The Pull On My Flesh Was Just Too Strong Stifled The Choice And The Air In My Lungs Better Not To Breathe Than To Breathe A Lie 'Cause When I Opened My Body I Breathe In A Lie

At first it's silent, and then, then there's so much noise.

Someone's screaming - I don't know whom. At first I go with the logical explanation and think perhaps its me, but as I try to close my lips and silence the scream I find that my lips don't work - my mouth won't work, and nothing will come out.

It's not me screaming.

The thought of company in one's last moments is both calming and absolute daunting, because fuck - I never wanted anyone to see me like this, but it was good to have the record set straight - a part of me wanted people to know it was this way with a gun to my head and not just an accident.

Part of me wanted people to know I was hurting.

That was the part that wanted me to be the one screaming out, the part that screamed out when I turned to my friends and the part that screamed out for help - the part of me that was fourteen again and wanted to stop this all before it had even began.

I called that part of me stupid but really it was the only part of me in the right, and it was weird, so fucking weird that only now, only in my imminent death that I came to realise that.

Perhaps I would have even laughed, I mean if I found it funny instead of horribly relieving - it felt weird to be so empty and so absolutely insignificant, to consider yourself dead, even. It was awfully enlightening and it was truly said that my moments of enlightenment would also be my last moments of all.

I think perhaps this final feeling of content and success would be something I would love to treasure and keep safe, because if I felt like this all the time I would never feel like I wanted to put that bullet in my brains in the first place.

Isn't that odd?

I barely even want this anymore.

I just want this happy feeling, because it's happier than I've ever been before - it's something new and the last thing I'll have. Perhaps that's comforting to know that despite my situation, I found myself dying a happy death.

But I can't help but wonder what would have happened if I never pulled the trigger and if I never picked up the first blade? Perhaps if I'd gotten to a different high school entirely and that I'd never fell into a trap like this.

The thing about traps though, is that they're built so you can't get out - they're built to hold you until you die and I guess setting traps for yourself isn't the best idea I've ever had...

I guess perhaps I regret it now.

But it's too late and it's too hard to think when the only thing I can hear is screaming - endless, painfully loud screaming and crying of distorted words and cries - it's horrible and it doesn't stop.

But then it does.

But really, the screaming didn't stop, I did.

-

"It's a stupid idea." He says - the boy. Young, yet somehow tall and mature looking with dark hair and eyes that look like they've seen more than they would have liked to.

"Why?" She asks, her offense hidden inside herself as she folds her arm, pouting at him and trying not to look to upset or too much like she likes him, because she does. It's just that neither of them know that yet.

"I'll die or something if I climb that tree." The second boy adds - he knows. He knows that they like each other but he doesn't know why the first boy always looks so mature and sad. The second boy is younger than the both of them with shorter dark hair and a smile that's never vacant.

"You won't die. You'll never die. You're superman, remember? Superman doesn't die." The girl continues with a grin the Cheshire Cat would be certain to be jealous of. She's young enough to be sure of her words and puts them through with the most sincerity.

"He's not really superman, though, Ellie." The first boy spoils the girl's excitement with the brutal reality of the second boy's very mortal state. The second boy knew this too, but 'Ellie' didn't, but she did now.

And neither of the knew it, but that was when she started to grow up and everything went wrong, because she now works as a stripper and she's still waiting for Superman to be real and whisk her away.

And perhaps he does, because she disappears, leaving the two boys alone momentarily, until a third boy - younger than the both of them takes her place and the scene fades from the back garden to the living room.

"Can I play?" Asks the third boy, sitting down on the sofa between the two boys who have aged since they were with her. The first boy still looks just as troubled and the second boy is still not superman and he's still not dead - they're just older, that's all.

"No, you can't." The second boy answers, not intending to particularly mean to the younger boy at all, simply answering like seven year olds do.

"Why not?" Comes the third boy's reply, not taking 'no' for an answer and grabbing the video game controller from the second boy's hands, attempting to play in his place and crashing the virtual car in the process.

"You're such a little shit - you don't know anything, go away!" Screams the first boy, his eyes practically bulging out from the sockets - the left socket being raw and bruised with a reason that no one, besides him knows. The second boy is younger so he doesn't ask further - he has this sort of toxically never-ending trust and respect for his elders. The first boy knows this and most definitely abuses it.

"That's a swear!" The third boy exclaims, blushing a bright red like he's never heard anyone say it aloud before, but he knows the word and he has and the first boy knows why.

The second boy doesn't. The second boy just keeps quiet because he's a little scared of the first boy when he gets angry. The second boy thinks the first boy acts like his daddy when he gets angry and no one likes his daddy, not even his mummy.

