Pale, moonlit feet on cold cement. They looked like ghost feet, really, almost porcelain in the night. Toes curled over the edge of the ledge, hanging over into The Nothing that lay below.

Bony, knobby knees, shaking with the jelly exhilaration of true fear that's a shade away from giddy excitement. A laugh-sob escapes a trembling mouth, silvery, untouchable skin.

Cold. Dead. Lifeless, except for the rattling breaths of freezing lungs, bludgeoning fear-pulse, and hot, salty tears. There was the silence of true night, naught but an echo of life, a car horn blaring from numerous streets away. No one would see me fall.

I feel silly, standing out here in my pajamas. Really, I'm about to step off this roof ledge and into nothing, while wearing a worn pair of cotton flannels, faded lavender stripes. I wonder what the EMT's will think.

Tonight's the night. Everything has gone as planned, led me right here to this ledge, except for the pajamas. Should I change? It's my last chance to do so, and I really don't want to be found looking silly. Last impressions do matter. These silly, fleeting last thoughts, I know better than to indulge. If I go inside that dreary little apartment, I know I'll panic. I'll not come back to meet my maker at this ledge.

I'm crying. Why am I crying? This is what I want, isn't it? No matter which way I had gone, I would always end up here. Alone, on the edge. It was a matter of time. It's sad, to die in an ugly ghost city like this one. All the grays and sands of concrete, the black starless nights, lonely howls of dogs abandoned in filthy alleyways and echoing gunshots in the darkness. It doesn't matter, anyways. I'll be dead. I am dead, now, the life is gone from me, yet air still fills my lungs and my heart still panics against the cage of my ribs.

I'll step. I know I will. Anything to get rid of that despair, that gnawing, consuming nothing in my chest that may collapse my rib cage, swallow me whole.

One last gasp. One last searching gaze upwards. Is there anyone out there in the blackness, looking down at me? I'm just a lonely little lost girl, beaten down, crushed by the world, and I need something better than this, to be somewhere better than here, even if that's nowhere. Please, please make me better. I don't want to hurt like this anymore.

That's it. Eyes high. One foot off, come on, just step.