1 Persevere and die
William a young man in his twenties lived a terrible life. Every day he was bullied by students teachers and strangers. Every straw he grasped was short but he held on.
Then he was 18 and high school was over and he thought he could catch his breath. Things at home weren't going great and at 19 he was pressured to start college.
He made it through a year of it. To escape toxic and abusive people, he dropped a few classes. Sometimes he stood on the roof of the college thinking of ending it all but he finished the year off.
He started seeing a counselor for his depression and started medicating. He tried and failed to get a job.
When he was 20 he was diagnosed with cancer. His mom handled finding a surgeon. Then an epidemic hit. He didn't have the best genetics from his parents. If he got sick after surgery he would likely die.
It broke her heart but his mom asked, knowing how depressed he was, if he wanted to have the surgery. He didn't have the surgery. He expected to live a few years at the least.
He never expected to make it past high school but he persisted. He thought he would cave and start using drugs and alcohol but he stayed clean all the way to 21. He thought he would die of heart complications in his thirties like his father and uncles.
At 22 he had his first beer with his stepsister. He started to wear turtle necks and sweatshirts. He started to lose his voice mobility.
At 23 he tried to get drunk with his cousins. He learned he liked sour drinks. although he didn't get drunk, he had a killer migraine after. Later he got high for the first time with his eldest cousin. It made all his anxieties disappear.
In December he triggered an allergy he had never figured out, it made it harder to breathe. Then he caught covid, Had a fever of 103.6, and hallucinated. He went to the hospital. They got his temperature under control and had him on oxygen.
The night nurse had given him an extra dose of meds. His awareness drifted in and out waking to the machine he was hooked to going off. He tried to get help but was ignored.
He could see into the hall. The night nurse sat there talking on her smartphone smiling. Ignoring the flashing and beeping monitor next to her.
Everything started becoming bright almost blinding and all sounds faded away leaving only a high pitch wine. Then it was suddenly black and silent.
William left nothing behind. Not a child. Not a grieving wife. Nothing of value. Not a car. Not a house. Absolutely nothing and by choice.
He had bad genes and his father did too. He was not going to pass them on to a child only for them to die early. He could not let another woman experience watching their partner and child die before them.
Shame he never made it to that magic number. He could have been a sage...
William drifted in an empty black. He was surrounded by floating lights. Balls of fire in all colors and sizes as far as the horizon.
Some sink and extinguish. Some stretch before splitting and flying in different directions.
space distorted around him. Five pillars of the darkest black rose up and enclosed him before plunging down leaving a ripple...
A shooting star raced across the sky in rainbow fire. Sparks flew and it shrank in size. The star fell passing through the walls of a hospital.
A cry breaks in the ICU. A Waile competes with beeping machines.
A nurse rushes into the ICU. She thinks it's a miracle. A child who she thought wouldn't survive the night let out its first cry, healthy and loud.
