Regret.

I don't have any. Nor do I remember anything to feel it. At this point I'm just beating a dead horse, but I really don't have anything to lose. I guess this is how miserable big stock investors can be when inflation hits. To the point of heaving themselves in an anti-romantic removal of responsibility off the nearest overpass, bridge, or onto an unsuspecting commuter's head from the city skylines. And, to be honest, what I'm doing isn't any different.

Sanity. That's a word I probably heard a lot, since the occasional fragment of what was left of me left the impression of a generally thought of but not-so-much "insane" world that I once came from. Ironically, those that lived there would have thought of this little gelatin extrusion as more outlandish. I wonder if whoever's watching me right now thinks the same?

I still can't see, from the time I left those robed people, to now. Everything's too bleary to tell apart form anything else. Try as I might, my porter's face still remained a mystery, though I could guess it wasn't the old man from earlier. This one didn't limp.

With that, here I am, waving myself around. Pardon the lack of analogy, because I really don't have one for what I was doing. A sheer act of delirium and depersonalization melded into one.

What am I even doing?

I waved around for what felt like a minute or so. Surely someone would've noticed by now.

Maybe a little more? Harder?

Shifting all my mass to one side, I hefted it up and over, crashing it all into the bottom of the container.

Again.

Bashed once more. I was lucky I didn't feel pain, especially with how much force I put into that one. But still...

Not enough.

I'm sure there isn't a single thing alive that managed to make as much commotion as I attempted. Music... there was a thing that people used for keeping time. What was it called? That. Something like that came to mind.

Perhaps I was simply too distracted, what with the flailing around, that I didn't notice the change in atmosphere around me. It came all too subtly, quickly, and before I knew it, I had made known my existence to something.

A mask. Only a mask looked down at me from the top view of my container. Almost immediately after seeing it, I stopped. Who wouldn't, when something so startling appears out of the corner of your eye, which is to say the edge of what I perceived to be the corner, though it would be more accurate to say what would be the grayish, blurry area of my attention since I had no eyes.

The mask was nothing ornate, nor was it something used for ceremony or any kind of festivities. A cold, metallic sheen, shaped plainly in the visage of a man, though lacking any defining features to tell how old or young it was. No ears, only a narrow slit for a mouth. No other openings. Not even for the eyes.

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What concerned me was how clearly I could see it, but nothing else. Like a specter floating above, forcing down an overwhelming unease onto me.

"...Looks like I've done it, I think?"

In the end, it didn't matter who my escort to the afterlife turned out to be. Personally, I wanted something a little more dramatic. Black robes, snow-white bodies of pure skeletal grimness, trumpets, or a river awash with blood, but who am I to be so choosy.

Let it come. Let the end drawn out for so long finally bring me to somewhere I don't have to think, don't have to know that I'm not myself anymore. Not in form, not in mind. It's a blessing that I was able to know that, so I could make the decision to do this. Guess I have those bastards who took it all away from me to thank for the opportunity. If they cut anymore off, maybe I... never mind.

I suppose this is where my life should be flashing before my eyes. If I had one.

But nothing happened.

What is this? Is this some kind of joke? Are you mocking how pathetic I look right now?

The mask stared down without a shred of pity. Was I seeing things, or was it beginning to smile?

Come on! At least finish what they started!

No response came. That smile... so empty but condescending, that I couldn't take it.

After seeing that, I couldn't remember what came next. The only thing I can dredge up afterward from those few minutes was that I had flung myself into a desperate rage. Something about all this... why. What did I do to deserve this? Why can't I just die like I want to? I know it's strange, and to those who bear witness to my record it might be, to want death. Understandable, since those that do don't understand one thing about how it feels to lose memories, let alone be spared the knowledge that you are, in fact, missing something of yourself, as I somehow managed to. It's... an excruciating, maddening thing.

When I finally regained some semblance of a rational train of thought, it was gone. With it, all traces of its presence simply vanished, the unease I felt before too. And, from what I can tell, no longer inside the container.

The haze clouding my vision seems to be gone. I'm in a room, dark gray, smooth stone walls, the floor too. What appeared to be the door resembled a hatch with numerous metal reinforcements, no handle or crank to be seen. A light blue glow around the jams indicated it must be powered by something. Maybe electricity? I wasn't sure if the technology existed here. It's a thought though. The same blue glow ringed the light panels overhead.

But more importantly... was the man that stood on the opposite side of the glass window on the other side of the room.

He appeared to be in his twenties, young, and from what I could tell hadn't had a bit of sleep in the past few days, bags nearly hanging down to his cheeks. Ruddy-brown hair, shortly cropped but somehow looked a mess. How a short cut could be that way, I didn't know

A mixture of fascination and disgust looked my way in the form of dark-hazel eyes, as he bounced them between a peculiar device he seemed to be writing on. Going by his reaction, I could tell I wasn't the prettiest thing imaginable. Without eyes of my own, I couldn't really look at myself to appraise how gorgeous I looked right now.

And, just like all the rest of those butchers, he wore the same robes they did, so I didn't have to guess that he was one of them.

After a while, he set down the device, and left the window. A few moments later, the reinforcements on the hatch receded, and it opened for him. Following his lead were some others of his ilk, leading a cart that... had no wheels? It hovered above the ground a couple of inches, a blue glow just like on the door seemed to propel it upward.

With a gesture to his comrades, the man ordered the others to open the hatch on the cart's front end.

I could feel it.

Even without a sense of presence like mine, I would've believed it if there was something in there. And, somehow, I knew it wasn't friendly.

Slowly, I inched away, but found that I already pressed up against the back wall of the room. There wasn't anywhere more to run. But... this is my chance, isn't it? Maybe this thing can end it for me.

The man and his lackeys beat a hasty retreat, closing the hatch behind them.

I suppose I can finally die now?

At the front door of the valley of death, I laid eyes upon my would-be executioner. It had remarkably long teeth.