One-off short stories

Already Dead 2: Actually Already Dead

Also known as Already Dead 2: Electric Boogaloo. The title is a joke. This chapter will likely be much less jokey than the title. Since, like the original already dead, it's not a happy oneshot. This is more a self-indulgent weird artsy oneshot. This was born out of the existential terror I felt earlier. Enjoy.
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Sky no longer had the energy to open her eyes, to move, to speak, anything. She could hardly hear. At this point, she was just waiting for the pain to stop. It hurt so much. It hurt too much. But a human wants to survive. The human body always wants to survive. It will push itself to its limits rather then if it's pointless or not. But doing that only made it worse for Sky. Because her body kept pushing itself until she could hear Kou's voice. Until she could tell another body fell to the ground. Until she knew what she did was pointless. Still, she hoped the others would learn from her example to not stay passive and stay still. She hoped everyone else would be okay, more than anything. Maybe Kou and her, could be the last sacrifices. In the end though, she wasn't sure quite what she was thinking when she died.
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She saw herself standing on a cliff. Well, less of a cliff, and more of a tiny piece of something surrounded on a sides by a drop to nothing. To death? This confused her. But what confused her more than this situation, was how she felt. She felt so empty. She put one of her feet into the open air. Any normal human would be too afraid to step to their death like that. And yet she didn't feel anything. She put her foot back, not because she was scared, but because she felt like she would miss something if she jumped so soon. Not that she wouldn't jump. The fall would be a better way to die than starvation or thirst. Wouldn't it? She couldn't even tell. Everything was just empty, after all. She looked down and couldn't see her own feet. She had had feet, right? She had a body, right? She must've at some point. She couldn't imagine being a human without a body. She was a human right? She couldn't imagine not being a human. But she couldn't imagine much. Not when everything was empty like this. She put her other foot of the platform. Well, she couldn't actually tell anymore. She just thought it she moved anymore, she would fall off. And then she wouldn't know what would happen. That wouldn't be good, would it? She wasn't sure. She wasn't sure of anything anymore. The only thing she was even certain of was her gender. And even then that's just because she thought she remembered that when she was first here. She sat down. And waited. Time passed. She couldn't tell how much. Sooner or later the ground beneath her disappeared. She didn't fall though. She just couldn't remember what the ground looked like. And then nothing else happened. She didn't feel herself changing. The concepts of hunger and thirst were lost to her. Eventually, another thought floated through her mind,'Did I die?' It was the only explanation she had. She couldn't quite remember what death was. It was bad. She remembered that. Well, whatever bad was. She remembered what words she used to compare. But she couldn't remember what any of them meant. Empty...she knew what that meant... it was all she knew. She wondered if there was a point in trying to hold onto that? If it's the only thing she had, wouldn't it be worth it to hold on to it? She didn't know anymore. Eventually, it ended. She wasn't sure what she did. It just ended.
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Everything was dark then. She remembered what that meant. She was starting to remember things again. That made her happy. But she held on to a little bit of that empty feeling. Because she wanted to make sure she had something she couldn't forget. Forgetting was bad, after all. She remembered that. After long enough, she remembered who she was. A name. An age. A sister. Those were the first things that came back to her. Her father and mother. Food. Tears. Some images flashed by her that she couldn't see. Like they were just gray, empty for her. Slowly but surely however, Sky was rebuilt. It hit her then. That feeling of emptiness. It wasn't as bad as before. Or maybe it was worse, since she could remember some things now. But her heart hurt incredibly. Whatever she'd still forgotten. It was painful. That was what she figured. She didn't remember anything feeling this painful by itself. "Stop." She spoke, her first new words,"Stop hurting. Please, somebody stop it. It hurts so much." She saw a vision of someone, a girl, she couldn't remember who. And it hurt so much to see,"STOP! I DON'T WANT TO REMEMBER!" She screamed, her heart breaking.

She opened her eyes. Or maybe they'd been opened already. She just started seeing again. And what she saw was a girl in a mirror. It was her, wasn't it? Red hair, the same clothes. It looked almost exactly like her. It was a mirror though, so of course it did. Something seemed off to her though. Like something had changed.
"So this is me." Sky said,"I'm Sky Endo." Suddenly her head hurt. Hearing her own name spoken. She heard voices scream, heard people painfully speak her name. She couldn't handle it,"No, stop already." She needed the pain to stop.
"How about Shade? That's a cooler name anyways." The mirror spoke.
Although if it was a mirror, she must've spoken that too. Shade, it felt like it fit. That feeling of emptiness had clouded up the sky. Left behind a shadow. She looked up at the mirror and smiled. Still, the shadow didn't hurt. The shadow could smile. It could act. It was still her. She just didn't feel that pain. The shadow only had the memories that didn't hurt. It didn't need to remember the ones that did. And that was good. As long as she could stay that shadow, she would be fine. She looked back at the mirror. It seemed normal now, she didn't see anything off. The red eyes that had been bugging her before were normal to the shadow. And she woke up from her dream of death.