Hey everyone! this is my fanfiction for The Flash! if you like this story, let me know your thoughts, and I'll keep updating this. Happy reading!
I felt like I was suffocating. That feeling hadn't gone away in ages, and I'd finally reached my tipping point.
Today was the day I was going to kill myself.
Was I terrified? Oh hell yes.
But I was looking forward to it. It wasn't necessarily that I wanted to die, but the fact that I was so tired of living, or doing whatever I'd been doing. Going to school, the pressure of getting a better job, always needing to be the perfect child, never talking back, hating myself for never having the courage to stand up for myself, all those things exhausted me. I knew that I also probably had enough symptoms to call for a diagnosis of depression, but the one time I brought it up with my mother, she screamed at me to stop being weak and grow out of it. That's when I decided-there was no way out of the hamster wheel of my life except death, I supposed. So I had everything planned out to perfection. The three prescription strength painkillers I got off a guy on the street were in a tissue in my purse. And at eight in the evening, I was going to swallow all three at the same time, strip naked, and walk into the Central City Bay and drown.
The fact that I had a plan was calming, in a way. I had an out that was planned and perfect.
So that day, I decided to live my last day of life like, well, it was my last day of life. I skipped my classes, something I'd never done before, and called in sick to work at the nursing home where I spent many hours working as a nursing assistant and phlebotomist. Instead, I spent the morning at the library, immersing myself in slightly trashy romance books. I wondered briefly if I should call Vincent, the one person in the world who could technically fall into the category of friend, (not actively hating him and seeing him about once a year for the past four years had to count for something, right?) but decided against it. He hadn't made any contact with me whatsoever for months, and I supposed that meant he was no longer interested. Around lunch I went to a little café I sometimes went to and bought myself a soda and turkey and cranberry sandwich. Some people thought the combination was disgusting, but I didn't. It was like thanksgiving dinner between two slices of bread, and I wanted to profusely thank the person who made it. I spent time savoring it, and enjoying it, something I didn't usually do because I was in such a rush.
Funny how planning my death made me appreciate life.
The afternoon was full of possibilities, so I did what any girl would do, and window shopped. There are dozens of little boutiques on Main Street, and I wandered down them, looking at the pretty dresses and stuffed animals that seemed to be overflowing on the window displays. There was true excitement in the air, anyone paying attention could feel the buzz of energy that settled over the city like a cloud. STAR Labs, a world famous science center that sat right in the middle of the city was going to turn on the particle accelerator. I wasn't too sure about what it did, exactly, but I knew that it was going to be huge. Traffic was a mess, with news vans making up half of the visitors to Main Street. Reporters were flying around everywhere, talking loudly to people on the phone and with a following of frazzled camera crew trailing behind them.
I paused when I saw the dress hanging in the window. It looked very lonely, and quite sad, but I knew in that moment that I needed to try it on. I opened the door to the shop, noticing the "going out of business!" sign, and looked around. It was mostly empty, with the exception of some clothes, candles, and other knick knacks.
"Can I help you?" an elderly woman asked behind the counter.
"May I try on that dress?" I asked timidly. That was another thing I hated about myself. I could never talk to strangers without fear.
"Of course!" she said with a motherly smile.
I nodded awkwardly and browed the dwindling pile of dresses until I found two that looked like it could fit. Slipping into a dressing room, I avoided looking into a mirror until the dress was on me. Taking a deep breath, I turned around and faced my reflection. I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. The dress fell down to my shins, and had sleeves that ended at my elbow. The deep blue actually made my hair, which was a boring chocolate brown, look shiny and pretty. The neckline was a bit deeper than what I usually went for, but it looked perfect. That's when I decided that this had to be the dress I was going to die in. smiling to myself, I changed my clothes and folded the dress neatly before exiting the dressing room.
"Did you like it?" the woman asked.
I smiled, or tried to force the ends of my lips up. "Yes, I did," I said. "I'd like to purchase it, how much?" I set it on the counter and started for my wallet.
"Take it," she said suddenly, her eyes piercing me.
"What?" I asked.
"It's yours, take it, please," she repeated.
"Why?" I asked the only question that came to mind in the strange turn of events.
"Because you remind me of my granddaughter," was all she said. After a short pause she elaborated. "You two have the same smile."
I found that odd. "I don't smile much," I informed her. I had no idea why I said that.
She nodded, looking off into the distance. "She didn't either. Please, go."
I exited the shop still confused about what happened. The traffic hadn't slowed down one bit, and I had to fight through the crowd in order to get to a coffee shop for my afternoon break. If there was one thing that every person in central city could agree on, it was that independently owned coffee shops were important. Starbucks had tried to buy land a few years ago, but they were kicked out quickly. There were three main shops, Jitters, Marge's, and Sugar Rush. Marge's catered to mostly high end clients, with things on the menu that were exotic, or sounded downright inedible. Sugar Rush and Jitters were for the average humans on the planet. While I passed Jitters, I saw that it was full to bursting and people were crowded around the TV, watching the news, so I decided to move on. Sugar Rush was a larger building, because it was a bakery and coffee shop combined into one storefront. It was quite full, but there was a short line. On a whim, I bought myself a slice of apple pie and chocolate cake, and a creamy latte with extra whipped cream and chocolate syrup, just the way I liked it. I made a promise to myself to only eat sweets for the rest of the day.
