I was sitting that day, I can still remember everything in detail as if it had only been yesterday. Now to see myself in this position and in this situation, I realize just how much I've grown and just how much I've changed. That day, while I sat there, I remember looking at the motionless body sprawled before me in that bed with its' white sheets. It almost looked angelic in a way. It was kind of strange to make such a comparison since the person laying on that bed had not one ounce of spirituality. I looked around the room and saw it was all painted white as well. “Huh, this must be how it looks like when someone passes on to the better life; this must be the waiting room for the entrance to heaven.”

I looked back again to the girl that laid in that bed, in that one same bed that must have supported so many other almost lifeless bodies. I closed my eyes and went back in time. I traveled back to the day I last spent with my family. My whole family had gathered at my house on Christmas Eve. It was the greatest night I had ever lived. To see the smiles and the hear the laughter not only from the kids, but from everyone present; it was the best thing I could ever lived. My mind captured every moment accordingly although I wished my body too could follow suit and travel back to that one day. It had all been great. It was everything I had ever wanted. It was more than what I could ask. Such warmth that night, so full of life and now...

I opened my eyes and as my sight came into focus it was immediately set upon the body in the bed. Her black hair contrasted among her pale skin. If she could only speak...I wondered what she'd say. I wondered what she would think when she realized how long she'd been laying there. It was strange to be seeing this. I was sitting on a chair, in a room with no other living human in it. Well, there was one, but that human was more a corpse than she was alive. She was in coma and not to awake at all. She didn't even know I was now here in this same room as her, observing her.

“What happened to you?”, I asked out loud. Yeah, as if she would actually answer me. I hated being here. I wanted to leave but I couldn't. I found no way out. There was no doors nor any window that led to the outside world. It was as if I was dreaming, trapped in a nightmare that had no end and from which there was no escape. What was I doing here in the first place? How did I get here? I let out a sigh. There were too many questions but not so much as an answer. I had no idea how long I had been there. I didn't even know if there was a reason to all this. I looked to her again. There was definitely something strange going on. I could see her body and part of her hair, but as strange as it'd be, her face remained in the shadows. There was light all around, but there was some form of shadow much like a dark cloud cast above the girl's face. How then did I know it was a girl? Well for one she had long hair, and although some guys wear it long, she had a female body. So yeah, the body laying before me was definitely a girl or better yet a young lady.

How such a phenomena as the shadow could occur was far beyond my understanding, but it was nothing different than what I was experiencing now. How then did I end up in this place now was what I wanted to find out. How, was yet another good question. The girl before me reminded me of someone, strange I know, but she did. I felt such a strong connection to her that I needed to find out why she too was in here. I felt I owed it to her although I did not know why or how I would do that if she wouldn't even know. It wasn't like she would somehow awake just to hear my explanation, if I found any, and magically come to life with a strong will as would I ,and a door of some kind would also appear and it would be the way out. Such imagination and no wisdom. It was no wonder I loved movies, books and writing so much. It would take my mind off of things that hurt me in some way and it was as if these activities held some form of magical abilities to heal the pain I held within.

I thought back to the day I realized there were some nice people in this world and the rest of them were just a farce. All the things they said were all lies. They said so many nice things that I believed in an attempt to keep them close to me because they made me feel like I never felt before. I struggled to be what they wanted me to be, what they expected me to be, what they said I could be. I wanted to be perfect but I couldn't make it work. I never managed to reach that level. Everything I did was never good enough. I did not want to compete, all I wanted was to be recognized for what I was, for who I was. I waited for them to open their eyes and see, but who was I kidding? They didn't care! It was all an act. A very well played act. What they didn't know was that their part in the play would end sooner than expected.

I cried. I cried so many tears that night, I remember so clearly now, it was a nice night much like the nights that I have seen one too many times. The sky was full of shining stars, just like people around me that had plans and goals which they would complete and would end up being looked up to. I envied each and every one of them. I wanted to be successful just like them. I wanted to be someone, anyone so long as they had some kind of plan or destiny that was not at all like the one I had and led. I remember crying for hours. Even when I thought to not have any more tears, they kept on rolling down my face. It seemed to come naturally to me. I remember sitting in a corner of my room in the dark. I loved the dark, it was full of mystery and it could conceal so many things at once. I found it fascinating, the workings of the darkness that would take over everything at some point in life. I hated light. It reminded me of hope, and faith, and in turn reminded me of those people with their life planned.

