Euthanasia .ch1.

A Chapter by JessikaEndsley

Erika has recruited her 6 closest friends to sign a suicide pact-she writes daily in her journal about her suicidal and murderous tendencies and this is the beginning of their last 7 days

Chapter1

October 1

Today I have officially succeeded in persuading the seventh person to sign the Pact. I will record what happens from now, October 1, 2007, and when the Pact and all of its meticulous plans go into action. Afterwards, I will not need to write about it. Everyone will know, when they find this, who they were f*****g with. And who is haunting them. If I were to ever have been invisible as I so often have wished I was, this would be my grand appearance as a being of existence; the time will come where they will see me. See through me and my glasses of a pinkish shade. One may call it seeing red. My entries will be interlaced with those of my closest, dearest friend, Lewis, exchanging every other day, as arranged, to create a more diverse record of what happens throughout the longevity of the Pact. We have it all planned out perfectly. All of us here at the Pact are in awe of my perpetual and planned release.

The final person to sign the Pact was, as I expected and partially entertained, Lewis. He seemed extraordinarily shocked when I spoke to him of it in the middle of mathematics class; he had been nearly drooling in boredom when I saw the cuts on his arm. I had been waiting for such a sign from him! He seemed even more taken aback when I actually let him read the Pact. I simply could not deal with the ever-present eye-rolling he presents me with upon each new idea. He calls me scandalous. I am only slightly taken aback by his reaction; you would think, after being my sometimes reluctant best friend for thirteen years, that he would expect something as such from me. He must have forgotten the countless hours we have spent planning our perfect and nearly-theatrical suicides. I have always been, in his words, “a bit off.” If being a bit off includes being more intelligent, more aware, although inwardly isolated, I suppose I got the sharper and more efficient end of the stick; I can play the part of a bit off. He has generally been more down to Earth in the eyes of the rest of humanity, and even stable in the days before he was thirteen. He is definitely a depressed and secretly morose individual, although I highly doubt it is any form of chemical imbalance. He has good reasons to be down if there is such an actual reason for any f*****g emotion; everyone does, as it so seems in these days of excessive worry and over-diagnostics of various emotional disturbances, and over-medication leading to dependence on mere poison to make it through a simple day in the world of fragility and opium. Alas, the idea of a Pact probably did not appeal to him at first because it involved other people being “injured” as well. Zero flair for anything grandiose. It would always bother him. Lewis has the burden of a strong conscience. What a sin it is to him to involve the “innocent” in such a supposed charade as I have planned. In class, though, he could not question me nor inquire too much without others hearing. He has that kind of voice, one that carries distances beyond what he would so prefer if he were aware. Luckily, mine does not carry even though I try. Nosey and vile young females were already watching us and dissecting me from head to toe, although I do not worry myself with such obvious displays of jealousy. Why is it so that high school girls so incredibly gravity-ridden? They should hope this is not their prime. If I were the betting type, however, I would say it is so. I have seen the women working in the gas stations and the diners and I know each of these sheep has to have some future.

“Are you seriously getting people to sign a Pact? Can you please explain the point? …I am going to pretend I didn’t see this and you can just... rip it up. Rip it up now.” Lewis looked at me with sarcastic disbelief, as if I had just burped incredibly loud. Then he looked at me with captivating gray eyes, and I forced myself to not glance away. That would show weakness and he simply had to sign the Pact. It would be for the best that my cheeks avoid changing colors, because Lewis should never, ever know that I have any feelings for him. I would ignore elementary questioning as always.

“Yes. And you have no place to look at me as immoral, the way you are, considering those gashes are more intravenous than anything I have ever done,” I replied. “Hurting yourself is, by default, the same thing as hurting others. Only your way includes a lie by omission. I bet it would hurt your poor, already grief-stricken mothers’ feelings, if she knew.” After giving me a “don’t go there,” look, he continued to gaze at the piece of paper, deep in thought. I watched him. Several long, relatively deep cuts, obviously done with a razor, were on his right arm, covered by nothing considering he was socially careless enough to roll his sleeves up. Such a dumb blonde! I assume he used one of those box cutters he leaves all scattered about his room when no one is coming over, other than me. The cuts were vertical, fresh, so I assumed he had committed the attempt on the night before. He had tried it many tedious times �" I had usually tried to stop him. I have spent in my days, countless hours rationalizing with him that he should not act upon his impulses, upon his inability to see a light which he so desires, at the end of the so-called tunnel of his shattered life. Seeing as how my own beliefs about life and our destiny over it differ from my lectures toward him, my cradling, I sometimes confuse myself when he becomes suicidal. I can die, our friends can die, we all die, but not Lewis. And not until I say so. Deep down I know he is too much a coward to actually press hard enough. If you want to die by a hand of which is your own, you will. This time he had not told me, which bothered me as much as the fact that he tried it at all. Most successful attempts leave no note. What is the sort of friend who leaves me behind?

