Given An Unwanted Second Chance

Chapter 1

I threw up black goo.

This can't be happening.  This can't be happening!!

I'm supposed to be dead!

Why can I think, why can I feel?!

Death is supposed to be the end!

I couldn't bear to open my eyes after that split moment as I continued retching the horrible-tasting liquid.

I could hardly get a breath in between moments of vomiting, but unconsciousness did not claim me.

DEATH did not claim me.

I tried to think as the endless stream of black exited my system.  Why was I vomiting?  WHAT was I vomiting?  And the grandest question that wouldn't leave my mind...

Why wasn't I dead...?

I couldn't remember much from before this moment.  I...I...I couldn't even remember my own name...

What pushed me to the brink?  I remembered overwhelming sadness and loneliness and the immense desire to end it all.

And end it all I did.

I remember throwing myself from...somewhere very high.  Very very very high.  I remember the ground rushing towards me at speeds that would scare anyone who wasn't skydiving (which I had not been).  I remember it coming closer and closer...

Intense pain for the quickest of moments...and then darkness.

The darkness was quiet...peaceful...

...for about 4 seconds.

I had awoken on my back, but I instinctively rolled onto my hands and knees as the black goo forced its way out of my body.

All in all, it only lasted about 30 seconds, but it felt like several minutes of continuous retching.

I gasped in a gurgled breath, spitting out the remaining black goop from my mouth.

I just wanted to curl up and sleep eternally.

I did do one of those things.  Not caring if I got the black goop on me, I curled up right where I was and began sobbing.

My cries of emotional agony and distress traveled quite far, but no one heard me.

After several minutes, I could no longer cry.  The energy was drained from me, and I just wanted sleep.

I must've dozed off because the next thing I knew, I was groggily opening my eyes.  Or...one eye?  I felt the sensation of opening both eyes, but I only got visual input from my left one.

I wish I hadn't.

It was quite a gory scene.  Ripped-apart, decaying bodies were strewn all over the place and not far from where I had awoken.  There was a large tree stump that I was next to, and the sky was a bloody red.

I did NOT like the vibes of this place.

I reached up to rub my eye when I noticed that my hand was...weird.

Pure black and skeletal in nature...

This couldn't be my hand...right?

I flexed my fingers, and sure enough, the hand flexed those same ones.

How the hell was I moving my fingers if my hand was skeletal??

WHY WAS MY HAND SKELETAL??

I could feel myself start to hyperventilate and panic.  This can't be right, this isn't right!

I may have lost more or less all my memories, but I KNEW for a fact that I'd been human.  Flesh and skin and all that.

I squeezed my eye shut, trying to focus my thoughts before they spiraled further.