"Yes it fucking is." The first boy continues and the third boy runs off in tears, leaving the two older boys alone with their video game - the first boy is happy, complacent and almost proud, but the second boy is not, he never is, he's just scared.

He doesn't make a good superman at all.

And then the second boy doesn't fade away, he simply is pulled up into the air and left to watch in a god like manner as the third boy returns and the first and third boys walk out the door and never return to their house again, and two months later, the daddy does too.

The second boy, now the only boy is put back down in his own house and the door is locked behind him - he's older by a few years - ten now, and he doesn't even remember the girl or the other boys anymore.

He's a different person now. He's sat on his bed - superman duvet covers and he's playing an acoustic guitar, or at least he's trying to, but the chords just don't sound right and he gives up soon enough, putting the guitar away under his bed where it slowly fades away and the boy ages another year.

His hair's a little longer, yet he still remains there, sat on his bed, his eyes fixated upon the class photo pinned to his wardrobe door. He doesn't particularly want to look at it; he just wants to block the screaming out.

It's awfully loud and it really never seems to stop. He knows it's coming from downstairs and he knows his door is locked and he can't investigate and perhaps that's the reason why and perhaps he shouldn’t.

He puts that thought away and falls back against his bed, falling asleep and waking up age thirteen.

The thirteen year old boy's room is different - darker, without the superman duvet or the guitar or the class photo but with another boy sat on his bed.

The 'second' boy doesn't trust the new boy - his hair sticks out in every direction and he looks like he's more than a little insane, but the two boys have something in common - a total lack of friends and the second boy reckons everything's fine until the other boy produces a lighter from his pocket with a grin.

"Have you ever seen one of these before?" The lighter wielding boy asks with a grin as he flicks the switch of the lighter, using it like he has before. And the second boy realises just how little he knows about the boy sat in his bedroom and he just can't think of a polite manner in which to get rid of him before he sets his whole body alight.

"It'll take that silence as a no then." The boy finishes for himself, pulling his finger off the fiery trigger and holding the lighter out to the second boy, who can't help but look at him in surprise. "Want a go, c'mon?"

The second boy isn't stupid and immediately shakes his head in response, knowing the dangers of lighters and fire.

The new boy laughs, grabbing a crisp from the packet beside him and holding it up to the lighter and setting it alight, watching in horrific mesmerisation as it burns to a black under the flames, before he blows the fire out, holding a burnt crisp between his fingers and a grin upon his lips.

"A crisp burnt to the crisp, huh?" He adds, laughing at his own joke, tossing the blackened crisp elsewhere and looking up at the second boy as if he's being ridiculous. "Seriously, it's harmless, c'mon, have a go."

And the second boy is pretty stupid, because he does, but he can't. He can't quite blow it out and everything goes wrong at the flick of a fiery trigger. He passes the burning crisp to the other boy in a frenzy, who of course drops it in reflex, and then the carpet, is set alight.

And nobody ever stops screaming.

And the fire services aren't too pleased.

And the second boy's mother never let’s the new boy stay around again, and secretly the second boy is overjoyed.

But he gets this adrenaline rush as it happens - it's so weird, because it's not something he would have expected, but it's wonderful and the second boy learns that wonderfully dangerous things happen as you pull the trigger.

The second boy grows so much older then, he's nearly an adult now, and his hair is longer still, and he looks almost manly, perhaps if he didn't have such a feminine face, and he's in his bedroom again.

He's alone this time.

He thinks about stupid things when he's alone and he knows it. Perhaps that's why he has this awful habit of isolating himself completely. Something about the stupidity of these facts alight that same adrenaline in him, and when's alone there's no one to stop him.

Something about today seems so important and he's tired of the fact that he's the only one who seems to take notice of this, and he doesn't know it's simply because the special day is only for him, because for anyone else, today is just the same as yesterday and tomorrow.

But the second boy doesn't have the same tomorrow at all.

The second boy likes thinking stupid thoughts and he likes not letting others telling him what to do and he likes not being scared of anyone, or at least not having anyone to be scared of and he loves the way he can almost feel the goose bumps on his skin.

And he remembers the other boy with the lighter and the adrenaline that made everything so clear.

Most of all, the second boys likes making stupid decisions and pulling triggers, so he combines the two with not a fiery trigger, but a deathly one and as the bullet hits his brain, he disappears too.

And she's just stood there screaming, and he's wrong because she cares so much more than when her boyfriend's cat died.

-

And when I wake up I don't remember where I am or who I am or what I'm doing in the all so white and clinically smelling emergency room, and why I'm not dead, because I know this isn't heaven - I know that almost immediately, because I don't believe in heaven and hell and if I was going anyway it would really be hell.