I wanted to end it all, to find some way, and it would anger me so much that I could find no way to do so, to the extent that I thought to end it all then and there. They wouldn't notice, they wouldn't even care. I would go unnoticed and no one would even question themselves, “where is that girl that used to occupy that space?” Why keep doing something you don't enjoy? Why continue with a life that keeps you from any joy? I wandered so many days and nights hoping to find a spark, some kind of sign that would make me think otherwise but I had no luck. There were so many nights and days as well that I would cry and find no form of consolation and the weird thing was I did not know why. I lacked the capacity to hide my feelings or keep my face void of any emotion that would let anyone know. I didn't want to be read by other people. I did not want to be categorized as a certain person because how could they do that when even I did not know who I was. I was fed up with it all.

I opened my eyes once more, I didn't even realized I had closed them. Once again my sight was set upon the girl in the bed. She was still laying there the same way she had been since the moment I was there. Come to think of it, I didn't even realize just when I had arrived there or how. I didn't remember opening no door, nor awakening to the white room I was now in. It was all so strange, but hey so what else is new? Suddenly, I was startled by my sarcastic thoughts when a thought raced through my mind. “What if I know this girl?” I hadn't thought about that at all. It never occurred to me throughout the time I had been sitting there. Curious as to who she was, I got up, well at least I tried to get up. I could not move. It was as if I was stuck in place. It was as if I was bound to the chair by some invisible force. Somehow the feeling felt all too familiar. I knew there was no point to keep trying so I gave up. It seemed that too, came naturally.

Ever since I remember, every time I would try something new and was not good enough or I saw no point to keep going, I would give up. I focused my attention once more to the girl and noticed she had a ring on her left hand or at least it seemed from such a distance. It was then I realized I didn't have my glasses. I had really bad eyesight and so I couldn't quite make out the object the shone on her left hand. I supposed it was a ring as it could have been the only object she could wear on her fingers. I wondered then who had given her that ring. Was it a gift from a loved one? Was it a ring of engagement? Was she married? I couldn't see her face so I could not quite tell her age. I highly doubted though, that she would be married. I couldn't explain it but I had a feeling, and a very strong one indeed that told me she was not. So where did the ring come from? I looked for any more jewelry but I saw none, unless she wore it under the robe.

She looked so fragile there just lying on the bed so frigid and so deathly pale. It hurt me to see her that way. I wanted to do something to let her out of all this pain but there was nothing I could do, I couldn't even get close to her. I felt the need to reach out to her, to touch her. I guess I wanted to do to her what I had always wanted others to do to me. I had forever wanted a hug, some form of affection that would show me their appreciation, their love. I never received it as much as I would have liked it but once. It had been from my mother on a day that started out right and ended out wrong. We had gotten into such a heated argument that I ended up shouting stuff I would later regret. My mom, the person who brought me into this world. It was kind of ironic that I now had no wish to continue living when if at the time I was born, my mother would have been late to the hospital for a few more minutes I would now in fact be dead. I guess death called for me ever since that day but I managed to escape. I appreciate my mother's efforts but I wouldn't have mind at all is she'd been late. No, I wouldn't have mind at all.

To live the way that I've been living is no way to live at all. I wander through life with no plan, no idea nor any form of thought other than to think of ways to end it once and for all. This last part I said out loud. End it...end my life. I had the most strange feeling as soon as those words escaped my lips. Wow! I really did have an obsession with death. I seemed to be suicidal. Suicide...that word too, managed to have a strange effect on me. For a moment there I seemed to have a flashback or some form of image in my head but it left as fast as it had appeared, therefore having no time to analyze it. What I did seem to have more than enough time was to sit here and find any object in the room to entertain myself. If I only had my notebook and a pen! At least that way I'd be entertained. I didn't even know why I didn't have my glasses with me. I never went anywhere without them because I would get frustrated that I could not see well although I questioned myself on what it was that I really wanted to see. I saw everything blurred. I guess that's how people saw me. When I would walk by they would see me blurred out as if they were going too fast, as if I didn't exist.