“Yeah, but this is me. I'm not going and talking people who are depressed, which we all know are depressed, into signing up for death. I keep my issues to myself.”

“No you do not; your sleeve is rolled up, a*****e. I am only offering these miserable people a way out of their everlasting pain. I am like Gandhi.”

“You are so far from being Gandhi...” Lewis rolled his eyes at me. I had been waiting for it... “Erika... are you serious about all of this?” He sighed and lost his attempt at confidence or arrogance, which he often would try to use against me.

“Completely.” After several moments of looking at the Pact, and then back at me, and back again as a cat watching windshield wipers, disarraying his now jaw-length dark blonde hair, as he does so often when nervous or tested, he nodded yes.

“I don’t want to be here anymore…I'll sign it.” I handed him a pen. It was the same pen I and the others used. It is important that the Pact looks professional, so when they find it, this whole deal will not look like a f*****g idiot led the other idiots to the water and drowned them. They will know in finality that I am a genius, not simply a dreamer.

“That is what I thought. You will thank me in the end…Thank you, Lewis...” I was hugging myself tightly, freezing inside somehow. I could feel myself shuddering. This had happened a lot lately. I read that it is part of the grieving cycle; however, I do not believe I am grief stricken in any way as one of the human species should be. I frown a bit, but I have never been as shiny-happy as I had been since the friends I chose began signing the Pact. I believe it is my inability to access food, as has become an issue since the passing of my grandmother, which is making me cold. I have adjusted to the floating feeling and am growing rather fond of it.

“Are you okay?”

“I am fine. Just freezing.”

“How? You look like an Eskimo today.”

“Thanks. That is a racial slur, mind you. Their preference is the term “Inuit.”

“I meant you have on a lot of clothing, smart a*s.”

“Oh, I know. I have hardly an ounce of skin pigment.” He smiled. I wore a short denim skirt with black thigh-high socks and a black and navy-blue, hooded sweatshirt with a pink camisole underneath. This is how I usually dress when the temperature changes, while the other girls still wear flip-flops and show their scar-less arms. Lewis looked at me curiously. I read his signature on the Pact. It was beneath everyone else', of course, because it took me so long to work up to asking him to sign it. He is the most intelligent of the people who signed it, besides myself, and he has a habit of challenging me and my ideas. But he really did not today. Depression will do that to even the most assertive, the most intelligent. Depression has become a trend, which is probably why talking the others into signing this was so easy. I am not quite done getting their minds in the right place, but trend followers are sheep any way I look at it. I am not jaded, I’m just illuminated.

So now that the Pact is completed, I have seven names. Erika Cohen, Miriam Lodge, Tommy Smith, Francis Jacques, Robin Cross, Joshua Bellmen, and Lewis Ellington.

I have seven people. Lewis was my main fixation, as far as signing this masterpiece. He has to come with me. We have done everything together. He is my best friend. He will be forever. I notice way too much about him; I always have. Like how he went from being a lanky, skinny guy when we were younger into what he is now; tall, thin and slightly muscular, tan… He has a strong jaw that makes him look like a little G.I Joe. His nose curves upward and his face is lightly freckled. The people who can look beyond his temper, anxiousness and melancholy, which can sometimes be alarmingly apparent, always love him. What he is now appeals to quite a few people, which is certainly not okay with me. No way, no how.

Kathleen Harvey is definitely on my hit list before we act upon our plans. I cannot stand her. I see her every day in the hall or at lunch, talking to some football player, in her high heels and cheer leading ribbon, giving me dirty, bitchy, disgusting looks. I have said nothing to this girl in over three years, and I definitely think it is time for her to give looks to someone else (or to a coffin lid, in my preference), and stop telling people that I am a sociopath and necrophiliac, simply based on an isolated incident when I was fourteen in which I was caught after sneaking inside a morgue to acquire certain things that of which are pointless to disclose, seeing as it all went awry. No one of my caliber and shade of mind wants to be known as anything in a small town. At this point, I have nothing at all to lose and therefore I do not care. She may care once I take one of those ribbons and wrap them around her under-sized esophagus and strangle her to death. Then who will she look at?

