Eun-ji : "Hey, you know I never believed in fate, but maybe I do now, haha just a little. I am glad I met you. Thank you for taking care of me all this while. I am sorry :')"

"That's what she said"

I was at an internet cafe at the time, I had my phone on silent. By the time I saw the voice note, I already had 10 missed calls from an unknown number, when I called back a frantic voice told me "Eun-ji has jumped into the river, police are searching for her."

Next day they found her body 12 kilometres down the stream from where she had jumped from.

It's been 3 years since then.

"So, this is the last I would ever hear from you., huh"

Our conversations filled the screen of my old phone, But everything seemed to be blurry. Her voice was the only thing I was able to hear.

"Ahh, I did it again"

I came to my senses, turned off the phone and put it back. I have been keeping the phone locked inside a box with our pictures since that day.

I was 17 at the time when Eun-ji died. After her death I locked myself in my room. It felt empty, it was as if something was missing from me. I had lost a part of myself.

Even after 3 years. that feeling did not wash away. I was 21, I had been out of touch with the world for three years by that point. I was a social recluse all my life, but this time it was different. I did not have the courage to face anyone. I didn't want people to look at me.

I could not look at a woman anymore without having unpleasant feelings, a feeling akin to trying to breathe underwater in my chest, everytime I felt that I had a vision of bubbles under water as someone tried to breathe but everything gets dark as we sink deeper.

I was one of those so-called "shut-in's".

I stayed in my room all day without turning on the lights and wrote stories there.

My family used to be rich, but right after my birth the business had suffered a series of losses and with a series of events everything fell apart.

My father procured a huge debt that he couldn't pay off. So, debt collectors started to come to our house and harassed us every day.

My father was a chain smoker, who stayed home all day and kept to himself in his room. My mom had become the sole breadwinner so to speak, we were living off the allowance she got every month. It was not much but enough to barely survive.

So, they had to sell the house to pay off the debt, that's when we had moved to the same neighborhood as Eun-ji's, her house was across mine. I have known her almost all my life. We had a picture of me and her from when we met for the first time In our photo album. We both were 3 at the time.

Her and my mom were good friends, Eun-ji mom was a single mother, who was always busy. So, Eun-ji spent a lot of time at our place.

For as far as I can remember, my parents were always Arguing.. So, whenever Eun-ji came over Eun-ji and I locked ourselves in my room and kept to ourselves there playing video games.

As we got older things at her home changed a lot for the worse. She started to spend less and less time at her home. She would sometimes just curl up in my room and start crying telling me about what had happened that day and I would try to comfort her.

That's how we grew up together through better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death took us apart.

But now that she is not here, reflecting back I realise how we truly were.

Sometimes when I looked out of my window and saw the window across mine, where Eun-ji would sit with her headphones on and we did talk for hours on the phone, I got a feeling of my heart sinking and lost the sense of my legs.

Her death. The more I tried to forget about it, the harder It was to forget. I was shackled by the feeling that, if only had I seen that message on time I could have done something. I could have saved her.

I was responsible for her death. That guilt of killing her never went away. I could only dream of her, my days were filled with despair and nights were fueled by nightmares.

At times I couldn't even close my eyes for a goodnight sleep. I would just lay in my bed looking at the pitch darkness surrounding me.

I never knew how it felt to be rich or have money. All I ever wanted was to have a simple happy life, But It was far from my sight.

As teenagers Eun-ji and I used to look at the stars from my Terrace. Sometimes she would put her hand out trying to grasp the stars in her palm and laugh and then take my hand and do the same and say

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Let's work hard together, so we don't have to be bound here anymore."

but by the time I had become an adult Eun-ji was not here anymore and I had realized it was impossible. I could never reach the stars nor could I escape.

Writing has been a hobby of mine since I was a child and it might have been the only thing that kept me going through all those times. Times when I was being miserable.

"Have you ever thought about what you would do? What would you say? if someone dead came back and stood in front of you again?"

It was a certain day of summer when I was 21 that changed my life forever.

I had been unable to write anything for quite a while and it was the same that day. I had the idea, I had the words, but the words did not flow, they lacked depth, I was unable to write anything that conveyed any emotions. I had barely written anything since the beginning of that year due to it.

Maybe, Me being unable to write at the time was either due to the fact that I couldn't feel any emotions at the time; I had become emotionally numb or the fact that I am a terrible writer whose writings failed to mesmerize the readers in what they were reading. I thought I lacked the skills, I should not be a writer at the time.

and eun-ji had not been the only thing that's been eating me up slowly. My other feeling was of being a failure, I was lost and in despair, I did not know what I should do, I had no purpose and I was still living off my parents money. I thought I was getting old and felt like I was getting behind others my age.

I lived in a small town with a population of less than 150,000 people at the time. The town was quite peaceful, it was a town people retired to.

Most exciting thing for the residents might have been the mugging that had happened five years ago.

To sum it up Life in the town was slow.

It was not a place for someone my age, nor did the place have any opportunities nor it had anything that I could do.

All I wanted to do was escape from it.

I was alone at home that day, my parents had gone to the city for some purpose. They wanted me to go with them but I had refused, I didn't want to go anywhere.

