I was woken up by murmurs, groans, and what sounded like someone screaming in terror. The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was a worn-out white curtain around the bed I was lying in, the lights flickering on the ceiling, a needle in my bandaged arm, and a bag of blood.
A hospital room—and not a very good one—was my first thought as the smell of diluted disinfectant and loneliness flooded my mind.
No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn't remember the last time I felt any attachment to life. I always felt like I was on the opposite side of the street, like when you watch a romantic movie and at the end, you wonder why those things don't happen in real life.
That's how I decided to end my life. I thought of several alternatives, I think I even wrote them down. I left the most popular ones, but hanging myself could take too long, a train could mutilate me but not kill me, and jumping off a building would leave a horrible spectacle.
If my existence went unnoticed, I wanted my death to be the same. I decided to slit my wrists, a classic but effective cliché, though seeing where I ended up, I doubted that last part. Just another thing to add to my list of failures. I should have died in my room, peacefully. Let them find my body months later, if anyone bothered to look. Unfortunately, I got dizzy from losing so much blood so quickly that I fell onto the living room table.
The noise probably woke up the neighbors, and they decided to call the police, because of course, the dead neighbor next door is easier to handle than the suicidal neighbor next door. Whatever the reason, here I was, staring at the ceiling with its peeling paint, receiving fresh blood, and wondering how much more I had to fail in this life.
"Hello, hello!" said a woman, poking her face between the curtains. I wouldn't have minded even if she were a hallucination from the painkillers and blood loss. She didn't compare to anyone I had ever seen—her hair was black as raven feathers, and her eyes had a blue hue that seemed to shine like two crystals in the dark.
"…Hello…" I responded, quickly shifting my gaze back to the ceiling.
"Let's see what we have here," she said, checking my medical chart. I could see her silhouette moving back and forth behind the curtain. "Oh! A suicide! The first one I've seen today—I mean, the first one still alive," she said with a mocking laugh, bouncing lightly as if excited before throwing the curtains wide open.
I was definitely hallucinating. Yes, she was slender and more attractive than anyone I'd ever seen, but there were no hands holding the curtains—there were huge metallic claws. I was too weak to move and too confused to say anything. "Calm down, breathe deeply, you're hallucinating, you're hallucinating, you're hallucinating," I repeated in my head like a mantra as I watched her walk to the side of my bed and sit at the edge, letting herself fall. She wasn't dressed like a nurse, and clearly, a human wouldn't have claws instead of hands, though her jovial tone annoyed me more.
"You cut your veins, not your tongue. Are you going to scream? No, wait, I know! I can see it in your eyes…" she said, closing hers and scratching her forehead in an exaggeratedly thoughtful way, as if she were a mentalist. "No, you're not hallucinating, so let's drop that. Now then… you can scream," she laughed.
"As long as I focus on your face and not those claws, I think I can keep it together. The guy in the next room probably didn't choose the right place to look, did he?"
"Where… to look…?" Her eyes widened as if she'd just seen a horror movie scene. "Disgusting, pig, you're sick!" She hugged herself as if protecting herself from something, the sound of her claws echoing softly in the room. She clearly didn't get it.
"Ha… look, that's not what I meant…"
"Shut up! First, you don't even flinch at seeing me, then you say weird things. How awful must your life be for this not to freak you out? Anyway…" she announced, raising her voice in a dramatic tone, "A suicidal guy with a shattered reality is just-what-I-need."
I let out a laugh. "Need? Great… all it took was trying to kill myself for someone to need me." With the curtains open, I could catch a glimpse of the nurses walking past the room, but somehow, they didn't seem to see what was happening inside, as if the room had become a confined space. "What do you need me for? You don't look like someone who needs ordinary favors, and as you've probably noticed… I don't seem like someone eager to stay in this world, so maybe you should try your luck with someone else and let me think this was a fever dream."
"Yup! I've found the one," she said, standing up. Her claws rested on my forehead—they were cold, metallic, almost covering my entire face. But for some reason, I didn't try to move. I didn't know if I had lost my sense of danger or if something about her was ensnaring me. "Since you were so eager to die, I guess I can give you a tiny, tiny taste of what it's like… oh, by the way, if you scream, I'll crush your skull, okay? Now just close-your-eyes."
She could clearly crush my skull, and that was not a way I wanted to die at all. The nurses on the next shift would find me with my head turned into minced meat—posthumous attention, and on top of that, for a death like that, didn't appeal to me. So, I obeyed her words. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. The sensation was strange, slow, and at first uncomfortable, with an odd melody of flutes resonating in the background. First, I lost my hearing, then touch. One by one, my senses were stripped away. The experience seemed to last for years until finally, in an instant, even my consciousness disappeared. I don't know how much time passed, but I woke up instantly after that, sitting up quickly in the bed.
"That was… awesome…"
"What!? Awesome!? Sick, pig, disgusting!" she yelled as she squeezed the blood bag, cutting off the flow to my veins. "I showed you death itself, and that's your reaction!?" She frowned and began pacing back and forth around my bed. "Look, the whole skull-crushing thing was a joke, so come on, scream, cry, despair—whatever!" she gestured wildly as she spoke.
"Actually, it felt great… in fact, now I feel worse about myself for not managing to kill myself. I'll make sure the next attempt works," I sighed long and hard as I lay back down. "An eternity without the feeling of worry, without expectations I can't meet. I think the whole skull-crushing thing appeals to me now."
"Eh? No!" She waved her arms frantically, looking like a penguin trying to fly. "I'm not going to kill you, and you're not going to die, got it? I told you, I need you, and I've just confirmed that you'll be useful to me."
"Good luck with that. I hope you're used to disappointment because it's going to happen a lot." For the first time in more years than I could count, I managed to smile, calm and sincere.
"Yes, yes, I get your self-pitying tendencies…" she said, waving her claws up and down as if telling me to shut up. "That was just a little, tiny test. I need to know how much your mind can take before those jokes get overshadowed by despair," she looked at me for a few seconds, then smiled in a sweet way that hid something behind it.
"There's a game starting right now… or I think it's better to call it a race. That's where you come in. You probably want to know what I am and what this is all about, but let's not spoil the surprise… okay?" She climbed onto the bed. I could feel the weight of her body on mine, her claws at the sides of the bed frame, the sound of her voice, and her face inches from mine. "Just say 'I accept,' and soon you'll know what I need you to do." Her breath felt cold against my skin.
"Okay, yeah, fine, I accept. I guess I can kill myself some other day." My eyes met hers, but I found myself focusing on her body. "…Now you've really left me with no place to look."
"Stop saying things like that! This was a serious moment!" she shouted, jumping off the bed like a startled cat. She cleared her throat, trying to regain her composure. "A-ahem… now that you've accepted, let me take you to a place—no! A time that you probably don't remember anymore…" At that moment, her eyes gleamed with an emotion I could swear had everything but good intentions.