My old ballet school, which I pass frequently on walks, has been crossing my mind a bit as well. That place in flames would be a masterpiece.

As I sit here at my desk tonight by candle light, since I have no utilities, tonight, I smile every time I read the seven signatures at the bottom of the Pact. They all have different styles of writing, with one common goal of dying on the date I chose so carefully and for whatever reasons. I wrote the Pact, I chose the date, and I chose how it is going to be played out. I chose it all. And no one is going to challenge me, because they are not mentally strong enough to do so. Oddly enough, I feel mentally stronger, surer, and safer than I ever have before in my relatively short life. It is enlightening to know that you are going to die. Really, actually, going to die. Everyone knows they will die, sometime in the intangibly distant future. After they are old and gray, after they have kids, after they live. They know, but they are not aware. But in the moment that they feel all the blood draining away from that freak accident falling out of the boat, when the motor hits them, or they feel themselves falling, and the air exploding into their lungs, with the ground flying up towards them faster than they can fall towards it, they come to face the reality that they are going to die. Meet their Maker. I made it simpler for these seven people I care about so very much. It is as simple as signing a Pact with the devil. I imagine that is what simple Lewis thinks he did.

At lunch, when he and I were standing alone together, he asked me why I even wrote the Pact. He needed to know what prompted me.

“You know well what it is like to feel the most excruciating pain you have ever been succumbed to, and it not be at all physical. You know what it is like to see scissors and instead of remembering “s****y art from kindergarten” as the masses so often do in all probability, you think of how much you want to slide the blades down your wrist. Hard. End it all. You know what I am talking about.” I gazed at him, feigning some long, deep feeling; something I was not actually feeling but demonstrating mechanically.

“I know,” he sighed. “But why this?” Why this, why this. It is always why with him.

“If I am going to go out, I do not want to go out alone.”

“But Miriam isn't particularly depressed. She just wants to... be you. Or be with you.” This is true. She idolizes me and has for two years. She is quite the stupid one. If I told her I do not wear underwear, which I generally do, she would go commando to school for the rest of her pathetic life. When she invited me to sleep over, she kissed me out of mental �" and otherwise - frustration. I honestly almost like it, that someone idolizes me, because quite frankly, I am not appreciated as much as I should be by the people I know. I am not good enough by my own standards because I am somewhat visible. I am seen as crazy enough though. Definitely out of my f*****g mind, thanks to Kathleen making everything a much larger deal than it really was, and they never hesitate to point it out. They tell me not to forget to take my pills. But I am not on medication; I would only over-dose on it if the mood struck me as such and presented itself in a logical fashion but no one knows this. Besides, I am not schizophrenic or depressed. I am not manic-depressive. I do not need pills for supposed insanity. I do need pills to make me sleep, for a long time. Forever, even. I just do not want to wake up and beating my head into a wall until this becomes a reality is too much trouble.

“Well, this will be one more thing to make her like me. She has already dyed her hair a bit blacker and bought everything I own right down to the thong. If you are pathetic enough to do all of that, you should die anyway.” I have a habit of completely bashing Miriam while talking to Lewis but Miriam and I are actually quite close in terms of what I allow, or perhaps, am capable of.

“You are cold and heartless, you know?” I nodded.

I am unaware as to why those words, in Lewis’s voice, stuck in my head. Cold and heartless. I wondered what the term actually meant. How does one go about being warm and full of heart? Maybe he is right. I believe I already knew it, but had not really heard it. Not from someone I care about. I cannot remember feeling any other way than this way I feel now. I cannot remember what it is like to love anyone else. Else. And I will leave it at that. Miriam tried to tell him; she tried to destroy me. Lewis refused to believe her idiocy. Lewis can be naive until the day we die. And then the world will perhaps know many of my intimate feelings, but he never will. He will never know that I often wish to just wrap myself around him and kiss him finally.

Tomorrow, everyone that signed the Pact is meeting up to discuss details and these are details so that our infamy is strapped in tight. Everyone needs to know exactly what to do to make this work perfectly. This is not going to be any average cluster suicide. Everyone is going to know about this. In one week.

Erika.