I wasn’t even sure if I should get out of bed this morning. I was never sure anymore. The hours felt like days and the days felt like weeks. In reality, it’s only been eight days, 14 hours, 34 minutes, and 7 seconds since they’ve been gone. I don’t mean the kind of gone like going to the market and picking up some milk gone. They were gone and wherever they went my heart went with them. I wasn’t sure if I was going mad or maybe I was really dead too, maybe I just didn’t know it. Maybe this was a dream, I pinched my arm to check. The sting of taking my skin between two fingers alerted me to the fact that I was very much awake.

“You’re pitiful,” Barb growled from the corner of the dark room. Her dyed white blonde hair showed wisps of gray, as if she hasn’t had time to take care of it.

“You missed their funeral, you sick b****d. I’d still have them if it wasn’t for you!” She yelled before materializing into the wall. This was my curse since they’ve left. I see people, I’m not sure why or how, but I see people that aren’t there.

I rolled onto my side and looked at the wall. Sitting on the nightstand was an empty pipe and a lighter. I wasn’t sure if it was the drugs filling my visions of people I’ve lost or maybe I really have lost my marbles. I closed my eyes attempting to go back to sleep, but I found no solace.

“Daddy, wake up!” Mark yelled happily. The second I heard his voice, I sprang from my bed, but when I was sitting up right he had disappeared. I put my face in my hands and I sobbed violently. There were no tears, I lost them all the day they were taken from me. I took a deep breath and went into the draw that was part of the night stand. I smoked something that would take my pain away. It was like venom, I felt like I was just a piece of air in this dark, dead, and dreary room.

“Really? You’ve actually turned to this? I should have known you were never going to amount to anything!” Spat my ex-girlfriend, Lindsay. She was sitting on the bed watching me put more and more of the devil in my body. But sometimes when all you feel like is dying, the devil is your only companion.

“He’s useless! I never liked him, not from the second I laid my eyes on him!” Barb chimed in stepping out of her dark corner from the wall. I didn’t even turn my head to look at her, I could practically feel her hatred for me like the dark waves from the ocean.

“You took my sweet baby girl, my only daughter. And that poor, darling boy. You are scum, Michael. Scum!” My father in law, Arnold growled. He was practically in my face, he raised his hand and I felt the force of a blow, but I wasn’t moved from my sitting position.

Lindsay, Barb, and Arnold all stood around my bed heckling me for different things. I finally couldn’t handle it anymore.

“LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE!” I shouted with every bit of emotion and strength I had left. I threw the pipe at where they were standing but it shattered against one of the walls in my bedroom. I fell back on the bed, powerless and hopeless.

“You know Michael, I would have loved you. I would have loved you with every fiber of my being. But I was never good enough for you. I’ll never be good enough. It’s okay now, you’re just as much as a waste now too,” Trevor, my college roommate said standing in my doorway. A neat bullet hole in the center of his forehead reminded me that he also was because of me. Another person lost due to my ignorance or negligence.

I took a deep breath and I smiled. It had all become so clear to me. I knew exactly what I had to do.

I climbed out of our apartment window, and my bare feet touched the cold metal of the fire escape. I looked seven stories down and I smiled. I knew where I would be safe.

“Forgive me father, for I have sinned,” I said before climbing up onto the edge. I just sat there a moment. However, I wasn’t safe from the demons inside my home.

“Do it!” Barb shouted.

“I hope it hurts, you b****d,” Arnold grinned sadistically.

“Goodbye Michael,” Lindsay said coldly.

“I’ll see you on the other side,” Trevor’s voiced cracked as he said it.

“I’m sorry Diane. I’m sorry,” I wept before pushing myself off.

It didn’t take very long to fall, and then I was gone. I was gone and so were the demons.

“Michael,” Diane said looking down at me. Down, why was she smiling down? All of a sudden, dozens of bony and decaying hands pulled me below the earth.

Before I was truly gone, I saw my wife’s beauty and Mark’s dimples. I smiled before the earth swallowed me.