Ever since I watched Mom and Dad break through their bedroom window and fall to the soggy ground below, I've always wondered...what does it mean to die?

I had cried then, when I held Mom's bloodied head in my arms and begged her to wake up, but during another time, on that exact day, I found myself crying in a much different fashion. It's sickeningly fascinating, now that I think about it, how there's alternate reasons for a person's tears besides sadness; fear, joy and, in the strangest of occasions, sometimes someone will cry for no reason at all. As Senpai's hands touched every part of my body, with the same hands that had been seen as nothing more than a comforting pair of limbs, I wasn't sure which reason had compelled me to cry, and to this day I still can't figure it out.

His ragged breathing, the pulse that was sure to be madly beating in his chest and the way his eyes seemed to exhibit nothing but rage for something I had thought to be simple and meaningless; all of that could've inspired terror in me, but some part of me tells me that's not exactly what it was. I certainly wasn't happy, for I couldn't even bring myself to smile in the same, empty manner I had been able to pull off for the longest time, but my tears hadn't had no meaning behind them either, right? I couldn't possibly be that hollow...could I?

Sorrow. I definitely knew that was coursing through me as he tore my jeans off and took my boxers along with them, undoing his own and revealing an organ I couldn't bring myself to look at. Perhaps it was a mixture of all of those emotions, even a tinge of elation that he could possibly be finding this enjoyable for himself despite it obviously not reflecting the same for me. The salty, warm liquid continued to streak my cheeks as his fingernails pierced my flushed skin, a part of my body offering my mind the imagery of a piece of paper being torn into two, then four, and soon a whole pile of burning, disgustingly dirtied scraps.

A wet and painful type of hurt, like the feeling of your chilled skin being put underneath a hot downpour of water, killed my voice in my throat, and I couldn't even express how badly his actions were hurting me; not that I thought he'd care with how ruthlessly he used me, as I was only a play thing in his mind in that moment. I wasn't sure if my eyes were working the way they should while the room spun and a haze of black dots covered my vision, my neck arched so far back I felt like my spine would snap if he managed to thrust any harder. And then it was over for him, but the beginning of so much more for myself.

My cheeks were still moist, as was the corner of my mouth as saliva escaped my widely spread lips, and if only I could've pressed them closed; not offer some sort of opportunity in his obviously warped imagination...I may of gotten out with just the scars he'd already left on me. But I couldn't, it hurt too much, and I wish I had been strong enough to do so. His fingers ran through my hair in a surprisingly gentle gesture and I thought, for a deluded moment, he was going to apologize and we'd be able to forgive and forget the horror of the situation that had just happened, but as it felt like my scalp was going to be ripped right off my skull, I knew that was the farthest thing from his thoughts.

His body hovered over mine and that same organ I hadn't allowed myself to see was right there in my line of sight, profusely adding to the thickness of my tears as it was jammed into my open mouth, enveloping my senses with a rotten taste. The friction of it rubbing against my lips made my eyes clamp shut, my gag reflect constantly being played with to the point of dismay as my mind filled with the sound of my own voice, pleading and begging for it to stop; praying that my life would just be put to an end and make this torture cease. His sweat drowned my nostrils with the putrid scent of his unwanted passion and then it shook, my mouth being covered with his seed that left me coughing and on the verge of retching as he jerked away, standing up and facing his back to me as he began a quiet mantra of his raping me somehow being my fault. The worst of it was, as I rolled onto my side and tried my best not to vomit while clearing my mouth of his cum, I actually believed him.

It was my fault...If I had just been the person he'd wanted me to be, or had rejected him in the first place before we'd begun dating...this wouldn't of happened; he wouldn't have committed this crime and I would still be alone, but not someone who was now the very definition of disgust. When the spasms in the back of my throat came to an end, and I could finally breathe without my phobia being played with, my eyes caught the sight of something that managed to reflect the light despite being underneath his bed, myself on the floor beside it. I shouldn't have been able to move, to even conceive the use of a single muscle, but my bruised and battered arms shakily reached for the object and pulled it out to look at, taking in the image of an unused, clean knife. If an idea of how to put it to use hadn't come to mind, I would've laughed; the worst of my moments in life always having something to do with such a weapon.

Tilting my head upwards, I saw his back still facing me, his voice continuing to point the blame at myself, but I heard none of it as I managed to ignore the white hot pain that blinded me for a moment as I stood up, my legs strikingly sturdy. I raised the knife into the air and was about to plunge it into his back, an image I had quickly gotten tired of looking at, when my foot pressed against a worn spot in the floor and the room filled with the sound of a single, small creak; that was all it took to warn him of my attack and he spun around. Harshly he grabbed my wrists and pushed me against his bed, the back of my head hitting the wall it sat against, and, before either of us could register what was happening, he drove the end of the clean blade into my stomach and tugged it all the way down, towards my naval. No longer was the knife a virgin to sin.

This time my voice alerted him of how wrong he'd acted, erupting from my throat in a constrained, utterly pained sound that seemingly brought him to his senses. My neck cranked to the right as I tried to make sense of what possibly hurt more, my body or my heart, and as I contemplated something that shouldn't have been the first thing on my mind he hastily redressed me, pressed my jacket to my chest and dragged me all the way down the stairs and out the door. Weaving through the buildings that looked as lifeless as I felt, I didn't know where we were as we rounded a corner and he tossed me, like a bag of garbage, against an alleyway wall and left me there. Alone.

If I looked at the opposite end of the alley, I could see a few people walking past, myself going unnoticed by them; not that it mattered anyway, I was going to die, right? With my hands grasping my thoroughly bleeding stomach, that much was made clear, and yet...I was smiling in the very same way I always had. Ever since my eyes had watched the broken glass reflect the bright colour of a lighting bolt when I was eight, I'd wondered what this would feel like and, in a strange twist of fate, on the very same day the thought first crossed my mind I would be discovering the answer to it; perhaps that fact made my smile less strange, or at least it did for me in that moment. My consciousness slipping, I heard a voice speaking one of the two languages I knew as a woman approached me, looking for all the world that she herself was the one with a gaping wound along her stomach.

She took off her white, collared cover-shirt, causing her blonde hair to slip over her shoulders and fall into her face somewhat, an image that was slightly entrancing as the bright shade managed to drag the light into the shadow-drenched alleyway. Tightly pressing it against my injury, blood was forced from my lungs and onto her baby blue shirt, causing me to choke out an apology in English, surprising her but, at the same time, seemingly comforting her that I would understand what she said. As she dialed a number on her cellphone, keeping a firm pressure against my stomach, she constantly spouted "I'm sorry"s and the like, as if she had been the one to cause this mess. Her beautiful face...was a sight I'd never see again, no matter how much I wanted to thank her.

Sitting slightly upright in my hospital bed, my mind constantly tried to wrap around why I had been saved; why I hadn't just been left to die so I wouldn't have to see his face again. We went to school together, and after I was discharged we were bound to wind up in the same class again, that is if my current foster parents didn't throw me out, so why did the universe want me to stay alive and face that sort of pain? The way every inch of my body ached, and my heart and mind continually battled out the pros and cons, left me wondering that same question again.

What does it mean to die?

Freedom. Escape from the pain of living...a release I was rejected from having.