<TW>
This is a short story about mental health. It hints at self-harm and the story is mainly about suicide, depression, and anxiety.
This story is heavily based off my own experiences. I did not attempt to romanticize mental health, but just write what was going through my mind at the time.
I just wanted to say, if these topics make you feel uncomfortable, then please maybe skip this story.
Thanks!
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Alexis could no longer see the world in color.
Everything had dissolved into a series of bleak grays, midnight blacks, and star-whites.
His life had been like this for…well, he didn’t know how long it had been exactly.
Years, though.
And enough for him to forget what life was like before. 20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡndCbfFDYZc
Even the sky, which he used to enjoy seeing so much, was dull now. It was no longer glorious blue but a dull and withered gray.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. There were still certain things in the boy’s life that had color. Small things, but they were enough to keep him going for a day. Family, sometimes. Occasionally, when he stepped outside, the grass would turn a slight green and the sky seemed a bit more blue and in all, life seemed more colorful, even if it was just by a little bit and only for a moment. There was the red streaks across his arms that had slowly become a daily pattern. Sometimes certain colorful foods seemed to push him through for a few hours.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡK7l5SUr10h
In general, though, life didn’t have a color anymore.
Alexis couldn’t even remember the last time he had even laughed.
His fifteenth birthday had been a few days ago. He knew his parents had tried to make it more special than usual, sensing his mood was more off than usual over the last years, but he hadn’t felt much.
Life had lost its color, and Alexis seemed to have lost emotion, too.
He didn’t get annoyed as much when his parents repeatedly asked him if he was okay.
He could barely even cry anymore.
He couldn’t remember the exact date the figure had shown up. Death didn’t look like what everyone else had described it to be. It didn’t have an exact figure and it always seemed to glitch in and out of the boy’s vision. 20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ43BWTNoJh7
Whenever he did get a glance, though, the figure looked as though it were a whirl of several conflicting emotions:
Guilt, anger, regret.
Loneliness, sadness, relief.
Curiosity, fear, shock.
Everything Alexis had supposed Death would feel like.
The boy took a glance at the shifting figure on the opposite edge of the roof and again wondered why his visit with Death seemed to be taking so many years.
The boy felt a few sudden vibrations in his phone and took the device out of his pocket and set it on the floor.
He took one glance at it and felt a stab of sadness, something he hadn’t had the ability to feel in years. There were several messages from his parents, grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles friends. Everyone he had built his life around. The people that, for the first few beginning years since this had started, kept him going.
He loved them, and they knew that, he hoped.
He hoped they didn’t care as much as he did because he didn’t want to hurt anyone.
He just wanted this to be over.
Even as he took a step closer to the edge, hundreds of memories pushed through his mind.
It was like he was trying to stop himself from taking one last step forward, or maybe it was his way of saying goodbye to everything he’d known.
He really couldn’t tell.
They all were before the world had gone bleak on him; when he was happy, but they seemed to make him sad now.
Memories of his few birthdays.
Arguments with his parents.
Meeting his best friend.
Failed school tests.
School fights.
Another argument. 20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXtj3WxHbov
Another birthday.
A diagnosis.
Parties and sleepovers.
Was this all his life had really been so far?
He started to cry. Soft, bitter tears that stung his eyes. His heart was swirling with several emotions, but two main ones stood out that he could identify as sadness and happiness.
He didn’t understand how he could feel such polar opposite emotions at the same time.
Or maybe those emotions seemed to go together more often than he had thought.
In any way, he was sure this was the most emotion he had felt in years and it was beautifully bittersweet; feeling so much after not feeling much for years, just as his life was about to end.
He looked up from the ground beneath him and even through blurry eyes, he could see the sunset.
Not bleak grays and blacks swirling together like he had become used to for years, but oranges and pinks and purples and blues.
He was on the very edge now.
Physically, he was almost hanging over the rooftop, and emotionally, all of his feelings were putting him to the edge.
And as he took one last step off the building, he felt all the things he supposed Death was supposed to feel like; something he was sure a fifteen-year-old was never supposed to experience:
Anger and guilt.
Loneliness, sadness, relief.
Curiosity, fear, shock.
And, maybe, a tinge of regret. 20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUiB0eOTslm
and then Add to home screen.