Okay, at least I'll die in peace that I fulfilled one dream of mine. That was I won't be haunting Junior's after I die.

Alright, where were we? Doesn't matter, it's time for me to unleash my master plan. At least that'll be the only plan in my life that has been ever fulfilled.

So I had to walk for another fifteen minutes before my chapter would be over. In an hour, I wouldn't be there. I had deleted all my social media accounts beforehand and burnt all the evidence that'll lead to blaming someone for the decisions I have made. For once in my life, I have made a correct decision, and you'll let someone else take the credit?

That ain't happening.

I was a bit sad that I won't be able to drink my favourite coffee for the last time, or that my last eatable would be some stranger's beverage, but that's not how life works. Throw some glitter and choke me in confetti. Okay, I make no sense, I need to focus for the last time.

I took a sip of the coffee and it tasted nothing like coffee. I spat it out and to my displeasure drew lukewarm attention of passersby towards me. I took another sip, this time smacking my lips. I swear on my life that this wasn't coffee. I didn't know Junior's sold anything but coffee.

I checked the container to read the last two names I wanted to read. Tea and Elikai.

I don't enjoy tea, mostly because my Aunt did and she makes me happy. Tea makes me happy. I didn't want to be happy if I wanted to die. It's like asking a soldier not to wear camouflage to the war. Except, he'll die and that's exactly what I wanted.

Elikai, on the other hand, I would have been delighted to talk to him for the last time. Alas, Elikai not greeting me or not even leaving a text just cements my belief that no one would actually care if I die.

It didn't start in a day, this plan to activate the self-destruction mode. Rome was neither built in a day not destroyed.

It first starts with forgetting that people love you and your absence would matter. Yes, you do measure the estimated height of a tower to jump off and be declared dead-on-arrival, or look at the knife and wonder how would it feel to let the edges of the blade kiss your skin and make you bleed with colours of love and hate at the same time. If you are into chemistry, you might even try to die out of an overdose. It's weird because when you google "common pills whose overdose kills you" the first three search results are suicide helplines. They ask me if I need help. Yes, ma'am, showing me the results of what I actually searched for would be a great help.

I tried to swallow a bottle full of Advil- ibuprofen. Kassy overdosed to kill the life dwelling inside her, I overdosed to kill the life dying inside me. I guess taking lives runs in my family.

Don't worry, I didn't die. I immediately made myself throw up by pushing my fingers deep inside my throat. It was the first time I pray to Lord not to choke myself to death. That's how Kassy killed the life inside her without dying. I just followed her footsteps.

I always did. Kassy is what you'll call the "black sheep" of our family. I always took a step back and contemplated her decisions. She was the walking Craig's List of mistakes that people would love to sell out of their lives.

Here's the catch, I loved her way too much.

I love mum and dada too. They made both of us study in this really expensive high-end school even if we couldn't afford it. For them, education was their gold and stocks to invest in and we were their return.

I think they forgot that mutual funds are subjected to market risks and one should read all the scheme related documents carefully.

In my case, my market risks were extreme. I don't even think I have the strength to remember it without having traumatic flashbacks. There's a reason why I am skipping the faster lane, to keep my last bit of sanity intact.

So, you need to forget that your loved ones love you. That's easy. Easier than most suicide helplines claim that people love you.

You see, on an average day, a lot of people say a lot of hurtful things unintentionally. A sane and mentally healthy person would not take them out of context. That's the key to dissociation, you're unhealthy, and you take things out of context.

It means that if a teacher sees that you're not able to solve the question even if you're given an ample amount of time and asks you to take your seat and let others solve the question, read the subtext as "You're good for nothing. You won't be able to understand a single word ever. You should quit studying and work as a barista instead."

If you ask your teacher about IELTS and they say that the questions are so tough if you get it you get if you don't then you don't; make yourself believe that the teacher is muttering this under his breath, " you don't even have wings of a newborn and you're thinking of flying like an eagle? You would never be able to score well even if your lunch would consist of comprehension passages to munch on. You're just not made for it."

This part, where you fool your mind to see the glass is half empty comes naturally to a human mind, especially an unhealthy mind. It's the negative bias that this rule thrives on and our brain feeds on negative memories.

When your mother asks you to help her with dishes but you say you're not feeling well, she'll definitely talk about a cousin who scored well in bar exam, earned a great law degree and now has people lining up to help her mom with dishes. Here the subtext would read as follows, "Your cousin is the child I'll never have. Gods know how many rosary beads I skipped while counting to have an embarrassment bleed through my body, that too, with a name. I'll die watching you cut my throat for the money I saved for our retirement, just to pay for the money you'll lose to gambling and drinking once you're unemployed. I would have rather killed you than let you show me this miserable fate."

