Short Story by Kaedyn Oliphant-Buchta

I thought I would know what dying felt like, a piercing pain flowing through your body, a sense of peace washing over you, and just like that you were gone. As it turns out being killed feels very different. I was not prepared to be killed, no amount of true crime could prepare me for that. I wish I had spent my last moments doing something worthwhile, instead of doing algebra practice problems as I listen to Taylor Swift on a Friday night. Maybe if I had played “Paper Rings” a bit quieter I would have heard him break in through the back door, maybe if my mom wasn’t working late,  I would have been safe and maybe if my so-called best friend wasn’t out hooking up with my boyfriend, I’d be out with them rather than in my bedroom. Blaming them would be pointless though, they are not the reason I died. The only person responsible for my death is the absolute monster who snuck in with his knives and the belief that he can play God.

He was not God, he wasn’t even brave enough to look at me as he stole my life. The body has a surprising amount of fight in it when one knows their life is on the line. I kicked, bit, and screamed but it did not matter to him. Pain flowed like a spilled glass of water as he started stabbing. As I begged him to stop, he looked away from me and my tears. Coward. Eventually, my brain tried to dull my agony, my pain became vibrations. The buzzing of bees. The tearing of flesh replaced with the sole sound the ticking of the clock on the wall, which the batteries inside of it had long died out. Tick, Tick, Tick. It hid the sound of my mother coming home early, the cry that escaped her when she found me, and the blaring noise of the ambulance which carried my near-lifeless body to the ICU. The coward had run when he heard the lock of the front door click, he left me broken and bloody on the floor. He expected others to clean up his mess as all cowards do.

The world emerged from the fog of my tired sights as I awoke, sitting up, it was clear I was no longer entirely human. To wake up dead is a curious thing, I no longer could feel a breeze or taste the chemical air in the hospital. I could, however, hear sounds that the living would normally overlook, the thumping of the doctor’s heart as he approached my mother, his nervous footsteps clicking on the tile floors.  The heightened audio of the world also meant that my mother’s grief-filled screams jarred my bones and caused my blood to shake. My mother sat like a stone, as people rushed in and out of the waiting room, she didn’t move as minutes stretched into hours and the sun broke through the dark night. My ghostly form sat beside her, a haze, a mist that no one saw. I remained by her side as the officer told her, they had caught my killer. He had been found, covered in my blood, only a mile from my house.  I stayed as she faced him, the coward, and I could have sworn he was able to see me. He turned pale, his eyes grew frightened. I held my finger to shush him before he shrieked. I was tired, ready to move on. I hugged my mother, told her I was okay, and then disappeared for good.