Trigger warning: The following prologue contains a reference and description of self-harm and suicide.
For all of those who are sensitive to that topic, do not read or read only with caution. Basically, the death will cause the jump from our modern world into the alternate reality of the 100.
Prologue
It was late and dusk had fallen long ago, when Taylor finally returned to her apartment after another long shift in the emergency room. The kind and happy façade which had been plastered onto her features all day long, melted away immediately when the lock in the door opened with the familiar click of the keys.
Immediately, she felt her energy draining away and giving place to fatigue in her mind. Tiredly, she kicked off her shoes and the sweater she had worn changed into, needing much longer for this simple task than it should ever need. Gone was the false smile and the proud posture, replaced with a deep frown and a slouched posture.
She drudged into the apartment and let her bag drop onto the couch. She only huffed under her breath when the bag slipped from the couch and fell to the ground. She would deal with the mess tomorrow, knowing that the water bottle inside might have just broken, but not having enough energy left to care for the moment. She spent the next few minutes mutely staring out of the window and to the darkness of the night before she finally gathered enough energy to get up again.
Taylor trudged into the bathroom with slow steps, beginning to undress mechanically, before she finally could step into the shower. She did not wait for the water to turn hot though and just stood under the spray of almost icy water without even so much as a flinch. Now that the season outside was slowly but surely merging into winter, the temperature of the water had dropped several degrees.
Taylor stood under the water cascading down her body for a long while until the water actually turned so hot that is was nearly scalding her skin and only then did the pain register in her fogged mind. She reached out and adjusted the temperature of the water slightly so that it was still hot, but bearable before her legs gave away and she sunk to the floor of the shower with a sob falling from her lips.
Although Taylor had always seen a hot shower as a relaxing reward after a long day, but she could not enjoy it tonight. As she cried, the water from the shower washed away her tears too quickly to even sense them trickle down her cheeks.
The day had been hard, exceptionally so. Since she had completed her studies, the reality of the work as an emergency doctor had set in and she had been on a double-shift in the emergency room again and nothing in her studies could have ever prepared her for what happened today.
She did not know for how long she had just been sitting on the floor of the shower, falling deeper and deeper into the despair of her mind until, trying to process what had happened today, before Taylor finally forced herself up and went about washing her hair and body.
The bathroom had filled with humid air and her fingers had wrinkled strongly when Taylor finally stepped out of the shower, but she did not pay it any mind. Taking long and silent showers had turned into the only small luxury nowadays and she did not care one bit about how much water or energy she was wasting with it. Taylor wiped over the surface of the mirror and held her own gaze for a long silent moment.
Watery pale eyes stared back at her with an empty quality to them and she felt her chest constrict painfully. She honestly could not remember now if her eyes ever sparkled with life and joy, although she guessed that they had. At least her family had told her how happy and excited she had appeared about being able to finish her medical studies several years sooner than planned. But now they were dulled by a soul deep exhaustion, at times only glazed over with a sheen of tears.
Taylor shook her head roughly trying to force the images invading her mind again from them. She pulled the towel more closely around her body, before Taylor walked out of the bathroom, picking up her phone and checking it for messages. One missed call from her grandmother, three missed calls from her mother and a few messages from her best friend.
A sigh fell from her lips. Although she had estranged from her family in the last few months, they apparently wanted something from her now. Had she forgotten a birthday or something? Or could they somehow miraculously sense that something was wrong with her today?
Her future and destiny had always been clear to her. Taylor had already known as a young girl that she would grow up to become a doctor and save other peoples life.
A fresh tear rolled down her cheek when she distinctly remembered herself being awarded for her excellent performances in medical school. Her professors had seen so much promise in her that Taylor had been allowed to work in the hospital even earlier than her fellow students and she had graduated not after six but after three years, becoming the youngest doctor ever known with the age of 22.
Her career had continued to accelerate from there and Taylor had quickly specialized as an emergency doctor. She hated to see people suffer and she wanted to save people. Her age had never played a role in her function as a doctor. She had of course been met with prejudice at several points, but she had always been able to proof the people who doubted her abilities wrong.
Last year, exactly one year ago actually, Taylor had been faced with the first death of a patient under her sole care. Although she mostly worked as an emergency doctor, Taylor also took the role as a surgeon, specialized on the removal of tumours.
The patient had been a thirty-year-old female cancer patient. The woman had needed surgery to remove a tumour from her breasts. She had undergone chemotherapy before and her body had been severely weakened as her cancer had been detected very late on. Taylor had already held the consultation with the woman and her worried husband, trying to sooth both of their worries.
It had not been Taylor's first operation, but one of her bigger operations. Taylor had not been the one to do any pre-examination on the woman. So, she could not have known about the woman's weak heart. There had been no complications during the operation, until the woman's heart had suddenly stopped. Together with her team Taylor had tried for almost half an hour to resurrect her, but in the end all she could do was state the woman's time of passing.
The talk she had to held with the woman's husband had been one of the hardest tasks for her in the hospital afterwards and Taylor would forever remember his grief-stricken expression and how his voice had broken time and time again.
It had been hard for her to try and continue her work to the best of her abilities. Taylor's senior colleagues had all told her that the first patient who died under their sole care would forever remain with them as well and she had pushed on. She had been offered therapy, but she had declined it, too proud to admit that she could barely cope anymore.
