I opened my eyes to discover only darkness. My eye lids were heavy as I looked around, trying to spot something other then black.
‘Where am I?’ I thought, as panic started to invade my consciousness. I tried to remember how I had gotten here, but to no avail. ‘I was fighting with my boyfriend,’ I thought, trying to calm my frantic breathing. ‘Did I really drink enough to pass out?’
I tried to sit up, only to be forced back down by a wave of dizziness and pain. I touched the back of my head, trying to locate the source of my agony. Warm liquid fell on my hand when I made contact. It took me a minute to realize it was blood. I held my hand out in front of me to confirm my fear. Shock over took me when I looked at my blood stained fingers. They were glowing, as if a light were shining on them.
“Hello!” I shouted as loud as I could in the darkness. My own voice sounded foreign to me, like I was yelling underwater. I sat there, for what seemed like an eternity, waiting for a response. Tears started to blur my vision as I realized that I was alone. Completely and totally alone.
My sobs were cut short when I thought I heard someone whispering. I strained my ears trying to decipher their muffled words. ‘There’s two of them!’ I thought with excitement. I ignored my pain and jumped up. ‘Can anyone hear me?!’ I yelled as loud as I could. I ran blindly through the darkness, trying to hold on to some tiny scrap of hope I had left.
Exhaustion finally forced me to stop. ‘How can I run for this long, and yet never get closer or farther to the voices?’ I thought with confusion. I stood there for a minute, trying to rationalize my situation, ‘I could be in a coma,’ I thought desperately, ‘or I could just be dreaming.’
I was snapped out of my thoughts when I heard a voice loud enough to be standing right next to me, “It was obviously blunt force trauma,” the voice said. I was blinded by a flash of light. I hid my eyes behind my hands until they adjusted. Reluctantly, I let my hands drop. I was in a room full of people. Most of them were cops, but some of them I knew. I looked around the room, trying to identify my surroundings. Shocked, I realized I was in my apartment.
Two cops walked by me towards the door. I watched them go by and noticed that they were leading my handcuffed boyfriend between them. They were almost to the door when my big sister walked out of my bedroom. “You killed her! You killed her!” She screamed through tears as he walked by. Her husband walked out next to her and hugged her comfortingly. “Emily,” I asked as I walked to her, “who did he-” I stopped dead as I looked behind her.
I walked slowly into my room. Warily, I approached a large lump laying at the end of my bed. A white sheet was covering it. I took a deep breath and kneeled down next to it. ‘Ok relax,’ I thought to myself, ‘it’s not going to be me.” I braced myself and uncovered it.
I screamed and fell backwards. “This can’t be real! This isn’t happening!” I screamed. I started sobbing violently when the realization hit me that I was the one he had killed, I was the one who had died of ‘blunt force trauma’, and that I was dead.
Once I had calmed my frantic breathing, I shakily stood up. I staggered over to my desk and sat down, holding my head in my hands. After a minute, I raised my head and looked at myself in my mirror, sending a new wave of tears flowing down my face. The mirror was empty.
“I can’t be dead!” I screamed defiantly, “He couldn’t have killed me! He wouldn’t! He loves me!” I slammed my fists on the table as hard as I could, sending papers and pictures flying. The people in the room jumped back in alarm at the unexplainable noise. I heard the cop standing next to me say to his partner, “This place is giving me the creeps, it’s like its haunted or something lets hurry up and get out of here.”
‘That’s it!’ I thought, a new emotion took the place of denial. Vengeance. ‘If I can’t live, then neither can he.’
Hours passed before my apartment was finally empty. My anger was only intensified when I saw the pain and anguish on my sister’s face when she left. ‘I’ll wait as long as I have to to kill him.’ I thought to myself over and over.

And I have waited. I’m still waiting. Years have passed since that day, but the emotions are still just as fresh. New tenants have moved in, but none of them have lasted more than a year. The funny thing about being dead is that you never forget anything. I still remember the sadness I felt when my sister walked to my dead body, hugged me, and told me that she would always love me. I remember the emptiness I felt when the coroner carried me away.
People wonder what death is like; it’s darkness, emptiness, and fear. Enjoy life, embrace it, and take it from somebody who knows, you never know what you have until it’s gone.