I've realized it doesn't take a bullet to die. Nor a shitload of pills, a shitload of drugs, or a shitload of...whatever else kills you with a shitload. Sometimes living just kills you, which is pretty ironic since living meant you certainly weren't dead.

Living is more slower than a bullet or a pill but when it finally destroys your system, you don't really notice. Which means half the people around you are walking zombies just waiting for the funeral, their hearts hollow and their souls deteriorating.

But I knew I was dead or at least dying.

I think I started to die a long time ago with the smell of cigarettes and the whoosh of a ball rolling across a pool table. But death was taking too long. The thud of a heartbeat was still ringing in my ears and I could still think and process and hurt and live. I don't want to be like those people, the walking zombies, the ones who were already dying. I just wanted to get it over with.

But I'd forgotten the bullets.

A very pesky part of my thoughts tries to lighten up the whole situation. Maybe something wanted me to live, some higher force, maybe God.

I doubt it.

I was still here because I was a dumbass who didn't plan out his death as thoroughly as he planned out his TV schedule.

Out of all the things that could go wrong, from the safety being on to almost shooting my foot, the one thing that stops me in my tracks are the bullets. Almost like a tragic, cruel twist to ground me in my torment.

I grit my teeth and I don't know why I do it but I toss the gun. I toss the gun, The Wolf's initials emblazoned glimmering in the dark, and watch it soar into the purple midnight sky. It was like a silver comet as it plummeted into the dark ocean waters with a loud splash!

Something inside of me plummets into the ocean too but I'm not sure what it is. I think it was my motivation, not the motivation to stop staring out at the open ocean in silent fury like an angry idiot, but the motivation to die. That's the thing about suicide, I guess. It was like a never ending cycle; one moment the motivation was there and the next, it was gone with lost attempts, sometimes replaced by meaningless promises or just dead silence.

I walk home, hands shoved in my pockets, not knowing what I feel. It was as if everything that had wallowed and welled up inside of me had plummeted into the ocean with The Wolf's gun. Now I was just numb, waiting for something to fill me up. I think I wanted hope to fill me up, like the sun-girl's laser that had flashed so brilliantly on the horizon. But of course, hope was all a lie.

Hope was lasers, meaningless promises or pretty suburban houses embellished with manicured lawns and minivans in the driveways. When I was younger, hope used to be the suburbs like the quaint city of Rolling Hills where nothing bad ever happened outside of Mrs. Burnsby accidentally feeding her dog Hersheys chocolate.

Hope used to be Rolling Hills in a large, beautiful teal house on 87th street. Hope was white shutters, a manicured lawn with a walkway of rose bushes, a big stereotypical minivan in the driveway, and lights that lit up the beautiful teal house like a warm hug waiting to be received in the night.

The lights are on in the beautiful teal house of 87th street. The lights are on, a big, bright lie, to draw anyone near.

I stop in front of the bright lie and almost consider smoking one of The Wolf's cigarettes still lodged in my pocket, because I was empty and maybe smoke could fill me up.

"Lucky?"

I hear a familiar call; a quiet chortle that breaks the peaceful night of the sleeping neighborhood.

I turn around to see four teenagers across the street and instantly recognize the Orc and his group gathered around the small, grey Porsche parked in the Burnsby driveway. They were unloading camping bags from the trunk and heaving them into the pearly white tudor house that was uncharacteristically dark tonight.

A shiver found its way down my back. The Burnsbys are always home, lights on like the bright lie in the beautiful, teal house and dog barking every thirty minutes at the TV.

The orc snickers. I can see it even under the lights of lies and streetlamps. The orc snickers and so does his friends and they elbow each other playfully, jeering, as they crossed the street towards me.

I would have ran but I was empty, shoes planted on the granite beneath me.

"What ya doin' out here so late, huh?" He asks at a safe distance, a hauntingly safe distance.

"Just out," is what I say but maybe if I was filled, filled up with something, I'd be able to say more but I am a walking corpse, one of the dead, and I don't care that the orc is looking for a fight. I was already gone, just waiting for the next burst of motivation, the next bullet.

"Just out." One of them mocks.

Someone still lingering near the car calls them back, a girl.

"You know you're past your curfew, boy." The orc drawls in a fake accent. For some reason, this makes everyone laugh.

Usually, I'd run.

"I'm going inside, losers!" The girl near the car shouts then with a grin, no longer seeming to care about the orcs in the middle of the street. She picks up a large, pink bag sitting in the driveway and stumbles drunkenly into the house.

The Burnsby dog barks from inside.

"What?" The orc continues, suddenly more edge to his voice. "No smartass remarks this time? You don't have shit to say?"

I shake my head.

He nods, seeming satisfied enough and then spits on the ground before me. I don't flinch. "Foster fag." He spats. The rest of them erupt in 'Ooh's but it doesn't sting. I don't feel anything. The orcs travel like a militia across the street once more.

I don't know what comes over me. I was pretty sure I was completely dead, trickles of life only glowing faintly enough to move a muscle but one simple sentence escapes anyway. It's simple and silent and mechanical. "Better than being ignorant, suburban trash."

The orc whirls around as if he'd heard a war cry and suddenly he's storming across the street again. "What'd you say?" He yells and yanks me up by my shirt and I smell the stench of alcohol.