Also I could practically hear my heartbeat thudding in my chest, and I could barely make out anything in the room, my vision fuzzing out a little and I tried to care a little more than I did, and then it all came back - my dream.

My dream.

It wasn't a dream though, because dreams were supposed to be not real, pretend, temporary, but this was all real - this had all happened, and I guess that when they say your life flashes before your eyes, I guess it really does. I had always been curious and really I could have just asked Mike-

Fuck, Mike. I couldn't be a fucking ghost, could I? Fuck... I... no, this was not. I didn't want to be alive, but I wanted to be stuck in the limbo between life and death even less.

I couldn't piece things together at all - the only thing remaining solidly in my mind was the screaming, the endless screaming and god, it was so fucking quiet now and my ears were beginning to ring, leaving me to the rather anti climax conclusion that I was alone.

And it was weird because now I didn't feel alone, I just thought of the thirteen year old little boy that did and how it remained that way even when he was seventeen. At that age, he still thought things would get better, but they didn't, and part of me felt guilty because I'd let him down, I'd let myself down and part of me wanted to ensure him that by eighteen it would get better.

Eighteen was such a weird age.

I never really reckoned I'd make it to eighteen and part of me still felt that to be horribly surreal right now, and I couldn't help but get the notion that I didn't really want this, I just wanted the friends to leave, the voice to shut up and the screaming to stop and that all had now. And I was so alone now, but I didn't feel it anymore, and there was really this horrible sense of complacency I found in this hospital bed.

"Kellin..." And at my name ever came back, and the complacency drifted away just as quickly as it had came on, leaving me to face to face with my own mother, and she was particularly distraught looking too. I guess I couldn't blame her, but I did. "Why? Why did you try and do this... why... I... Kellin, I didn't even know and your arms, your arms... you've been feeling like this and I didn't even know! You could have died if your hand didn't shake and the gun didn't slip, the bullet only skimming the side of your head!" She exclaimed, breaking down into tears and I felt myself awkwardly swinging my arm around her as I struggled to prevent my mother from crying, because soon enough the both of us would be. "Why?" She croaked out against my chest.

"I....." I let out a sigh, my eyes drawing back upwards, fixating upon the whitewashed ceiling of the empty hospital ward, wondering how the hell I could possibly answer a question like this, especially when I was answering my mother. "I... just... I felt like there was nothing else in the world that could make me stop hurting other than stopping myself all together..."

"Kellin, please, honey, it's okay, please don't do this again!" She pulled away slightly, sitting down on the bed beside me and wiping her eyes. "We can talk about this, yeah? Get you a therapist or whatever, we'll make it through this, yeah?"

"I don't want a therapist, mum." I pressed my words into her sternly, ensuring my point got across. "I just... I think, it's been getting better anyway, I just had a bad day, and then I just couldn't do anything about it, and I got panicked and... I got rid of my blades a few weeks ago and I just wanted to cut to make the pain stop and I couldn't do that anyway, so I just blew things out of proportion I guess..."

"I'm so proud of you for trying to stop though... I... just... I've taken the gun now. You should have gotten rid of the gun too." She told me, trying her best not to cry and still comfort me at the same time, which really I had to give her credit for because she was handling the fact that her son tried to kill himself really well in fact. I had expected she'd probably end up killing me herself, but obviously that was not the case. "I just feel so bad knowing you were alone through all of this, Kellin..."

"I wasn't alone, I... my friend and my boyfriend knew." I reassured her, forgetting just what I had accidentally let slip and only picking up on it when she did.

"Boyfriend?" She exclaimed, her eyes widening as she let out a chuckle. "I guess it isn't that surprising, though. Is he a good guy?"

"I... I... uhh..." I stuttered over my words, unsure how to react to just how casually she'd handled this. "He's called Vic, and he's head boy, actually." I couldn't help but smirk to myself at that, because he was really the only reason anyone thought I was a good kid at all.

"Impressive." She winked at me, her tears fading away as a smile took hold of her face. "I'd like to meet him sometime."

"Yeah, he helped me a lot mum, without him, I probably would have actually died..." I let the truth slip as I realised it myself and had to stop for a moment in response.

"Then, I want to thank him too. I want to thank him for keeping you safe, because Kellin, you don't deserve any of this at all."

Hey guys:) I hope you enjoyed, and if you didn't get it, basically the part in italics is supposed to be what he's dreaming when's he unconscious, and this will be explained further in the next few chapters, but it's important - trust me;) I'd appreciate it if you left a vote and/or a comment if you enjoyed:) I love you guys<3