It was strange really, that while countries were at war with themselves, I too was at war except I was at war with the entire world. I have had many battles before each with a different person and although I would never win, I wouldn't mind the losses because I had known all along that in the end the only one that would lose would be me. I didn't do it for attention either. My views and their views differentiated and that was the reason as to my strange behavior. They could never understand the inner workings of my mind and I would not understand their's either. I would get so angered and frustrated sometimes that I would think the most insane things and sometimes I didn't end up regretting some of those things. Well it wasn't like I was hurting anyone really by just thinking them, besides how would they even know? Also it was their fault in the first place for making me angry. So what if I thought these things, it wasn't like I was going to act on them. Well...maybe that too was a lie, but a very small one at that. Yeah, I need help I know but no one can do so and not even all the help in the world could make all the anger, sadness, and frustration go away. Yes, I know I said I was better, that all the wounds were healing with time, but guess what? I lied. People really need to start paying closer attention. I guess is something we need to work on.

I laughed, although I had no idea why. I seriously was out of my mind. I wondered if people could tell just my looking at me and that was the reason they stayed away from me. Either way it didn't matter. What mattered was the fact that I was still in this room. My parents would be worried. My parents? Hey, where were they anyway? Were they even worried? Did they even realize I was gone? Or was this all a dream? Or like Edgar Allan Poe once wrote, “a dream within a dream”? Interesting, out of all the people to think of, he came into my mind. With his mind and mine I think we would have made a really great pair. We would have but he was dead and I was still...

Just then an image pops into my head. I'm standing in a room, the complete opposite as the “white room”. This room was dark except for two orange candles set upon the carpeted floor. They didn't provide much light but it was enough to find yourself in the dark. I looked around and I saw a couple of papers thrown across the floor. I saw a bed made but with a couple of notebooks scattered around. Then I spotted the dark liquid on the floor. I was standing next to the door I supposed that led you out the room and the bed was in my way so I could not see where the liquid came from. I slowly and cautiously made my way to the end of the bed and that's when I saw her. She was sprawled across the floor, her hair covering the better part of her face and the liquid was coming from her. The liquid was blood. She had cut her veins. I ran to her side hoping that it was not too late. Hoping that I was still useful.

Somehow this scene really seemed familiar to me. It felt like I had been here before. That didn' tmatter though anymore. What mattered now was the girl. Her black shirt and black pants were filled with blood. I reached out to check her pulse but my hand went right through her. It was as if either she or me was a ghost. I kept on trying but it didn't work. Groaning I stood up and decided to try the door. Nothing!The same thing happened as I tried to grab the doorknob. First, I end up in a white room with a girl one step from death and then I end up here in a dark room with yet another girl a step from death and me playing Casper. I hated this! I really did! I was tired too. It was then I realized that all this time I had been in the white room, I had not felt any feeling of exhaustion from sitting all the while. The really strange thing was that I was not tired from my bones or muscles, well a little but the real exhaustion came from within. My heart felt weak, it suddenly felt as if beating was much too great a job for it. My eyesight then began to grow dark. I tried to reach for the bed but instead I fell back. I fell on the girl or at least I would have if I hadn't been a ghost or if I still had my solid body. I fell back in the same position as her.

I heard a noise outside the door and as I struggled to keep my eyes open the door was flung open but it was too late. The feeling was too strong and I could not keep looking around. I wanted to check my hands, they hurt. What? What was wrong with my hands? My wrists-I need to check...what's wrong with my wrists? The small part of my mind that still managed to work was playing tricks on me. It seemed as if I held a battle within myself and someone else in it. I heard myself talking about my wrists and the pain although I questioned what was wrong with them. What was happening? What is going on? My body was getting weak. I could hear the voices now beside me. Call...hurry! Check-no...dead... I could barely make out their voices. They too somehow sounded familiar and I would have been more interested but sleep was calling me. Suddenly my eyesight turned completely dark and sleep overcame me.