He is a ravaged mess of words I don't catch besides the frequent 'Fuck'. His eyes are menacing and his grip is harsh. I think the orc lashes out but I don't feel it. I don't feel anything. Not even the thud of being tossed on to the concrete street right on my back.

The orc hovers over me, the rest jeering something I didn't care to hear. Past the orc is the sky and if bullets couldn't get me out of here, I wish a hand would emerge from the sky and scoop me up in its palm. It could take me to Hell and back and it wouldn't matter because anything was better than Paradise where the wolf lingered in the den, where the orcs loitered the trails, where death didn't seem to exist.

The orc is on top of me, stabbing, gnawing, and clawing.

It takes a screech for his head to turn.

Not a screech but a scream, a bloodcurdling scream from inside the Burnsby house.

The girl comes running out, dropping bags in her wake, and hurrying into one of the others' arms. She jabs a finger at the house and the orc's attention is diverted. He rears up and starts to run.

I could have laid sprawled out on the street forever, the dead silence within wallowing in the emptiness of whatever was inside of me.

But The Wolf's den is a bright lie, lighting up the night with its false suburban promises. The Wolf's minivan was in the driveway and the beautiful teal house was waiting, calling, shouting.

As they all rush to the Burnsby orc's tudor house, I somehow get up and face the teal house once more with its bright lights and cherished rose bushes. It is The Wolf's den, pretty and charming, an attraction in the peaceful neighborhood of American dreams and I was about to enter it again. The Wolf's den; where life made an incision in my chest and ripped out my heart. Where I started to die.

---------------------------------

I temporarily forget that it's a Monday night. Mondays were when the most conservative Christians of the neighborhood gathered at the beautiful, teal house, bibles open in their laps and ate chocolate chip cookies The Wolf baked himself (and didn't lie about making them either like Mrs.Burnsby.)

Tonight, The Wolf is sitting in his usual seat in the living room; his favorite comfy, grey sofa that he'd purchased from a sale at Macys that felt like robbery every time one sat on it. Even without the sale, the sofa would have been only five dollars more but The Wolf gave no fucks when it came to budgeting. He was a shopaholic and a foodie, always joking with the supermarket cashiers about how obsessed he was with gourmet cooking.

The Wolf wasn't like the beasts in the stories. He didn't have a coat of fur, sharp, canine teeth, or a gravelly voice that he used to growl, rattling his victims into fear. Instead of fur, he wore navy sweaters and dark, khaki pants with penny loafers. His teeth were straight and shiny from braces when he was younger and good dental hygiene. His voice was one of soprano and so beautiful that he sung at the Stone Ridge church and directed the choir every other Saturday.

He wore a grey sweater tonight, glasses slid up to the bridge of his nose, and reading a passage from the big, silver bible in his lap.

When the front door slammed behind me, all his Christian friends turned in their chairs, eyeing me with a look I knew all too well; pity. Pity for The Wolf because he didn't deserve to put up with such a rebellious Foster boy from Arizona but did it anyway because he was such a loving beast (which was bullshit but I've learned the less power you have, the more likely no one will give a shit.)

"Come join us," The Wolf says. "We were just reviewing the story of Cain and Abel."

I sit down beside Ms. Gordon, the fidgety school teacher who taught Pre-Calc at the local high school, and wish I'd remembered the bullets.

It takes thirty seconds for The Wolf to notice what everyone else had begun to gap at. "Oh, Lucky, your face! What happened?"

I don't say a word. I can't because I know what plummeted into the ocean along with The Wolf's gun; the will to pretend.

I felt it now, something filling me up. It was bubbling up to the surface like it had the moment I'd conjured up the plan to off myself, it was burning past my organs, up my esophagus, and was nearly out my mouth until The Wolf abruptly reached over to place a hand on my shoulder.

His touch is a facade; ridiculously warm and comforting and solid.

"You're bleeding, son! Go on, go to the bathroom!" He urges worriedly.

"What's going on at the Burnsbys?" Ms. Gordon says suddenly as I manage to sit up and head for the stairs, moving to take a peek through the floral curtains The Wolf had proudly picked out himself. The curtains had been costly but he had insisted the quality of decor was a manner even greater than one of money.

Everyone closes their bibles, some still devouring their cookies, to join Ms. Gordon at the window (including The Wolf) but I go upstairs.

It all spills out of me when I get to the bathroom, mixed in the blood leaking from my busted lip. It continues to spill when I grab a sword, the only weapon that lingered to finish them off.

The monsters, the monsters that stalked the grounds of Paradise, tearing at flesh and skin and mocking me were spilling out. Mocking me because I was still here. They danced around me in sing-song, celebrating the fact that my plan had failed. I was still here. I was one of them; the dead ones, the walking zombies, the ones that were dying as they breathed.

My grip is tight on the sword and I use it to fight them off, digging sword into their flesh until I was empty again, waiting for something to fill me up.

The battle is over for now and I clean up. I clean up my bloody lip and whatever the orc had left in his wake. Then I tie a tissue around my battle scar and pull down my sleeve.

The orc had seen the scars once. He and the rest had simply laughed; "Cutting is for girls, you fag."