Chapter 2 : Sausage and Beans

My skin split an inch or so and a fountain of deep red blood pumped out of my arm, lightly covering my T-shirt and reaching my face. Stunned, I stumbled backwards and tripped over my own feet, falling to the floor. Though no longer spurting, blood poured out of me onto the floor causing a sizeable puddle to collect next to me, Paracetamol packets as tiny islands in the middle of the red sea I created. I had gone too deep but I was paralysed, mesmerised, at the liquid coming from my arm like a tap had been turned on somewhere. I was not panicking; I was calm. My mind was growing fuzzy but entirely focussed on my bleeding arm. The truth was, I would die within ten minutes but it didn’t matter; the tablets would do that eventually any way and at that precise moment, I didn’t mind dying when I was feeling like that, calm and peaceful. The bigger the pool of blood, the better my mood became.

Just at that moment, a hand rapped on my door as the handle turned.

“Right Mi, Paul and I have got sausage, mash and bean for dinner. Do you want me to do you some mixed veg as I know you hate….” Her face became deathly pale as she set her eyes on the blood puddle that had now almost spread to the door. “Christ Mia,” Annie shouted, shooting over to me kneeling down in the blood. “Oh my god Mi!”

I was slumped up against the side of my bed trying to grip onto the floor with my dirty fingernails to stop the room going around. Annie pulled my top off over my head and squeezed it around my open wound, holding it above my head. I simply stared. “Paul, call 999!” She screamed again as footsteps ran up the stairs and into the hallway. The door swung open again.

“Wh…. Shit!” I heard three beeps of a number on the phone then with one last smile, happy in my own way to let it all be over, I let the darkness wash over me, embracing the end of time.