INTRODUCTION
The street was quiet, and she moved along the darkened houses as if she was floating through, not making a sound as she continued on. No thoughts filled her mind, yet, she was determined, determined to find herself alone. She had been waiting for the right moment for a year, now. The waiting had become unbearable for her. It had to be done, and now, now was the time to do it. The gun was cold in her hand as she walked along, her pace quickening. Soon she found herself in the trees, the woods that outlined her neighborhood. She had went through them so many times thinking of this, of her suicide. The final option she had left to escape the hell she called life. Now she walked with intention, a smile slowly growing on her face. The night turned windy and a vicious, hard, rain started falling from the sky. This made it even better; she had dreamt of dying in the rain, the blood from the hole in her head falling like it was rain, a dark, crimson rain. She had envisioned it raining at her funeral as well, her being some sort of ghost sitting on her own grave stone watching herself be laid to rest. Of course, no one would be there, not her mom, or her dad. No, they wouldn’t care enough. They would leave their daughter alone on the day of her burial with no one but her grandparents around. She knew she might not actually see it, but it would surely happen that way. Tears stung her eyes as she slowly raised the gun to her head, the same sad smile on her face. This was it.
“Goodbye.” She whispered, and pulled the trigger.
***
Zarah bolted straight up in bed, the sound of the gun shot still ringing in her head. How many times had she dreamt of this? How many more times would she before she actually did it? She didn’t know…all she knew was that it was morning, and the first day back at school.
Slowly rising from her bed, Zarah treaded over to the mirror and took a good hard look before she stumbled into the bathroom; a vicious headache overwhelmed her, probably the first sign of a hangover. After all, she had sat up half the night drinking from the Vodka bottle she had stashed under her bed. Grabbing a towel from under the sink she undressed and stepped into the shower, turning on the hot water. The beads of water pounded down on her naked body and left red spots as they leaped off her skin and hit the shower floor. Zarah felt weak, almost as if she couldn’t hold her own weight in a standing position.
“What the hell am I going to do, man,” Zarah thought, “I can’t go to school with a freaking hangover but if I stay home they’re going to beat my ass… maybe I can just skip school today and deal with the punishment later. I’d rather have that happen and deal with the consequence for skipping school then have my parent’s find my vodka.”
Zarah cringed as she thought about the last time she had been caught with something like vodka, it was the day she had bought a brick of weed from her friend and her dad caught her smoking a joint in her bedroom. He had beaten her with no mercy and, Zarah decided, she didn’t ever want to go through something like that again. Her parents had told her that normal girls don’t get high. Yeah, well, normal parents didn’t beat their kids.
