anymore.
Blood dripped from his now slit left wrist, joining multiple marks from every other time that he'd cut himself. For the third time, he had stopped himself just before he could slice through his radial artery which could've killed him.
That was what he wanted though..or at least that's what he thought. But every time he came close enough to doing it, he chickened out. He didn't know why because he wanted to die so badly, the thought of it actually happening was just frightening.
Sage let his arm rest over his bedside, the dark colored blood spilling onto the concrete floor. The relief that came after cutting his wrists always made him feel good; as if some of the mental pain was escaping through the open wounds.
Whenever he self harmed in any way, the numbness that followed usually made him temporarily forget about his battles with his mental health issues. That probably explained why he kept on doing it, and didn't plan on quitting any time soon.
Realizing that his blood had begun to clot, he raised himself up from the thin mattress he laid on, dragging his feet towards the bathrooms so that he could clean up the mess he'd caused.
It only took a few minutes since he was so skilled at the task he'd been doing ever since he was thirteen, and when he was done, he laid right back in his previous position with a cloth wrap over his wrist.
He stared up at the bunk above him, blowing out a painfully slow breath. Every breath he took afterwards made him more tired, in a mental and physical sense. He just wanted everything to be over already.
"On your feet! Drill time, boys!" A voice that was loud enough to shake the ground called out, followed by groans of annoyance from most of the men in the room.
Sage rose out of his bed, grabbing his pre-folded clothes from his tiny nightstand. The sun was just breaking through at 5:30 in the morning, and he wanted to be the first one in the shower because he'd be damned if he missed out on hot water again.
There was a four minute time limit in the shower, but since he was first, Sage remained inside for around ten minutes or so. Honestly, he didn't even count anymore. Nobody dared to complain about it either, even knowing that all of their shower times had just dropped by a minute because the Staff Sergeant would be calling out to start drills soon.
When he was out, Sage's daily outfit consisted of; white boxers, a green fitted tee shirt that hugged his muscular arms tightly, camouflage patterned service pants, and black combat boots. He didn't typically dress heavy when doing drills since that was the quickest way to pass out.
"Mornin' Sergeant." One of the private ranks in his platoon greeted him with a salute, and Sage gave him a head nod while passing him by.
He left out of the bedroom quarters and headed outside of the tented residence, seeing an open field once he was outdoors-meaning he was the first one out, which was to be expected since he did spend a while in the shower.
