Miss, stop committing suicide

Chapter 12

I feel like throwing up.

I’m dizzy.

My stomach feels nauseous.

My eyes are trembling like crazy.

And yet, all I can see in front of me is red.

I can’t hear anything.

Water splashes and overflows around me.

The stench of blood rises, making me feel even more nauseous.

My hands show no intention of moving.

I can feel the blood trickling down from my mouth.

But I don’t even have the strength to close my jaw.

I failed.

All I had to do was pull a trigger with one finger, but I couldn’t even manage that.

I just wanted to die without pain.

But it hurts. It hurts. It hurts a lot.

Eventually, it’ll get cold.

But I’m sure the pain will still remain.

The bullet should have gone up and turned my brain into a lump of meat paste.

But it just lightly passed behind my neck.

Every time I breathe, I taste something metallic.

It’s hard to describe, but it tastes like iron.

Well, I tried to express my pain with all sorts of words, but it can all be summed up in one.

“…D-damn it.”

With a wet, bubbling noise, the curse spilled out of my mouth and echoed through the bathroom, accompanied by the splashing sound of blood dripping into the tub.

…………………

The sound of gunpowder igniting, even in small amounts, is incredibly powerful.

Even if it’s a small handgun, it’s enough to blow a person’s head off.

Since I had fired it inside my mouth, the shock reverberated through my entire skull.

My head jerked in the direction the bullet flew, and the back of my head slammed against the annoyingly solid marble wall behind me.

Thanks to that, the back of my head hurts like hell.

The fact that I’m still able to think like this means the bullet didn’t go upward like it was supposed to.

Instead, it went straight through, leaving nothing but a hole in my neck.

Just like in the movies when flashbangs go off, there’s that high-pitched ringing in my ears, beeeeeeeep, and my vision flickers like crazy, trembling in bright red flashes.

And with the stinging smell of gunpowder rising in the air, the scent of blood adds an even more awful stench.

I feel like I’m going to throw up, but thankfully, all I have in my stomach is a little bit of cookie. So, there’s nothing to vomit up.

I shouldn’t have cut my wrist.

I should have just let the blade skim my skin and given up when it started to hurt.

Or, after cutting a vein, I should have committed to it and gone for the artery instead of giving up halfway.

But it hurt too much.

When you’re not in your right mind, you can press a blade to your wrist once or twice.

But the moment you regain even a bit of clarity, the fear sets in, and you can’t go through with it.

They say that choosing to end your own life means you’ve accepted the absurdities of daily life and the futility of suffering.

But here I am, creating that very same futility myself.

It’s ridiculous.

No sane person would willingly stab themselves or bite off their own tongue.

After all, if you’re human — if you’re a living being — it’s only natural to feel this helpless terror at the thought of death.

That’s why people who manage to overcome that fear are called “superhuman.”

Not because they’re stronger than others, but because they’ve become something no longer human.

I should have fired the gun properly.

But like an idiot, I shoved the muzzle into my mouth without angling it up and just pulled the trigger.

If I had pressed it against my temple, my body would be in worse shape.

If I had aimed it at my forehead, the sight of the barrel right in front of my eyes would have scared me too much.

So, after all that hesitation, I ended up taking the option chosen by one in four people who attempt suicide by firearm.

They put it in their mouths, pull the trigger, but fail to die.

Now I’m one of them.

A fool who pulled the trigger but is still alive, stammering and mumbling like a broken mess.

Humans are such stupid creatures.

Out of every four people who try to kill themselves this way, one ends up in this ridiculous state.

Oh, I guess in this world, they don’t keep statistics like that, huh?

Anyway, I’ve become one of them.

I feel nothing but misery at that fact.

The scene says it all.

Blood is leaking from the shallow cut on my wrist, and there’s a small hole punctured in the back of my throat.

But humans, while fragile in some ways, are also sturdier than you’d think.

You won’t die just because you have a hole in your body.

You’ll just feel pain. So much pain.

Humans are unpredictable creatures.

Some people die from a small, insignificant wound.

But others manage to survive, even after losing their arms or legs or having massive holes punched into their bodies.

I thought I belonged to the first group — the frail ones.

But judging by how much blood I’ve lost and the fact that I’m still conscious, I must belong to the second.

No one could have expected things to turn out like this.

Not even me.

Maybe I’m the only one who didn’t see it coming.

It’s infuriating.

I was living just fine.

Even though some things happened, I stayed shut in my room, living an ordinary, quiet life without meeting many people.

Was I being punished for that?

Who?

Who has the right to punish me?

For what reason?

I can’t accept it.

Not at all.

“Uh-heugh… uh-heuh-eugh…”

And so, I’m crying.

