As If We're Oceans

P r o l o g u e

All I saw was red.

Nothing was there besides red. I couldn't see where I was at or who I was with, not a chance I would anytime soon. Not until I woke up from the dammed nightmare of a life, which I wasn't even living, unless you consider the countless cigarettes put in-between my lips as a hobby for a good life.

All I could remember was a brick wall in front of my face and a hand gripping onto my hair so tight it slowed my breathing. After that all I could see was the blood running down my face, into my eyes and mouth.

I tasted iron, almost as if I had too much in my own blood. Was it even my own blood? I don't know. I know I blacked out after that, and then I remember getting my vision back and seeing another body spread across the floor with blood all over, with a knife in my hand.

I couldn't run, who gave me the right ? I didn't have my own roles and laws, I was always controlled. I reached down to grab the body, hoping the soul was still inside of it and it's heart was still pumping the right amount of blood through it.

Then I felt the blood on my face and saw a bashed mark on the body laying there, unaware I was crouched by it, hoping it was still breathing.

Was the blood mine or the person laying on the grounds? Maybe both? I don't think I'll ever get the answer. So I reached up to touch my head, that had a cut on it, and I winced when my fingertips ran across it.

I don't remember much after I felt the cut, all I remember is seeing red. And that's where I am now.

I can hear the voices, saying something about how I'm still living but not breathing enough, but I'm too focused on getting this red out of my sight. I tried opening my eyes, but then I heard a long beeping noise and some other people calling that I had just flat lined. I don't understand, how could I be dead if I know that I can hear my thoughts and see one thing: red.

Next thing I knew, there was a shock inside my body and cold, hard metal squares against my chest. I'm not dead. I can't be dead. I never wanted this to happen. How could I be dead? All I had was a cut on my head.

Then I remembered: when I was younger, my mother would tell me when you died you had 7 minutes of brain activity still in you, and in the 7 minutes you replay your life like a dream. She thought it was a never ending cycle, because when you die at the end of this dream-like place, you witness yourself dying and start all over again. So maybe I was dead, maybe I have been dead for many years and I'm just replaying my while life over and over, never knowing where and when to stop.

I believed her too, I believed everything she had ever said. Every last single "I love you, JusAnne Katy Buhlar." I hated when she'd call me by my full name, why couldn't she just call me Justice like everyone else did? Well, I guess I couldn't tell her anything and make it stick, her head was always spinning from too many drugs. But I do miss her.

I don't think I'm dead though, I don't think you can have thoughts when you're dead, unless these are thoughts I had when I was still in whatever place I think  I'm in, maybe a hospital? Yeah, probably.

I guess that this is what happens when you trust people. I trusted Wyatt, and look where I am now. He bashed my damn face in on a wall and I blacked out and maybe killed him. I'm not sure. But I really did trust him, he had never laid a hand on me, never shouted at me, nothing. He'd tell me everything was okay and that he would help this time pass, then hand me a cigarette and go to bed.

I shouldn't have trusted him. Or my mother. The only two people I would ever trust.

And now they both got me thinking different things: am I dead and this is my 7 minutes? And did I kill someone because I blacked out? I may never know.