Running. That's all I could think of as my feet slapped slack against the sidewalk. I was running, from something, someone, and I couldn't stop for one second or else it would be the end. All I could do was run. Watching as my legs tried to keep up with the rest of my body, and watching as my ginger hair flowing in the wind, slapping me in the face over and over and over again like a whip. I listened, my rushed breathing coming out in gasps, as my heart pounded on in my ears like a never ending drumbeat. I had to run. There was no stopping me. I had to run from the past, from the horrible trainwreck that was my life. I had to run from the memories. The memories of them … o-of the incident. I looked down at my hands for a brief moment, the crimson color of blood staining them, dripping slowly down my arms like tears. I stopped running, my feet glued to the cement like something was holding me in place. This wasn't my blood. It was his. I had shot him. I had picked up his gun and shot him. I had killed somebody. I had killed a human being, a man, a person with a family and a life just like me, but I had killed him. I h-had … committed murder. I had broken the law, said goodbye to reason, and I had popped a bullet in someone's heart. I had tore a hole straight through someone's body. A bloody, gaping hole. A bloody gaping hole that had poured onto my hand as he had rushed to grab me, yelling at me to stay. A bloody gaping hole that had mixed with the blood from my cut hand and created a mixture of red paint on the floor. Blood that was h-his. Blood that was from his hand. Not my blood. It was his blood. The blood of the person I had killed. Proof that I had been there. Proof that I was anything but sane. Proof that h-he was dead. I had k-killed someone. I had k-killed him … I had killed. I killed. He was gone. He was dead. Dead. As my thoughts whirled around in my head going in circles, making my brain hurt with every thought black seemed to edge its way into my vision getting closer and closer and closer until finally everything was black. And that's when I felt my legs leave me and my body fly through the air, nothing but peace and the numbness of silence filling my thoughts.
Dark. All I could see was dark. I felt like I was in another world. I was floating, soaring through the black and the grey and the nothingness. I felt nothing. No happiness, no pain, no sadness, no anger. I could see nothing but ebony, and I could hear nothing but a constant beeping like a calming buzz that made me feel nothing but peace. I looked out into the black, my hand reaching out for something. Anything. But there was nothing. Just me and the dark. Was I dead? Was this what came after? Wait … no. It couldn't be. Could it? Peaceful. Dark. was that really all that came after? This was too simple. Too lonely. Death was complicated. It was letting go of everything you've ever loved and turning to something unknown. It was certainly more difficult than this seemed to be. This was floating. This was on the edge. This was boring, and obvious and simple. This was not death. Not even close to it. This was something different, something just as simple. Concentrate. Where were you last? I looked down at my hands and like a slap to the face everything came back. Blood. Crimson paint coating my hands and arms as I ran down the sidewalk. And him. A gun in my hand as I shot a hole straight through his heart. Like a punch to the gut, pain covered my body. My body no longer floating as I fell straight down, the peace, and numbness I had once felt replaced with fear and guilt and pain. As my heart beat faster and faster, a white patch of light getting closer and closer to me as I reached out and grasped it with both hands. I didn't know where it would lead me, but anything was better than this. Anything was better than remembering.