The end, the void, the afterlife, death. Many names and terms for one broad subject and idea. Many philosophers debate on it, scientists attempt to unravel its mysteries. Mages and sorcerers of countless realms try to bind and control it. Many more, however, go about their days ignorant of death, whether out of fear or arrogance in their superficial worth. Me? I feared death.

I was eighteen when it first hit me, really truly gobsmacked me I was going to die. I didn't know when I was going to die or how. I remember I was lying in my room after my high school graduation on my phone reading of some mass shooting in a place far away from me. Watching politicians play their politics, and people offering false condolences to look 'proper'. I always had an overactive mind, likely due to my case of high functioning Asperger's Syndrome, and began imagining I was there in the situation listening to the music. Then hearing fireworks. Somehow I would know ahead of time what was happening, people would begin running and I would suddenly turn around looking heroic as my arm morphed into some sort of railgun and I fired on the assailant. I was a hero. 

Then my thoughts turned mid-thought, as they usually do, and instead of knowing what was happening I was face down on the ground watching feet run passed as blood pooled around like a crimson lake vibrating to the stampede of soon to be slaughtered cattle. 

I remember I began to cry at this moment in my life shuddering beneath my blankets as my mind continued to play out the scene at 8:13 PM without my consent. I was both enraptured and terrified at the visuals I self-presented. From then on I became acutely aware of 'death'. I began to realize I was nearing my twenties, soon my body would stop creating new cells to replace old ones. My body would slowly shut down and wither and I would likely die alone in some apartment as I push everyone away even now. 

I became pale in my thoughts of taking my final breaths, and what scared me, even more, was the thought of what happens when you die. Does it hurt? Do you know you're dying? And the biggest question of all, what about when you finish dying? When your body no longer moves under your direction. When your eyes become devoid of light and flame when no longer your ears hear life's tune.

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In truth, I realize now I wasn't scared of dying. I was scared of being dead. After all, I already died. Only three years after these first thoughts take hold did my last breath release. My brain felt like it was on fire as I suffocated from the flames of my home burning around me. My eyes ran with crusted tears as I had attempted to claw out with my bloodied scrapped hands as timber and wall collapsed upon me. I had felt the wooden beam that had penetrated my abdomen. I felt my life slip, no, ripped away from me as I shook in fear knowing the certainty of my end. People say your life flashes before your eyes, what you did. For me, what flashed was what could have been. 

I saw myself as a doctor, as a teacher, a hero, a white collar worker. I saw myself married with beautiful children, with a dog, a cat, in a big red house and a nice car. So many possibilities snuffed by the flames of an early death, an early end. Part of me found such an end fitting, almost proper for a do nothing like myself. I hardly studied in school, had trouble focusing, and all around lazy. Though I caused no problems, part of me wondered whether or not I was truly not a problem if that makes any sense. I only did what interested me. Playing games, reading, imagining, sleeping, and eating. 

In hindsight, I realize this was a tragedy of wasted opportunity. I was tall, had the body meant for physical activity. I had a quick learning mind and found conversation when in small groups simple and easy to do. I wasn't attractive nor ugly, yet I tossed it away in the solace of sloth in my bedroom. Even in these thoughts I held, my fear of beyond gripped me tightly as the sole chain keeping me alive. My heart pounded as I tried to save myself as sirens blared in the distance.

By the time anyone who could save me arrived, even the chain of my own fear snapped, unable to keep me bound as I had slipped into the grasp of death and its whims.