I opened my eyes and I was back in the white room again. What was going on? Who was the girl I had just seen? Why did she cut her wrists? I looked to the girl on the bed again only this time something had changed. She was no longer in the same position she had been since I had arrived there. Her hair was now sprawled across her face and her hands before at her sides, there was one now laying almost off the bed. It seemed as if someone had moved it, as if someone had been holding on to it. I could not see the ring no more but now I noticed something I had not noticed before. She had her wrists bandaged or at least the left one seeing as how it was the only one I could really see. The other one was laying at her side like before and it was impossible to tell at the distance whether it was bandaged or it was the sheets. I looked her over once more, she had such black hair. Wait a minute...The other girl had black hair as well, as far as I could tell. As realization struck me I stood up. And then another shocker once more. I was able to stand up. She was the girl who cut her wrists. I can now move. She was the girl that was over in the dark room. I can now walk to her. I felt extremely weak but I managed to take a step. It seemed that every minute I would loose my energy. I made my way to her and I noticed that as I walked to her the dark cloud hovering above her face began to fade away. I finally got to her side and I could see her clearly except her hair was in my way. I reached over to push her hair aside when...

Oh God! It couldn't be! No! It just couldn't be that that girl was me! But it was me, I look at her, I look down on me. She was right there lying on the bed in the white room and it was me. All this time I had been staring at myself, trying to understand the situation when all along it was plain to see. Suddenly, flashback after flashback came to me. I could see myself once more lying on the floor covered in blood. I see my parents rush in to find me there and their attempts to stop the blood from rushing while the ambulance gets there. I see myself rushed down the corridor of a hospital. All the while I'm seeing all this, a tear manages to escape my eye. It was as if that tear led the calvary, soon, tears begin to spill out like a volcano erupting and unable to stop. I finally knew what I was doing here and why there was two of me. The pain I held inside, the guilt and shame I carried with me. I had tried to end my life but had failed. The doctor's had done their job and managed to save me but not quite enough. I was one step from death. I would not survive. My parents had the choice to either end it or keep me alive but either way all hope was lost. I had lost too many blood and the doctor's said I would probably not make it through the night.

I knew what I had to do. I was the one who started it and I was the one to end it. There was no point in me being this way. I had already tormented everyone enough, at least now I knew there some people left who actually cared about me. And so it was with tears in my eyes that I turned to the machine keeping me alive, I knew this really was “a dream within a dream”, and that by disconnecting myself from this machine in my dream I would put a stop to it. My breathing would come to a stop as my beating fade away. I looked once more at myself. It was strange to be able to see me like this or to see me as another person. I smiled. It was the only smiled I believe throughout this whole time. I thought about what could have been and shake my head as if to clear all thought away, any thought that could change my mind, but my mind was set. Once my mind was set, there was no changing it, there was no turning back even if I regret it later. So I reached to the machine and said goodbye. I closed my eyes and felt my heart become weaker still, I was struggling to breath and then, darkness...

There was a light. It was such a small light, wait-no. Something was shining, it was my ring, the one my sister had given me. Why could I see it? What had happened to me? I heard my sister's voice so low, “ I love you...”, growing louder, “ ...be strong”, I felt my dying heart beat. I tried to open my eyes but saw nothing. I couldn't open them, sleep called me. I wanted to sleep, but I wanted to continue listening to my sister. I knew if I fell asleep I wouldn't hear anymore. “ I love you, you know I do”. I called out to her but she wouldn't respond. Then a whisper, “don't go...”, I struggled to listen to her as her voice became ever so soft as if she were a thousand miles away. I felt a sharp pain in my chest, my heart. I knew she was crying, I could hear the quivering of her voice and her silent sobs. I was being pulled to the darkness as I struggled to remain alive at least just long enough to say good bye. I knew it was impossible as my chances to survive were almost none but I wouldn't give up, not now. I heard myself whisper, “ I love you”, and I felt such great exhaustion as if I had just ran a marathon. And then I could hear her voice no more. I heard a soft, “ I knew it all along, I never lost hope”, just as sleep gained control.