⚠️Important content warning⚠️
This chapter contains talk and descriptions of death, suicide, and gore, as well as a gorey drawing at the end. It also contains religious talk. Please do not read or look if you are under fifteen years of age. Thank you.

"I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory."

When I watched the musical Hamilton, I expected there to be nothing for me to relate to. It was based centuries ago in a country I do not live in, whos history I never learned. I could appreciate the music and choreography, seeing as it was impressive and unique, but I had no expectations of personal connection. But this one line struck me.

I think of death so much it consumes my waking moments, and flashes behind my eyelids as I slumber.

When will it be? Will it be quick and sudden? Will it be long and painful?

Perhaps I will die at an old age after a fulfilling life. More likely, I will die young, with little memory left.

I will die, certainly. There is no wonder to that. It has been all too real to me recently that it will happen. I am not afraid to die.

I am afraid of what comes next.

I expect pain, nausea, bile rising in my throat. I expect swaying, like the nights I stay awake until dawn. I expect my eyes to close, for the world to fade into dark and a ringing in my ears.

But then...

What will happen?

Heaven? Hell? Rebirth?

I am a religious man. I believe in my God, but do I? I feel alone. I feel abandoned, left to ponder my own existence with no answer.

I belive in heaven, in hell, in rebirth. I feel the souls of the deceased around me, watching me.

Perhaps I am mad, consumed by paranoia and an idealistic wish to be with those I love, for them to stay with me.

Or perhaps they are there. In the clouds, the grass, the wind, the trees.

But...

Those thoughts occupy little of my time.

I think of death. I think of ripping, crunching, squealing bites into throats or stomachs.

Eyes being torn from sockets and crushed into a paste. Teeth falling out and decaying, the tongue cut out and forced to be swallowed, choking the recipient.

I think of knives, of steel, of glass, claws, teeth. I think of them ripping through flesh and bone and organs. I taste the blood, the bile, the pain.

And I enjoy it.

I think these thoughts, and I enjoy them.

I know it is wrong. I know it is bad. But I cannot help but imagine it, for my brain, my very soul, is ill.

How will I die? I do not know. But, beyond shadow of a doubt, it will be my own doing.

I have no desire to do so, but it is always at the back of my mind. I will not die on someone else's terms, no matter how much I wish.

My impulses may one day get the best of me, and who knows what will happen then. After all, I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory.

Graphic image below