Suicide

Thirst

It was a while later, when I realised that my throat was burning. I was so thirsty...

Just as the realisation hit me, it started to grow. As if the flames in my throat were increasing, both in size and number.

I was dying of thirst and I had no water.

One hand on my neck, I rushed out of the room and into the stone halls. But there was no water.

People stared at me but no one asked why I was frantically running around.

I ran through corridors and through halls but there was no water anywhere.

As tears steamed down my cheeks, I collapsed onto the floor. Back against the wall, I put my head on my knees and cried my eyes out.

That's when I got the idea. I could drink my own tears.

So I collected my tears on my palm and drank them. It did not quench the horrible thirst. I felt even worse.

Someone put a hand on my shoulder. A middle aged man was looking at me.

"Everythin' alrigh'?" He asked.

"I need water!" I cried.

He scowled. "You ain't gettin' water over here. You killed yourself, didn't ya? No water, kid. You ain't getting no water."

"But... but please! There's got to be some way!"

He made a face. "You think I'm lyin' to ya? There's no water! Unless, you wanna try the Pond."

"The Pond?" I repeated.

"Down the second corridor. But I'm tellin' ya, kid! It ain't water!"

But I ignored him and ran over to the second corridor from where I went to the Pond.

The glistening water was all I wanted. I kneeled down over its surface and collected some water in my hands.

Behind me, I heard a woman exclaim,"No! Stop, young girl! Don't drink that!"

But I ignored her and drank the water.

That's when I realised why she had been stopping me. As the water touched my tongue, it became a boiling hot acidic liquid. It burnt my tongue, my insides, my soul...

I screamed and fell backwards onto the sand. But the more I screamed, the more it hurt.

There was no injury... only pain. And there was nothing I could do about it.

I lay on the hot sand, whimpering and crying. No one cared to ask me what was wrong. Apparently, this had happened to them, too.

I wish. I wish I hadn't done this. Margaret had told me how the others live. How they get everything. For them, this is better than the lives they were living. And it's not as if they didn't have problems. They did but they solved them.

That's the difference between us. They were brave enough to face it. We were the cowards who ran away from it.

If I would be given one more chance to be alive again, I would take it even if I would have to live as a beggar. Even that would be better than this.

I could give anything, just to hear the pulse in my wrist, one more time.

But I can't. It's too late. There's nothing I can do. But I wish I could. I wish...