“Tight,

so it won’t break,

but not so tight,

that it’s too quick.

Painful...

it needs to be painful,

because that’s the only way to die...

Quickly, swiftly

slash, slash, slash...

a deep gash

running through the heart.

Painful...

it needs to be painful,

because that’s the only way to die.” – The Only Way To Die, The Suicidal Poet of Grimm

Jesse glanced at the grey sky, filled with greyer clouds, and a sun that was just as gloomy as the water by the dock. A great mass of blue was floating, a long ways off, but it was much too far for her to reach. The grey cobblestones blended with the grey sea, and the only things not grey in this world were the wooden dock – stones blended into the dull brown, though so that it seemed almost grey itself, with a small, dull red dingy floating beside it – and the buildings.

There was a row of four small buildings on her right, like at the Heritage Village that Jesse had gone to last summer with her parents – the one that had showed what life was like in colonial times. The boardwalk was wooden, so it was the same dull brown as the dock.

People mulled about, if they could be called that. They were oddly deformed, and looked more like fantastical creatures out of the head of a psychopath than actual people. One woman walked past, her bottom wiggling back and forth as she walked, and a long snake’s tail swung back and forth behind her as she bounced. A child built a sandcastle by the dock, his hands and feet webbed and his whole body covered in tiny, shimmering scales.

A man in a red coat and bell boy’s cap saluted her, and then turned and walked with jerking movements towards a massive forest of deep green trees, and shadows that moaned in agony. The moment the man reached the trees, he shrieked, covered his hands, and turned into smoke. Jesse shuddered, and turned her back to the trees, to face the buildings.

Jesse’s hands were cold. She shivered, shoving them deep into the pockets of her jeans. Was there supposed to be cold in Heaven? She didn’t think so. The marks on her wrist throbbed, like arthritis pain, and she rubbed them. Some were old; the rest were fresh, from just a few moments ago. They looked as they had only just stopped bleeding.

On her right arm, they were horizontal – four of them. Slash, slash, slash, slash. She remembered the blood the day they were made, and how she’d been ashamed for being so pathetic; how she was never going to succeed if they were horizontal.

On her left arm, there was only one, from her wrist to her elbow, a vertical gash all the way down her forearm. This was the killer. And yet, it hadn’t been painful enough, or fast enough.

The cold bit at her neck, and she touched her skin, where the red welt from the rope still burned. The cold was almost soothing, except for the fact that it was violently cold now, and getting colder all the time.

“The weather’s in your heart, child,” a voice said, and Jesse looked to her right, and looked to her left, to find the owner of the voice.

Standing not too far off was an odd-looking man. He wore an old-fashioned overcoat, and had long, spindly legs like a grasshoppers. His arms were just as long and spindly, and he tipped his top hat to her as he approached, walking with an odd waddle.

“Excuse me?” Jesse asked, confused.

“The cold,” the creature said in a gravelly voice, “it’s in your heart, not your head.”

“I don’t understand,” Jesse said.

“That’s alright,” it – he – replied. “You don’t need to.”

“Who are you?” Jesse asked, confused by this creature’s appearance and manner.

“Lord SkinnyLegs, first Magistrate of the Order, at your service,” he introduced himself, bowing.

“I’m afraid, Lord SkinnyLegs,” Jesse said, “that your title means little – if anything – to me. You’ll have to explain it.”

“I’m a judge,” he said simply. “You either go up, or down, and it’s my job to help people go up, if they’re willing.”

“I still don’t understand,” Jesse said, shaking her head. Her black, shoulder length hair blew back in the freezing wind. Lord SkinnyLegs didn’t seem to notice the cold. His legs were bare, and his skin was a translucent beige colour that befitted the monochromatic feel of the place.

“Understanding is unnecessary where faith can reside,” Lord SkinnyLegs replied mysteriously.

“You’re not making any sense at all,” Jesse said. “Where am I?”

“You are where the aborted go after not dying,” Lord SkinnyLegs replied.

“Aborted?”

“Babies who haven’t had a chance to live life have been aborted – whether by accident, or on purpose,” Lord SkinnyLegs explained. “Here, they are sent in whatever form befitting God, and they are given the opportunity to find Christ. To live another kind of life, so they can have the free will to choose that they didn’t have on Earth.”

“But I lived a life on Earth,” Jesse insisted. “I did live a life there.”

Lord SkinnyLegs seemed to scrutinize her for a moment, and then came to a conclusion. “If you die then you either must go up or down; Heaven or Hell.”

“If this is Heaven, Lord SkinnyLegs,” Jesse began, “then I must have been very bad on Earth. And if it’s Hell, well then obviously suicide was the answer after all.”

“No,” Lord SkinnyLegs corrected, looking her sternly in the face with his black, beady eyes. “Suicide is never the answer. Suicide is murder, and murder is a sin. And you can’t atone for a sin after you’re dead; it doesn’t work like that.”

“I don’t understand,” Jesse said, beginning to understand and being frightened she was right.

“Jesus died on Earth so you could be forgiven. But you have to ask for it. You can’t ask for forgiveness; you can’t repent if you’re dead,” he replied.

Jesse began to breathe heavily in panic. “I don’t want to be dead anymore!” She cried. “Make me live again, Lord SkinnyLegs, please!” She clutched his spindly arm in earnest.

He shook her off. “You’re not dead yet, Jesse,” he said. She didn’t ask how he knew her name without being told. “You’re almost dead. It’s not the same thing.”

“Help me, Lord SkinnyLegs,” Jesse begged. “I don’t want to die.”

“The only way to not die is to find Jesus,” Lord SkinnyLegs replied.

“Then help me find Jesus,” Jesse begged. “Help me!”

AN: Don’t ask... seriously... Anyways, R&R, please. :D CC is welcome, flames are not.