I was most comfortable in my room.

Usually my food was left by someone at my door with a knock to let me know and after they had left I would open the door and take the food inside and when I felt like eating eat it and leave the empty plates outside in front of my door.

That day after writing for a while I felt really hungry, but since no one was there to bring the food to me. I had no option but to leave my room so I tiptoed out of my room

But before I went to the kitchen I decided to take a tour of the house.

On any other day the only place I went in the house was from my room to the toilet to my room and I only did it when no one was there watching me, since no one was there that I could piss off by showing myself. I could go about freely. I had my freedom around the house.

But that day when I went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door, it was not cold at all, "huh". I thought the refrigerator was broken but after looking for what had gone wrong I found the refrigerator unplugged.

All the cooked food in the refrigerator had already spoiled and there were only packed water bottles in the refrigerator, nothing to eat.

I went back to my room and laid on my bed, since now if I wanted food that would only mean I had to go out, I did not feel like it but as time passed away my hunger only got worse.

Without any other options left I had no choice but to leave the house, but that only meant stress for me. I looked up the nearest convenience store on my phone and memorized how to get there.

I had no option but to go out and buy something from the convenience store.

So, I got dressed in a hoodie and some pants. Just to mind you it was in summer. So it was extremely hot and I looked suspicious as fuck.

I nervously turned the door noob and took baby steps out the house and waited for a few seconds there looking around before I walked nervously to the convenience store.

Honestly I was out of the habit of walking on the road and a car passed by every couple seconds which made me anxious. People really don't adhere to traffic laws when they think no one is seeing them, so anything can happen like getting run over by a speeding car or anything.

the convenience store was right down the road, a girl stood at the counter smiled and said "welcome". I picked up a basket and went through the aisles before finally picking up some rice balls and cup ramens for myself to eat later.

When a group of loud teenagers entered the store, So to avoid them I decided to go around the aisle. Checkout was just next to the exit on the other side, that's when I saw the liquor section, Which was calling for me for some reason when I looked at them.

I had never really drank before that day, although I had tasted whisky before after someone had coaxed me into just having a sip of it during high school, But that day was different to me. I had my conviction that day. I had given up on life and I truly wanted to get wasted, so I grabbed a bottle of vodka.

I swiped my card, and I spent 100 dollars on a bottle of vodka and I was dead broke myself. Haha.

I just showed him my card and the man behind the glass panel just got me The swipe machine and that was it..

There was this particularly favourite spot of mine, an unfinished concrete pier; the only way to access it was by walking on a flood barrier for a while. It was risky but it was worth the risk, it was a place me and few of my friends had discovered during our school days. You could see the giant water gates, the pumping station and the water treatment plant at a distance from it and since it was a place which could not be accessed easily it had become a place for us to hangout.

I went there, sat at the pier that day and drank my wits out unknowingly. It only took a very little bit of alcohol before I was fully drunk but by the time I realised it I was too drunk and walking back home somehow.

When I came to my senses and saw that I was walking down the road, I really had no idea how I had managed to walk this far. I was stumbling down a hill with the bottle wrapped in the black plastic bag. I was feeling dizzy and nauseated.

everything went black suddenly and when I opened my eyes again this time I was laying on grass and the bottle laid next to me and when I gained some sense I was hit with a strong foul smell.

I had vomit all over me.

I slowly stood up still dizzy and looked around only to see no one, Which also gave me a sort of relief.

"where am I?"

Then I saw some lights strobing through the trees. I heard the noise of cars passing by behind me. When I looked back I saw the road above.

When I got close to the trees I got a glimpse of it. I saw the bridge at a distance through the trees, the bridge from where Eun-ji had jumped from, it was close to our house, we almost always crossed the bridge to get home back in the days since it was shorter this way.

But I had deliberately avoided it on my way to the convenience store, especially because I did not want to see this place.

"So, why was I here now?

When I reached the bridge I stopped for a while looking at the writings on the handrails. "Did you have a good day? The wind is really nice? and various other things were written on the handrails.

"Would Eun-ji be still alive if she read this?" I thought at the time. Now, i realize all those did not really matter.

They had put a lot of safety measures since then, they had put up barriers and netting preventing anyone from jumping.

reminiscing over the past

"I was truly happy back then, I wonder what happened. I wish I could be a child again and correct my mistakes. I wonder what went wrong, what brought me to this point.." I wanted to be free.. I wanted to be free of all the things bounding me and past mistakes.

I removed my shoes and climbed over the handrail and stood there, and screamed out my lungs, my throat felt a little dry.

I came to safety and stood there ruminating over my life leaning on the handrail, When I felt a hand on me and someone suddenly pulled me behind.

I fell on the ground.

"Ayyaa AHHHH,, that hurt"

When I looked up, there was someone standing there. I was barely able to make out a figure. My head was really buzzing and everything looked blurry... When I rubbed my eyes and looked again I saw a girl who had black hair with glasses staring at me, Quite seriously.

It was Eun-ji, Eun-ji had come back, she was alive, I thought at the time naively although deep down I knew she was dead but I had momentarily lost myself.

"EUN-JI"