There's a Reason I Go to the Library & It's Not Cause I Like Reading

Chapter 8

Frankly, Phil Lester forgot. He forgot he wasn't feeling, wasn't thinking, wasn't feeling the oxygen spread through his body from his lungs whenever he took a breath, if that's what he was even taking. In fact, to Phil it felt like any ordinary fourth period. He leaned on the wall beside his locker listening to Muse blasting through his earbuds, mouthing along to the words as they were sung. He reveled in the passerbys' sweet ignorance of his existence, he loved in on days when everyone left him alone. His mind was empty aside from the recognition of his immediate surroundings and the flurry that was usually his thoughts had calmed and been stored away.

He didn't think the day was any different until he heard the screaming coming from the library.

Naturally, the students in the halls cautiously began to flow towards the source of the noise and Phil followed curiously. Soon he was at the library and could hear teachers shouting students at students to get out, but he ignored them, slipping inside while they weren't looking. He was tall so didn't look as conspicuous as some of the girls in his year for example. He grew concerned as he saw his teachers with shell shocked expressions and heard their concerned muttering between them. He slipped through them towards the bathrooms where they seemed to be gathered most densely. He needed to see just what they were looking at. He slid past them as they pulled handkerchiefs from their pockets and walked away with their hands over their mouths until he reached the source of their horror.

At first he was confused. Confused as to why his body was sat on the floor in the corner of the bathroom, haphazardly sprawled to the side. Confused as to why floor-Phil was even paler than usual and was unmoving. Confused as to why floor-Phil's white uniform shirt and tie had a deep red colour soaked into it. But the confusion didn't last long as he soon saw the raw gashes in floor-Phil's wrists that were no longer bleeding and the white and green pills scattered on the floor around him along with three bottles beside his schoolbag and he heard the faint guitars of hysteria playing through the earbud that had fallen from floor-Phil's left ear.

Phil was indeed very dead. And now he remembered the pain that scraped through him, the headache and the shaking.

Policemen herded the teachers away from the body in the bathroom and began snapping pictures of the scene and Phil felt sick. He ran back out of the library, past all the students who'd herded together at the library doors, kept out now by the headmaster and a few bobbies, and up the stairs as high as he could go, and into a cleaners cupboard. He was very scared. But he wasn't sure whether to be scared of himself or the world around him. He was very obviously dead, that was definitely him on the floor wearing his clothes and with his schoolbag. He'd actually done it. He'd fucking killed himself. If dead people could breathe then Phil would be hyperventilating. Could people see him? No, he didn't think so. Could he pass through solid objects? That was answered by his sore fist after throwing it awkwardly at the wall of the cupboard. So he couldn't be a ghost, ghosts passed through things, ghosts didn't habitually pump air in and out of themselves despite its pointlessness.

The one thing he did have to really prove he didn't exist anymore was his lack of a reflection in the small mirror leaned against the wall inside the cupboard.