hey everyone, almost Halloween, so i thought i would take one of my favorite topics and write about it! hope you like it, and each chapter I post there will be a song at the beginning to sort of act as the 'theme song' for that chapter

~Life is Beautiful by Sixx:A.M.~

You can't quit until you try. You can't live until you die. You can't learn to tell the truth, until you learn to lie.

You can't breathe until you choke. You gotta laugh when you're the joke. There's nothing like a funeral to make you feel alive.

Just open your eyes, just open your eyes. And see that life is beautiful. Will you swear on your life, that no one will cry at my funeral?

I know some things you don't. I've done things you won't. There's nothing like a trail of blood to find your way back home.

I was waiting for my hearse. What came next was so much worse. It took a funeral to make me feel alive.

Just open your eyes, just open your eyes. And see that life is beautiful. Will you swear on your life, that no one will cry at my funeral?

Alive… Just open your eyes, just open your eyes. And see that life is beautiful. Will you swear on your life, that no one will cry at my funeral?

Just open your eyes, just open your eyes. And see that life is beautiful. Will you swear on your life, that no one will cry at my funeral?

Just open your eyes, just open your eyes. And see that life is beautiful. Will you swear on your life, that no one will cry at my funeral?

~X…X…X~

"Ari? Is it time to go yet?" Bryan, my brother, asks me from a few steps away. Between him and I there were five gravestones, each was a sickly shade of ashen grey. The names engraved on each were names of my friends. They had died a week before this particular day I came to visit.

"Sure Bryan, but I'd like a few minutes alone please. I'll be there in a second," I reply to him quietly without looking directly at him. He nods even though I couldn't have possibly seen it and turns, heading back to the car. As I turn to look at all the headstones, I see all of their names once again, and I also picture their faces staring out at me. All around the circle of the five graves stood huge oak trees that had to be at least one hundred years old. But yet, the graves were only dug last week. Time itself can be a curious thing, no one knows how to start or stop it. If I could though, I would go back in an instant to save my friends or just be with them for their -and my - last moments. Much to my dismay there could be no such thing that could help me fulfill my wishes.

A murder of crows sounded off overhead in the trees. Each pair of their beady black eyes stared down upon me from their perches. The whisper of a slight breeze came through the colored fall leaves was the only other sound. Thoughts that ran through my head were horrible ones, they were ones of how painful my friends deaths might have been, and if I would be able to see them again. I knelt down and whispered to their headstones, "why did I not go with you? It wasn't your time. I just want to see you one last time!"

Before I knew it I was screaming at the sky, yelling one question over and over again. Why?

I heard someone running toward me, Bryan. The noise stopped when it came to the edge of the trees, he must have seen me. From the minute he left I started to fall apart, now I must look horrific, only a part of what I had once been. My eyes were red and puffy and tears stained my cheeks. Around me, the ground was torn from my rage, grass was ripped up and the once brilliant headstones were now tainted with dirt. Carefully, Bryan made his way over to me and knelt down by my side, trying to comfort me.

"It's okay Ari, they're in a better place…" he began, but as soon as he hesitated I shouted.

"It is NOT okay Bryan! Five of my friends are DEAD! Tell me how that's okay?" After my outburst I ran, I got up and ran from that dreadful cemetery. I would not take any more of this horrible pain I've had to live with for the past week. Everything was just too much.

Stumbling home, I made my way into the kitchen. By then I had my hands on a kitchen knife and began what I thought was the bitter end. I cut a bloody heart into my skin and watched the blood bubble from the wound with a big smile plastered across my face.

~X…X…X~

What? Ariana? Why are you here? Get out! You don't belong here!

Tears formed in my eyes as I heard their voices calling out to me. I pushed my way through an iron wrought gate covered in inches of snow. That one thought slowed me to a stop. Snow? It was only fall… wasn't it? For the moment I brushed the thought aside, then I glanced up to see the shifting scene ahead, it was of a large manor made of red brick and it only had one window.

Then I caught a glimpse of the door closing, but I ran forward quickly and caught it right before the hinges would have shut and locked me out. I shoved the door open again and walked inside, looking around the foyer of the house I observed just how large it was. There was at least thirty feet of open air above me and a grand staircase lead up to the second floor. In the ceiling above, there laid a large attic door that was darker than the wood around it, blood. Just as I discovered that I heard muted footsteps to my left. Turning around the corner I saw one of my dead friends.

"Andrew?" I called out frantically. But he hadn't heard me and kept walking until he reached a door and went directly through it. I cursed at the door when I tried to open it to pursue Andrew. Locked. "How the hell can you do this to me?" I shouted. Seconds later, soft echoes bounced off each of the many walls and I began to hear the faint noises of someone crying. Soon the crying turned into screams that were filled with terror. As I tried to find the source, the ground suddenly fell out from beneath me and the world turned black.

~X…X…X~

Was that whole thing a dream? I woke up in my own home on the blue denim couch in the living room. The sound of banging pots and pans came from the kitchen and I shut my eyes once again. I began to think about what happened before I entered the manor. Last thing I remember I had cut the heart into my wrist. Looking down I saw white bandages wrapped around my hand with blood staining the cloth, so it did happen, I thought to myself. The more I began to think the more my thoughts came back to one statement. Death, really, is the only escape from our own madness. But only few choose to believe in it, and with my friends making the madness grow stronger within me. I want it to end.

And if that was really just a dream…

I want to sleep forever.