By the time I stepped out of Sugar Rush it was dark and slightly breezy. There was a throng of people on the sidewalk, holding signs.
"Stop the accelerator!" one woman screamed. The crowd cheered in support.
"Excuse me," I muttered and tried to push my way through without causing myself or anyone else bodily injury.
A flyer was rudely shoved in my face, and I started shoving my way through the crowd, taking a deep breath once I got out the other side of the crowd. My glasses were smeared with fingerprints, and I had to spend a few moments catching my breath.
"Are you alright?" someone asked.
I continued cleaning my glasses, guessing the person was talking to someone else. But when a hand touched my shoulder I jumped.
"Are you alright?" the man repeated.
I nodded mutely.
"I don't understand why they want to stop it," he said, oblivious to my discomfort. I hardly ever talked to strangers except at work or when ordering food, so I hoped that nodding enough times would drop the conversation. "It's groundbreaking! Revolutionary! How could anyone want to not do this? Think of the possibilities, the lives this could change," he trailed off.
I took the opportunity and bolted. I walked down the street quickly and kept my head down, battling my way through the thickening crowd. Ducking into an alley, I calmed my breathing and smoothed out imaginary wrinkles in my shirt. Just at that moment something cold and slimy crawled down my back. I opened my mouth to scream, but then realized that it was raining. It was raining very, very hard. People started moving faster to get under shelter, umbrellas were deployed and there were shrieks both of surprise and laughter.
I zipped up my jacket and kept moving. The wind picked up, and now the rain was falling sideways, making me wonder why I ever bother cleaning my glasses anymore. Not caring where I was going, I stepped into a small bookstore to wait out the rain. Some other people were there, and the woman behind the counter smiled.
"Getting out of the rain?" she asked. "You're the tenth person in five minutes. I'll say, it's good for business."
"I bet," I offered, and sat down in a chair. For something to do, I pulled out my phone and immediately saw the texts and voicemails from my mom. Every single one of them demanded that I call her, come home, pick up groceries, and call her immediately, and that if I dared talk back to her or not do as she says all hell would break loose. I paused for a moment, then deleted everything from my phone. There was no love lost between my mother and I. she always reminded me that I was a mistake and burden for as long as I could remember. Is it any wonder that I'd dreamt, and now had a plan of escaping that?
The moment the rain stopped I ran to the nearest bakery and got myself a slice of three layer chocolate cake with mint whipped cream filling and a ganache topping with a cup of coffee. It was nearing seven when I finished, and I gave the waitress an extra tip and started walking down to the bay. The rain had slowed down a little but the wind was still bitterly cold, and there were even bolts of lightning lighting up the sky at random moments. I walked faster to the water, and I saw that looking around, there were no people loitering around. A couple people were walking toward the city, but I was the only one walking away from it. I checked my watch, and saw that it was 7:50. I took the three pills from my pocket and quickly swallowed them all with a swig of water. They tasted funny going down my throat, but I drank some more water and it went away.
Slowly, I took off my shoes and socks, and put them in a pile next to a large piece of driftwood. I peeled my jeans off, folding those as well. My shirt was next, and taking that off was the most difficult, because it was freezing. But I did what I had to do, and folded that as well. I put the dress on, and tied my hair back and started walking into the water. The rocks dug into my feet, but I refused to stop walking. Higher and higher the water rose around me, hitting my ankles, the hem of the dress, then my knees, waist, chest, and neck. I rolled onto my back, shivering violently. Even though I was terrified, I felt right. I was doing the right thing. I couldn't feel anything from the waist down, my arms were prickling, but even that was fading. Suddenly there was a huge clap of thunder, louder than I'd ever heard anything.
Some people argue that humans have a sixth sense, instinct, if you will. That sick twisting of your gut when you know something is wrong, terribly, terribly wrong, but can't put your finger on it. I gasped, dragging cold air into my even colder lungs and tried to fight the nausea. For some insane reason I righted myself with effort, and looked around. Time seemed to flow unevenly. It felt like my ears were clogged with cotton, but I chalked that up to me being mostly dead already. Suddenly the water around me started rising. Not up the coast, but up, as in, vertically. It seemed like I was trapped in some odd other dimension, and I just watched this happen while not actually caring that it was happening. Looking toward the city, I saw a ripple in the air, like the particles were moving in a strange pattern.
And it was coming straight for me.
I knew logically that there was nothing I could do, that I would probably die from this, whatever it was, but that didn't stop me from throwing my arms up to protect my face. See what I said about instinct? When the wave hit me, it felt, truly, like death itself. I couldn't breathe, black dots were dancing around my field of vision, and I couldn't unlock my frozen muscles. When the wave of air passed through me and continued, I stayed frozen. I felt as though my entire body was different now. I felt like I was buzzing, and I was no longer freezing cold. It felt as though every small part of me was changed somehow. But I didn't pay much attention to it, because at that moment, either the painkillers hit or I just stopped being able to comprehend what happened, because I passed out and fell back into the water.