Fluttershy

Zoe

So this is death.

I never thought that it would be so satisfying to die, but compared to what I had been through, it was better than the alternative.

It was only dark, but I hope that it wouldn't stay like this forever. No one likes to be in the dark forever. I felt safe though, I felt calm. Nothing could hurt me anymore. I found myself smiling.

But then, I realized something.

I was dead.

As in, buried 6 feet under, as in, funeral, as in, never seeing my friends or family anymore dead.

Death didn't seem very great anymore.

The darkness now felt like a crushing sense of depression. I didn't like it. I felt alone, and wrong.

So many things had gone wrong in my life. Always busy, never a moment's rest. I wished right there that I could start all over, but now that chance was gone. I would never be able to see that again. If only I wasn't so stupid.

Maybe this is how my dad felt. I wondered if he could see me through the darkness around me. I tried to see anything, anything. Nothing. I was completely alone.

I sat in the darkness and cried. It was humiliating, but I cried. There was no one to see me, so I cried.

I was drained. I was starving. I was scared.

I was alone.

I finally figured out what I had learned. My greatest fear is being alone. That's why I wanted to be busy all the time. I was scared to be alone.

I cried harder.

The darkness around me seemed to close me in, suffocating me in like a barricade, like a jail. I didn't know why it took me this long to figure out my greatest fear, but I now did. 

I started to recall memories of signs of my fear.

The night I had to watch Kayli as my mom had to go on a business trip. I was alone in the living room watching TV and doing homework with a terrible storm outside. Kayli was in the kitchen making popcorn and came into the living room. She had asked if we could both watch a movie together. I had sent her away with annoyance and stress in my voice. As soon as the first lightning strike had hit, she was by my side watching Aladdin with me with the bowl of popcorn in our laps.

The night that we found out that dad had been killed in action in the marines. My mom seemed too sad to be with Kayli and I, and Kayli didn't seem like she wanted to be anywhere around mom or I. I remember sitting in my bed that night, jumping at every sound the wind outside my window made. I remember crying into my pillow every night for months before I emerged from my house.

The day that Harley and Alicia and I were on the beach, and I wouldn't leave the sand unless they came with me. The waves were especially large that day, reaching 20 feet high. It took me at least a half an hour to get Harley and Alicia into the water, before we had been crashed down on an enormous wave. I remember that we laughed until our sides ached as we had hit the sand after the wave.

I was afraid to be alone. It was my worst fear, and now, I was living it. Or perhaps, I was dead, and I was surrounded by it.

Death is not the greatest adventure. Death is the worst adventure.

Death sucks.