8. Life Contemplation

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At the crossroads, I'm making a choice
To be or not to be

At the crossroads, I'm making a choiceTo be or not to be

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One, or maybe two?

That's how many seconds it was, I think, before the bile rising up my throat became overwhelming and I retched my guts out.

It was just too much on all of my senses. The sight of the pencil sticking out of his eye, the sound of pain he'd uttered which was still ringing in my ears; the odor of blood, the taste of vomit in my mouth; and the snake-like drops of that life-giving liquid, which I could still feel on my hand and wrist. It was all too much.

I killed.

I killed.

Killed.

Killed.

The word repeated itself inside my head, like a curse, a jinx.

Once the throwing up stopped, dizziness took over. I couldn't think straight. My core gave up, but thankfully there was a wall right behind me to support my back.

Killed. . . .

Letting my head droop, I shut my eyelids tight, trying to block out the voice, pleading it to go away, but it didn't. When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw were my hands.

And the blood on them.

They were pressed up against my torso, and the liquid on them had soaked into the sweatshirt I was wearing beneath my unzipped jacket, crimson vivid against white.

I, killed.

I had blood on my hands.

"I'm sorry," I whimpered. "I-I'm sorry. . . ."

But of course, there was no response.

I rubbed my hands vigorously against my shirt, trying to get the blood off. There wasn't much, I'd moved back before it could drip any further than my wrist, so the fabric easily absorbed it and before long, my hands were almost clean of it.

Only in the literal sense.

The white of my shirt was now tainted in ruby smudges. I couldn't bear seeing any more of it on myself, so I immediately zipped up my jacket with jittery fingers. Eyes heavy with unshed tears, my lips started trembling as I tried to keep my face from crumpling into sobs. I wanted to close my eyes and cry and cry till this nightmare ended so that when I opened them, everything would be like it was before all this. But before I could, I saw something. The pool of red, still spreading, was about to reach the tips of my sneakers.

Spontaneity spread from my chest throughout my body and I got up instantly, jumping away from the seemingly endless crimson puddle. My eyes avoided the boy, and hence landed on my school stuff. I quickly picked up my bag, and then my textbook and for a moment, I was almost looking for the pencil.

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