"You're standing on the precipice of a cliff.

Step forward and smash into the ground below

or stay where you are and endure constant

mockery; the choice is yours."

–I don't want to go to work, no matter what anyone says!

Author: Lumina Greyrat

Prologue

I was a 34-year old woman, unemployed and was living with my parents. I thought myself to be a pretty nice person, but my looks didn't do me any favors, and I was scared to step on a weighing scale. In the midst of regretting my entire life, I thought back on just why I've been homeless for three hours.

Before this, I was your typical shut-in bum with zero working experience and had been leeching off my parents. But one day, completely out of the blue, they died. Obviously, being a shut-in meant I wasn't just going to drop everything and just go to my parents' funeral. Nor to the family gathering.

It was really shocking to be suddenly kicked out of that house afterwards.

I was halfway through a BL scene in my favorite ero game, and had gotten tissues out and everything when my siblings barged into my room. They yelled at me, called me a "worthless hag," and thrust a letter officially disowning me in my face. I was in shock. Really, what did I ever do to them? After saying that outloud, I got a fist to the face and my computer was smashed to bits. I cried out, I had all my files on there, so I couldn't just lose it like that. I mustered up my strength and threw a punch at my brother. It didn't connect. They beat the crap out of me, and there was simply nothing I could do other than to blubber endlessly. It just wasn't fair.

What the hell was I supposed to do now?

I knew the basics, sure. Get a part-time job, earn some money, stay somewhere until I'm on my feet again. But the chances of someone hiring me as I looked right now were slim to none. Who was I kidding? My life was over.

"If only I could go back and do it all over again," I said, as it began to rain. Seriously, where did it all go so damn wrong?

I wasn't always this shitty. I was praised as a kid for being intelligent to a degree, and I got my head stuck in the clouds when I became gifted at writing and coding. I went to a decent junior high, joined a writing club, and asked my parents for a computer so I could practice.

It really wasn't until high school, or the last year of it, when things really went to shit.

I can't forget it. One day, I was waiting in a lunch line alone when I saw someone cutting the line. I, for whatever reason, decided to give this guy a piece of my mind. I wasn't particularly intimidating, but I felt like I could scare off some boy if I talked enough shit.

But as my luck would have it, this guy wasn't just some boy, he was one of those real nasty upperclassmen. The ones with friends in all sorts of scary places. That bastard and his friends beat me up and took pictures of my body against my will, threatening to post them online if I didn't do exactly what they told me.

I was forced to give up on my entire life savings buying them things and wore myself out doing errands and all sorts of shit for them. It was only when I tried to tell them that I had no more money to spend and that I was tired of their shit when it all blew up in my face.

They posted the pictures online. I only found out after a heard people whispering all around me in class, and when a perverted looking creep came up to me and asked if he could fuck me. My entire reputation was torn to shambles. My so-called "friends" wouldn't go near me, and I started being bullied and called names nonstop.

I was completely isolated.

I stopped going to school for a month. My siblings and parents saw how I was, they told me to keep hanging on. When I eventually came back to school, I was overwhelmed by all of the responsibilities I had left to rot, and was bashed by teacher and student alike. At the end of the day, I was nearly sexually assaulted by one of the upperclassman's friends. I barely managed to escape, and went to my room and tried to self harm. My brother found me in the middle of it, and calmed me down enough to go to sleep.

I never went back to school after that. I tried to get back into coding, but it didn't stick. I developed an interest in niche hobbies thanks to the internet. Despite that, I gave up on all of them before they went anywhere. The second I saw somebody else do it better than I could, I dropped it. To an outsider, it probably looked like I was just playing around and having fun. In reality, I was locked inside my shell with nothing else to do during my time alone.

Well, that's probably just yet another excuse. I probably would have been better off using my writing skill and doing something with it, maybe even writing fanfiction or posting a blog.

Those were the people I laughed at.

"This shit really sucks," I'd snort while making fun of their creations, as if I had any room to speak about such a thing.

I really wanted to go back to the education system, ideally junior high, but when I thought of the events that had transpired, I shuddered, and decided to put it off.

I sighed. Why hadn't I ever bothered to achieve anything before now? I excused my lack of action by thinking, "It's all because of other people. I never did anything wrong." That didn't hold up very well 10 years later, nor 15.

If I had not simply told myself that over and over, i could have–

It didn't matter now. No matter how much I thought about the past, it was there, set in stone, and nothing could ever change it.

In the middle of the downpour, I could hear people arguing. I really wanted nothing to do with that. Especially not now.

"Look, Nanahoshi. calm down and listen to me. I–"

"No, listen to what I have to say!"

When I peeked across the corner, I saw three high schoolers in the middle of what looked to be a lover's quarrel. There were two boys and a girl, dressed in the now-vanishingly rare tsume-eri jackets and a sailor suit, respectively. One of the boys was in a verbal spat with the girl, and the other boy was trying to break it up, but he was ignored.

Yeah, can't say I've been in a situation like that before. All of my previous relationships went nowhere and rarely lasted more than two months. I've had arguments with partners before, but they all ended with "Don't talk to me again." before they could get too heated.

In the middle of my reminiscing, I noticed something. There was a truck speeding right

toward the group of three students. The driver must've passed out or something similar.

The kids hadn't noticed yet.

"Ah… h-hey, watch… watch out!" I shouted, or at least attempted to. It'd been so long since I held a conversation that my vocal cords refused to cooperate with me.

I knew I had to help them, but yet I didn't know how. I just had a gut feeling that I'd regret my pitiful existence even more if I didn't do anything.

I steeled myself to save them. The truck was speeding closer every second. The worst outcome that could happen is me being splattered on the side of the road. I'd feel bad for anyone who would have to see that, but getting them out of harm's way would at least provide me some solace after the wreck that was my life.

I staggered as I began to run. My lack of physical activity made my legs ache in pain. For the first time in my life, I wished I had gotten more protein.

The boy who'd been yelling noticed the truck approaching and drew the girl close to him. The other boy had looked away and hadn't spotted the truck yet. I grabbed him by the collar and yanked him behind me with all my might, then pushed him out of the vehicle's path.

All that was left was the other two. Before I could think further about that, though, my eyes were blinded by the headlights of the truck. I'd tried to pull the boy to safety, but in doing so, I had simply swapped places with him.

The instant before the truck made contact, a light blossomed behind me. It was a sudden light, and I thought my life was going to flash before my eyes like what they say.

My train of thought was immediately cut off as I was struck by a truck more than fifty times my weight and thrown against a concrete wall.

The air was forced out of my lungs, and I groaned, "Hurgh!"

I couldn't speak or breathe, but I was still hanging on. I wasn't dead yet, I told myself desperately.

However, the truck was still moving. I was pinned to the concrete, squashed like a tomato, and then, I was dead.