From the pain, from the misery, from the anger.

Because I feel so helpless, sinking slowly into stillness.

Honestly, it’s less “crying” and more like forcing out emotions that won’t come naturally — like squeezing out dry tears and letting out sobs.

Normally, a girl my age would cry with soft sobs, a little sniffle, and tears streaming down her face.

But this… this isn’t that.

This is more like a beast’s cry, raw and guttural, with my lips curled up in frustration as I wail out my suffering.

“Uh-heugh-eugh… heh, heh.”

In the middle of crying, I let out a hollow, wheezing laugh.

It sounds like the air leaking from a wet balloon — pathetic and empty.

But I mean, it is pretty funny.

I’m on the verge of death, but I’m still alive. Not dead yet.

Well, that’s just how it is, I guess.

I put on such a grand display, insisting I wouldn’t die in some ugly, disgraceful way — saying I wouldn’t hang myself.

But here I am, unable to even blow off my own head properly.

How pathetic.

I don’t even have the strength to get up.

I can’t escape from the bathtub.

Whenever I try to lift myself out of the water, the weight of my soaked clothes pulls me back down.

I feel resentment.

At myself, maybe.

At whoever dropped me into this place.

At this useless, miserable girl lying here like a fool.

Maybe at Evan.

Or at Vivian.

Maybe even at Lydia.

For a moment, I think I should just blow my head off properly this time…

But after I fired the first shot, the gun slipped right out of my hand and sank into the water — to the bottom left of the tub.

My left hand, trembling weakly, can’t even lift it back up.

And even if I managed to pick it up, I doubt the trigger would work underwater.

If I twist my body to try to grab it with my right hand, the pain from my wounds stings too much, and I end up giving up halfway.

Why didn’t I think this would happen?

I should have just pressed the gun to my temple and pulled the trigger.

If I had done that, my head would have exploded like it was supposed to.

Sure, the walls would be plastered with brain matter, but at least I’d be dead.

At least it would have been over in one shot.

Not like this.

But I guess not many people think of it that way.

Even the most pessimistic people tend to see themselves in an optimistic light.

Well, I’ve learned my lesson.

If I fail this time, next time I’ll make sure to aim at my forehead or temple and pull the trigger properly.

Just like that old saying that’s been pounded into my brain for years: “Failure is the mother of success.”

As long as I learn from it, that’s good enough, right?

The warm water is still running, keeping the bath from getting cold.

If I stay here long enough, I’ll probably fall asleep from the cold and exhaustion.

It hurts like hell, though.

It hurts.

That’s it.

There’s no deeper explanation.

My heart hurts, my body hurts, everything just hurts.

I’m a coward, unable to do anything right.

A fool who can’t even manage to die properly.

A person who couldn’t handle living, but also couldn’t finish confessing the worthlessness of her life.

I feel disgusted.

I feel filthy.

And I pity myself.

I can’t even bring myself to use complicated words anymore.

I have no desire to dress up my thoughts with fancy, elegant language.

Or maybe I just can’t think of anything right now.

With every breath I take, I hear a whistling, wheezing sound coming from the hole in the back of my neck.

Even when I try to think of something, my mind just feels heavy and sunken, like it’s been filled with water.

Maybe I hit something important.

The brain is pretty complicated, after all.

Still, I wonder if I at least look alright.

With clean clothes, white hair drenched in red water, and a lifeless face, maybe my body won’t look so ugly.

No one would know how pathetic the process was.

After all, I’ll be dead by then.

“Heugh… heugh…”

Every breath is a struggle.

It burns, and I can feel the air leaking through the back of my throat.

If this was how it was going to end, I should have just handed the gun to Lydia and asked her to blow my head off.

She hates me so much that she probably would have stomped all over my dignity just to do it.

If I asked her, she might have done it with a fresh smile on her face, pulling the trigger without a second of hesitation.

Yeah… she probably would have killed me.

That thought comes out of nowhere, and I let out a dry, hollow laugh.

I don’t have the luxury of laughing out loud, though.

My vision blurs.

Shadows.

I see shadows.

They’re shaking back and forth.

What is it?

Two? Three?

I don’t know.

I try to move my mouth as much as I can.

The only thing I manage to say sounds like either “save me” or “kill me.”

I’m not sure which it was.

I don’t even know myself.

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A strange ceiling.

I turn my head.

There’s a mirror.

I see a body.

It’s intact.

My face is intact.

My white hair is still here, stained with a lifeless dullness.

My face is framed by an annoyingly flashy, over-designed school uniform.

Lifeless lips.

Dark circles under my eyes.

And at the edge of it all —

A crooked smile.

“Ha… ha.”