The more you exaggerate the context out of the mundane things that you're bound to listen, the faster your dissociation process becomes. You'll listen to it every day, you'll feel like dying every night.

The best ones are the ones coming out of the people who you truly trust. My dada.

I came out to him that I was contemplating suicide. It started with videos about suicide survivors, then reading books by Slyvia Plath and Edgar Allan Poe, but it ended up nourishing the seed of death that bloomed to life, giving birth to my desire to die. I thought it'll be the most daunting task to find subtext under his words because he is what he speaks. To my surprise, it was a cakewalk.

"Oh, so now telling me that you'll kill yourself if we pressurise you to study would make our Prince escape it all? Is this the new excuse kids have found out? To cut their veins when teachers cut their grades? Go to your bed and I'll slap you if you babble this nonsense again."

Ironically, I tried to find a subtext that wiped the tears I cried holding my breath so that no one would hear it, hugging me and telling me that it'll be okay.

Except, it'll never be.

It took me a year to create this dissociated identity. It has visible symptoms too, but they just clashed with the fact that my trauma pushed me into the shell of an introvert. My past extrovert self would scream on top of his lungs, begging to come out and breath, but my introvert self would call them panic attacks. They were indeed attacks, an assault on my soul that bruised it with trauma. It was like my soul had cancer. Just like the cells kill the cells, my past was the greatest enemy to my future, and my body was fighting with itself. Wars have no survivors to celebrate the victory.

Hence, it was prudential for me to not survive.

So, I entered the lane that I walked up to. No one really lives here, plus there's not much traffic. The lane is dark with enough light from the streetlights to let me change in the dark. I had carried a new outfit, different from the one that I had worn. In this way, it'll be difficult for the police or anyone for that matter to recognise me at one go. I threw the old clothes I had stuffed in the bag into the dustbin. The workers will take the dump tomorrow and it won't matter anymore. I put on a mask because let's make America sanitary again.

Narrow rundown lanes scare me, especially the one I skipped. The flashbacks are nasty and eat a piece of borrowed sanity that own every time I experience one. Today was not the time to face it.
Although my body was aching at the places that had stopped aching years ago, I had to get out of here.

I took a turn and walked up to the old abandoned construction site that was left as it because no one was buying the place. I would go there to watch the stars shimmering and the people crawling on the roads like ants. I would feel hollow, empty and useless like the paper lid on the vanilla ice cream cup that you only lick once and then throw it away. It was better than anything else I felt. I didn't feel the calm in the breeze but I wouldn't feel the torment either. I didn't enjoy the children playing hide and seek but I would loathe it like I used to. I wouldn't sneer at the new parents kissing their infants but I wouldn't mind wondering what would it feel like to have a future.

Sometimes, it feels better to feel nothing than to feel emotions that'll stop making you feel.

The night was perfect, it was cloudless. Just like how I felt. I liked the myth about how the Mediterranean sea reflects the mood of Poseidon. Today, the sky was reflecting my mood. I felt nothing. I felt clear. I felt dead with my eyes open.

I walked up to the building. It had this flower shop near it. Aunt used to own a boutique, way before she sold it to help my dada. She would teach me floriology, or what each flower meant.

She would send me an Azalea every year on my birthday. It was our little secret. She would never tell me what it meant, yet I would stick them in my scrapbook for my eyes to fall in love with the petals that withered like my aunt's skin, year by year, yet the scent would only intensify, just like her joy. It was only last year that I learnt what Azalea truly means. Those were her last words to me. Her last words out of those parched rosy lips.

Take care of yourself for me.

Flowers have a subtext but Aunt Azalea didn't.

So, I walked towards the building, ready to climb up the half-made stairs. Two boys, all cladded in black clothing, with their hoodies up and mask on came close to me. I made out they were standing there for a long time and emerged out of the darkness. One of the boys was surprisingly taller than me, I only know a handful of people who are taller than me.
The other boy was so pitifully short I would have lent him my view of the sky from up here.

None of these details would have mattered to me had they not flashed a gun at me.

"Hand me all you have got and dare not to scream for help, it won't take a blink of an eye for these bullets to pierce you."

~~~
Word count: 2086
A/N
Whatever Kal said about dissociation are actually my own thoughts and it's scary to read them on paper lmao. Thank god I am better now.

Hope you enjoyed it!