That night, Mia had died. Her physical form had vanished forever from the surface of the Earth. She would never again tread the grounds of her university, her friends would never hear her hysterical laughter again, her parents would never marvel at her radiant smile again. That night, her existence on this earth had come to a halt. How they must mourn her, dead so young. A tragedy.

A tragedy? Could she really label this incident as tragic? Unbelievable, marvelous, utterly absurd, perhaps, but tragic? Yet, of course, her loved ones couldn't know that. For them, this event would forever remain the end of something. For her, it was the beginning of the most phenomenal adventure of her life.

That evening, she had a meeting with her friends Eva, Lydie, and Maxime. Like every Thursday, it was a student night out. Like every Thursday, they would bar-hop and end the night on Eva's rooftop, which served as a clandestine terrace.

That evening, they were celebrating Lydie's broken heart, with all the alcohol that such a special event implied. The four of them were slouched on a worn-out couch, each holding a glass.

"Come on, cheer up! You know what they say, one lost, ten found!" Eva chuckled, sipping her glass of orange vodka.

"If someone throws that stupid phrase at me one more time, I swear I'll go ballistic!" Lydie burst out, shaking her fist in front of her friend's face.

Her reaction sparked general laughter.

"And, by the way, who the hell came up with that saying? Like, what's it supposed to apply to? A guy in a harem? Damn, we're in the twenty-first century for crying out loud," she continued in her rant, impervious to her audience's fits of laughter. "Anyway, all guys are jerks. Fuck them. I've decided, I'm becoming a lesbian."

"Shut up, Lydie! I'm going to die laughing if you keep going," Maxime exclaimed.

"Oh, Mia," she continued, ignoring her friend's remark and moving closer to the one in question, "you're pretty, you're nice, you're smart. Wanna go out with me?"

Discomfort replaced the laughter on Mia's face before she could react to her friend's question. She stood up abruptly, pale, and staggered towards the edge.

"Wait, you don't want me either? But um, I was kidding, you know! What are you doing, you're not going to commit suicide, right?" Lydie panicked.

She wanted to reply with "no, are you stupid or something?" but the only thing that crossed her lips was the contents of her stomach. The general hilarity amplified once again, drowning out the sounds of her retching.

"Damn, Lydie! You've disgusted her so much she puked her guts out, poor thing!" Eva yelled, knocking over her cup and holding her belly. "My sides hurt from laughing so much!"

Mia straightened up, wiping her mouth with her sleeve, completely ignoring the repulsive aspect of what she had just done. Alcohol helped a lot in this regard. She turned to her friends and flashed a mischievous smile, raising her eyebrows several times. The blonde was known not for being ashamed of her escapades, but for handling them with humor. She couldn't care less about humiliating herself like this if her misadventures could make her friends burst into laughter.

"Can you imagine if someone was walking down there?" she asked them.

"Oh come on, there's worse than getting a splash of puke on your head while walking... Or maybe not, actually," Maxime pondered, immediately putting on a serious expression. "Just imagine for a moment if, in his surprise, he stumbles and breaks his neck. You could end up in jail!"

"'Mia Bayer, a twenty-year-old student, incarcerated for killing a man by vomiting on him'," Lydie added, waving her hands to emphasize her statement. "That would be front-page news! The headline of the year!"

"And let me guess, it would be you who would cover the whole story?" Mia retorted, feigning exasperation.

Lydie was studying journalism and spent her days between the university gazette and the few articles she was allowed to publish in the local newspaper of their town. Eva was on the same path as her best friend, while Mia and Maxime were pursuing degrees in classical literature. They were all in their second year of undergraduate studies and had met the four of them during a party. Since then, they had been inseparable.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"And why not? Don't I have the right to use a friend's misadventures to boost my professional career? I wouldn't use you with a clear conscience if you weren't my friend, you know! And you can do this for me, I'm heartbroken!" Lydie quipped.

"Wow, I'm incredibly lucky," Mia replied, rolling her eyes and placing her hand on her heart, mimicking being moved by her words.

"See! Alright, enough talking. A little drink?"

Her proposal didn't fall on deaf ears. Maxime eagerly picked up the vodka bottle, Lydie grabbed the orange juice bottle, and Eva collected their cups.

Mia watched them bustling around as she leaned against the rooftop's edge with her elbows, not yet feeling up to returning to the couch, as tight as it was with all of them on it. The heat from their proximity would only exacerbate her nausea.

They distributed their glasses, and Maxime handed one to Mia, which she reluctantly took. She brought it to her lips and sniffed its contents. Orange juice. With a nod in his direction, she thanked her friend for serving her a non-alcoholic drink, though she doubted she could manage to swallow anything at this moment.

