Dying To Live:
Prologue

Dying cheesy was the one thing I did not want. I did not want to get hit by a car, like any other kid, or be accidentally stabbed in the heart while running with scissors. Neither did I want to have my face blown off because I put metal in the microwave or blow up the house with me in it because I lit a match, forgetting I had left the gas on the stove on. All those were cheesy, classic ways to die. They were the easiest and the stupidest. The kind of accidents that people looked back on and shook their heads in disappointment of your epic failure.

I didn't exactly want to be murdered though. As exciting as it sounded, it was extremely disturbing and time consuming. Murders had to be planned, set in play, and investigated afterward. They did not sink in as solidly as accidental or natural deaths, the cause known. For that, cheesy deaths were lucky. And I absolutely did not have the guts, the insanity, or a reason to commit suicide.

If anything, I was not afraid of death. I saw it too often on the news, in the paper, and in movies. It seemed like death was apart of the family. Hello Death. Goodbye Death. See you next week, Death. Call me sometime, Death. We'll do lunch, Death. I had never lost anything in my life while I was alive. I had never even been to a single funeral. I never had a pet. I never had a reason to frown. My life was, looking back on it now, as close to perfect as it could get.

Death has a way of sneaking up on you. Predominantly, at times when things are either going really great or really bad. It's sneak attacks are unexpected. You can't see death coming, or smell it, or feel it. You can only try your hardest to notice the little things that go unnoticed that help death get its job done, but for a living breathing sane human, it's nearly impossible.

My death, however, was a complete surprise. I was 16 years old, relatively popular in high school, and an overall average teenage girl. I died as Caitlin Waters and opened my eyes as Dolla Denise, teenage grim reaper.