The Hit List

Chapter 1

Trigger Warning: This book contains A LOT of dark matter including but not limited to depression, suicide, and other mental illnesses.

Please do not read if you are currently struggling with suicidal thoughts or have recently, as it may be triggering.

Please get help if you need it. You are not alone. You are loved. And you are worthy of that love. 

If you need immediate help please call your local helpline. I will provide a couple of options below for the US and Canada.

Canada: 1.833.456.4566

US: 1.800.273.8255

I struggled to ignore the open window on the bright computer screen as I sat in front of my laptop. I turned over song after song, none seeming appropriate background noise. A lazy synth sound filled my room. The male singer, with a smooth voice, sang of a romance that was doomed from the start. A love that he finds impossible to let go of.

I switched over, beginning the endless scroll through social media we all seem to fall into eventually. Passing photos of mouth-watering food; that no doubt looks better than it ever could taste. Pictures of women posing uncomfortably, their spines curved to make their stomachs appear hollow, flew past my eyes, my mind struggling to fight my deep-seated need to focus for too long on them.

I stopped to leave a like on a friend of a friend of a friend's photo. Her smile is a bit too wide as she leans against her husband of six months, her hands holding tightly to a tan corgi puppy.

The husband looked tired. His mouth is tight with a closed smile that fails to reach his eyes. A smile that hides much more than just his teeth.

No doubt he had bought her the animal hoping to stop her constant pleas for him to give her something he couldn't, or more likely didn't want to. A baby.

My eyes glanced at my laptop, moving the cursor slightly, seeing no change in the now-illuminated screen.  Thus I clicked on the corgi's account. A brown and white muzzle takes up most of the screen.

The page was already filled with a few photographs. A video of its little legs attempting to chase after Molly here, a carefully processed black and white filtered photo of its head cocked there. The most recent one was of it crammed into a dinosaur costume.

My phone was playing a new song; it was a catchy tune with surprisingly depressing lyrics about abusing drugs to the point of addiction to the numb feeling when there was a ding. I quickly shifted to my laptop, seeing the number one over the formerly empty messages window.

I touched the envelope with the laptop's pointer and pressed lightly; I felt the click, but it was drowned out by the sound of blood hammering in my ears. My fingers were shaking. My breath caught in my throat as I read the message.

GunSlinger609 - I would be more than happy to assist you with that.

I saw the bubbles load as he entered his second message.

GunSlinger609 - Is there any particular method you'd prefer?

I shook my hands, willing the nervousness to escape my entire body. I wanted this. I needed this to happen.

I hastily pushed send before giving it any thought as I responded.

Cherry_Bloom - As I said in the post, any method would work. Preferably painless, but whatever's necessary.