Prologue

I squinted at the screen staring back at me in it's various bright colours.

How long had it been?

While stretching my tired body, I twisted it leftwards to look at the wall-clock fixed on the wall just above the open door.

The grey walls of my room were being partly illuminated by the screen of my PC monitor. It had been over 9 hours. My eyes were exhausted and my entire body ached.

I pulled myself off the chair and stood upon the cold marble floor.

One of my legs had gone numb.

'It couldn't be helped', I let out a tired sigh as I thought so. While taking one last look at the display, I prepared to move my feet towards the open door which led to my living room. Dragging my numb feet on the floor sent jolts through my body. It felt awful no matter however many times I had experienced it.

I jerked it a few times and walked towards the kitchen. I fetched a bottle of cold water from the refrigerator and gulped half of it down while splashing the rest of it on my face.

'I haven't eaten much today but I couldn't take any chances', I snorted while thinking so and moved towards the bathroom to take a shower and finish the rest of my business.

The ice cold shower made my body shiver uncontrollably. It was late in December and almost New Year's. It was unbelievably cold but I could persevere through it, after all I absolutely hated warm showers. Warm water on my body made me feel like my skin was melting.

I carried myself back to my room while shivering. The cold breeze brushing against my skin didn't help either. 'I might get a cold…?', I thought but I didn't really have the need to worry about that.

As I entered the living room, what I first noticed was the bright screen of my PC monitor, still illuminating the dark room. I had decided to leave it as it is. What else lay before my sight was a noose, whose rope end was tied to a hook bound to the ceiling. I had only witnessed such a scene during public executions as capital punishment was still very much legal in my country and executing dangerous criminals by hanging was unusually popular.

About why I had such a threatening looking noose within my sight was a very long story. I giggled while looking at the noose suspended by the ceiling hook. I wanted things to be done with as soon as possible. I had already dealt with everything else.

I sent one last text to a friend of mine and another to my mother. I didn't need to type a very long message as my PC already had much of everything they would want to know about later. My heart ached as I pressed enter for the text I was sending to my Mother.

It was a calm and cold winter night, and my 10th floor apartment was as peaceful and quiet as always. 'My friend will be here in about five minutes, I guess…?', I thought while looking at the wall-clock. The wall-clock was an heirloom of my family, it had served many generations faithfully. It looked tired and crumbling.

Just like me.

'It's journey will end with me today', I smiled while thinking so. I leisurely walked towards the stool which I had already placed beneath the noose many days ago. Everything had already been prepared. The noose and the stool were placed at just the right height.

One last strand of hesitation rushed through me but I pushed it aside. I had to do it.

And so I did.

As the last of the light reached my eyes, an apparition of a person entered my field of view before an audible snap was heard with which my consciousness was also snapped away.