A/N: Please…be nice. I've done this before, so I used my own experiences for Canada's feelings during it…future chapters will contain it too…this is my first PruCan…thank you for reading.

Death is the gate that never closes. It's an opportunity that awaits everyone in this pitiful world. Most people don't want to die. They're too happy or cowardly to face death. Some choose death early. They see it as a golden ticket to get out of their hell of a life. Then, there are people like me, who are having a war of attrition with death. They do something that society seems to view as worse than suicide…

As the jagged blade dug into my left wrist near fragile veins, I felt a cold surge run through my body. Blood oozed out like a slow volcano, changing from blood to red when oxygen reached it. I moved the knife and began to carve in a crescent pattern on a blank spot.

It felt good, but at the same time, it felt bad. I knew I was hurting myself and draining my body of its strength. It seemed like something of equivalent exchange. I was making my body hurt instead of my mind, but my mind hurt at the same time.

I had lost track of how many times I had done this. It was over fifteen for sure. The first time I had done it, it brought great pain to me. But after a couple times, it became a usual form of pain release. It felt like a blissful paradise that I never wanted to leave.

But, once I heard a knock on my door, I knew that my plane was boarding, and I couldn't miss it.

"Matthew!" my older brother, Alfred, exclaimed with great volume. He claims it's his actual voice, but I think he yells on purpose for attention. "Let's go!"

"Coming!" I replied with my usually faint voice, hoping he heard me.

Once I heard his footsteps marching away, I put the knife in a Nike shoe box, pushing it back underneath my bed. I looked at my bleeding wrist before wrapping gauze around it and pulling a red sweatshirt on over it. If it did bleed through, nobody could notice.

I grabbed my backpack from beside my door and walked out the door with my brother. He smiled at me brightly. For some insane reason, it seemed to drive girls crazy. That and the fact he was quarterback of the football team, homecoming king two years in a row, and student council president crafted the idea that they had to be pathetically in love with him.

"What took you so long?" Alfred asked, referring to this morning. "You were in your room for, like, ever! You didn't even get to eat breakfast!"

"I was finishing the English homework," I lied quickly, making Alfred blink in confusion. I thought I was a goner before he said,

"We had English homework?"

I was happy my brother wasn't smart.

We reached the high school eventually and walked inside. The football team immediately surrounded Alfred like a pack of hungry piranhas. They slapped him on the back, congratulating him for winning last night's game.

Then, like that, I was invisible to the rest of the world. Not literally, but it felt like I was. I walked to my locker, avoiding the people that were walking right into me, and pushing me aside as if I was scrap paper on a busy desk.

I reached my locker, grabbed my books, and ventured on to English. I was shoved into the wall by a boy at least five inches taller than me. His silver head turned around and I looked into his ruby eyes. He smirked and laughed something that sounded like "Kesesesese!"

"Better watch where you're going, loser!" he teased, running to the back of the classroom. I recognized him as Gilbert Beilschmidt; one of the biggest flirts in the school.

My legs became numb and I froze like the arctic tundra. My heart was racing at one-hundred miles per hour. I just couldn't believe it. He noticed me. But my face was also very heated, like a furnace...what was this feeling?

A/N: Was that good? Please leave a review…this took me a while to write…future chapters will hopefully be longer…? Monthly updates, if not sooner.