"Am I dreaming or is it starting to rain?" Eva asked.

Her statement was quickly followed by a few raindrops, as if to confirm her words. The impending downpour was going to put an end to the evening.

Mia wouldn't complain; she wasn't the type to continue having fun after vomiting the contents of her stomach.

What she wanted could be summed up in one thing: a shower. Or her bed. Or a shower and her bed. And maybe a quick stop at the toothbrush station, just so she wouldn't have to taste that bitter flavor and post-regurgitation bad breath anymore.

She pulled her phone out of her pocket to check the time.

"Anyway, it's three in the morning. It might be time to head back. It's not like we have class tomorrow," she announced to Maxime. "I'll leave you to figure out gathering the stuff, alright? I'm still not feeling very well."

They sighed in unison and got to work. Meanwhile, Mia took the opportunity to look at her phone one more time, struggling to do so due to her drunkenness and the raindrops that weren't helping matters.

"Come on, hurry up, it's pouring out here!" she grumbled with a sarcastic smile.

"You could help us too, if it's that bad," Maxime muttered.

She shrugged and focused again on her phone, bringing her cup of orange juice closer to her mouth in an attempt to drink a few sips. Maybe she should have abstained. The acidity of the fruit only worsened her nausea, and she felt ready to vomit again.

With her phone in one hand and her cup in the other, she turned around and rested her forearms on the concrete, awaiting the consequences of her actions. And they didn't take long to arrive. As she vomited her guts for the second time, her body weakened. Her grip on the phone loosened. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw it slip, but couldn't do anything more. Strangely, the shock of the situation immediately replaced her nausea with cold sweats.

"Guys... um... my phone just fell."

Her three friends turned around abruptly, puzzled, and quickly approached the young woman to observe the crime scene.

"It's there! On the little ledge! Do you think we can retrieve it?" Eva exclaimed, agitated.

Mia leaned a bit more against the concrete, her head hanging over the edge, trying to spot her device. Indeed, it had landed about a yard and a half away, on a ledge about ten centimeters wide. She took a deep breath, thanking her lucky stars.

"Maxime, you're going to hold onto my legs, and I'll try to grab it. Sound good?"

"Are you serious? Isn't this a bit of a bad idea?"

"Do you have a better one? It'll be fine."

He didn't reply, just nodded. After all, they had all been drinking, and their brains weren't really capable of fully realizing the absurdity of the situation. When Mia climbed onto the ledge, she also began to doubt her half-baked plan. Fortunately, her blurred vision prevented her from seeing the void that lay beneath her.

She hesitated for a moment before Maxime placed his hands on her bare ankles revealed by her lightweight dress and gave her the go-ahead signal.

A fleeting thought crossed her mind. It would be pretty stupid to die like this, right? However, under the influence of the alcohol she had consumed, Mia once again ignored the voice of reason that mixed with her survival instinct to try to warn her of the danger.

She let herself drop, slowly, reaching out to grab her phone.

"Hurry up! It's slippery, and I'm not at my best!" Maxime shouted.

"I'm doing what I can!"

She groped for a few moments, not seeing much without light, and her hand finally closed around her device.

"I've got it! Pull me up!"

Clearly, she should have thought three times before launching herself into the void. She wasn't very heavy, but they had been drinking, and the rain made her skin slippery. Her friend's arms trembled under the effort of supporting the weight of her hanging body, threatening to let go at any moment.

Anxiety quickly set in as she felt Maxime's hands slipping.

"Help me! Quickly!" he shouted to the two other girls who were frozen behind him.

Lydie didn't react, paralyzed by the situation. Eva hurried to grab the end of her dress, as if that would save her. Unfortunately, Maxime was going to let go. She knew it. It was only a matter of seconds.

When the young man's grip only clung to her sandals, she realized it was already too late. They gave way, leaving her barefoot as she was about to crash to the ground a few meters below. A piece of her dress also tore off in her fall, the fabric resting in the hand of a panicked Eva who watched the scene in horror.

Seriously? You're about to die, and the only thing that comes to your mind is that they're going to find you without shoes, torn dress, and probably your face smashed into your vomit down there? Where's the life flashing before my eyes? Mia thought.

She closed her eyelids so tightly that she felt her eyes sinking into their sockets. She didn't want to see the ground getting closer.

The fall lasted only a few seconds. The last seconds of her life on Earth. And Mia spent them wanting to vomit. A death worthy of a Darwin Award.