Taylor now went over into the kitchen, fetching a bottle of wine, already forgoing a glass and instead directly taking a huge sip from the bottle as the last few hours of today flashed back before her.
It had been a normal shift in the emergency room and her double shift had almost been over when Taylor had been called to the one room they had reserved for psychological emergencies. The file she had been given said that her patient was a 35-year-old male who had tried to commit suicide a few hours ago and been found.
Taylor had entered the room with a sympathetic expression on her features, hiding her own exhaustion, but her expression had frozen when her eyes had connected with her patient. She recognized him immediately and judging by the rage and deep hatred which took over the man's expression, he recognized her as well on first glance. It had been the husband of the woman who had passed away a year ago during her surgery.
Taylor had tried to mask her surprise and put on a professional calm façade and approached the man with confident steps.
She had not been prepared for him to break out into a rage and sneering at her with a voice brimming with disgust "Oh, the perfect doctor, fate is indeed cruel. What?" he let out a humourless laugh and his eyes blazed with hatred "Go ahead gifted doctor! You are the reason my wife died! You killed her! Are you going to at least kill me too now?" he concluded in a mocking tone.
Taylor felt her eyes fill with a fresh bout of tears as she clearly remembered the deep hatred inside his eyes. She had been utterly speechless for long moments, standing in front of the man like a dear caught in the headlight, shook to the core.
Thankfully, a colleague of hers had heard what had just happened and took over the patient looking at her in sympathy for her. Taylor felt unable to even say a single word to the man and all she could do was practically flee from the room. She had hidden in one of the toilet stalls for the remaining hour of her shift, trying in vain to control her tears. The realisation of what the grief had done to this man had hit her soul-deep.
What sense was there to continue? Taylor felt that she did not deserve to continue her life when she had had a hand in the reason for the man to try and take his life.
Taylor already had finished a quarter of the wine bottle when she sank down at her desk, thinking of the implication of what she wanted to do now.
She knew that her family would be devasted, but she had disappointed them for a while now. Before, they had been very close, but Taylor had slowly but surely removed herself from their lives, being overwhelmed with the pressure at work and not having the energy to call them more than once a month.
Her hands did not shake when she retrieved a pack of tablets from a drawer of the desk. Without further thought and just a single glance to today's date, Taylor swallowed down the first pill.
Although she never seriously had contemplated suicide before, it now had turned into her only option. She knew well that she had to take two more pills in the course of six hours for them to take effect. She would not risk a failed attempt and she had prepared herself well for this.
"Six hours left" Taylor thought with a slight frown. She had always been impatient and hated waiting with a passion. She had expected to feel something negative with the realisation of what she had just done. But weirdly, she did not feel afraid or anything, instead her mind was finally peacefully calm for once.
Taylor spent a few minutes thinking about how she now wanted to spend her last six hours of life. She distinctly wonders how the man had spent his last day before his attempt, but she had to down another large gulp of wine to force this thought from her mind.
In the end, Taylor spent the last six hours of her life listening to her favourite music and slowly drinking the rest of the wine bottle, taking other pills as well, just to be sure.
She also wrote a goodbye note.
It said: "I am sorry that it has come to this. I have always thought that I understood the emotional burden of being responsible for another life as a doctor and I thought that I could take it. I know that it was not really my fault that his wife died last year during the operation. Her body had just been too weakened by her cancer and her heart had stopped. She had died of cardiac arrest and not because of an error I did. But after today and seeing how her husband is still suffering because of her death and how he had blamed me personally only causes the wounds from the past to reopen. I am blaming myself again as well now and my conscience just cannot take it anymore. There is no other option…".
When her time was almost up, Taylor prepared herself a bath, filled to the brim with sweet smelling water and dressed into a bikini. Taylor did not wonder why she thought it important not to be naked when she is found. She also had pinned a piece of paper to the bathroom door, cautioning whoever found her to not enter and call the police instead. She knew that no one will even think to search for her long before it would be too late. It was Friday night now and the earliest she would really be missed would be Monday morning when she would not show up to her first shift at the emergency room.
Taylor retrieved the container with the poisonous salt out of her closet. She knew that she should have destroyed it, but she was immensely glad to have it now. She dissolved a huge amount of the salt in a glass of water, not even bothering to scale it.
"What should happen? Overdosed on poison?" she thought almost sarcastically as she downed the whole glass in one go, too quickly for the horrid taste to penetrate her sluggish mind. She knew that the pills, she took will prevent her from vomiting it all up before it can take effect. She had done her research and she knew that it would be over quickly now.
Taylor finally retrieved a razor blade and took it with her into the tube as she sat down in the gently steaming water a few moments later. She toyed with it in her slender fingers which were not shaking for once. She guessed that adding blood loss could certainly only make this safer. So, she pressed the thin blade down on into her arm, slicing as deeply as should could into the soft flesh.
Taylor watched the blood begin to pour out of the deep wound with rapt fascination. She would have expected that such a deep cut would hurt immensely, but she did not feel it at all. It took her a second to notice the black dots dancing in front of her eyes and she sighed deeply, feeling her body already relax as the first real smile in months settled onto her lips and all she could think as she began to lose consciousness was "Finally…".
