Surviving Death

A Story by Arte Por Vida

This is a short little work of fiction I wrote one night when I was just bored in my room.

After getting yelled at for the fifteenth time that day, I lost it completely. I ran outside into the freezing cold. I was barefoot and wearing only jeans and a tank top.

I ran down the tar road, my feet frozen but gripping the ground. After going only a few feet, I toppled over. Frantically reaching for my phone in my pocket as I feel a panic attack coming on, I call the one person I can.

My breath coming more quickly, sharper, and less often, I gasp for help after the other line picks up. I’m stuck standing in the freezing cold, unable to breathe.

Panic attacks are one thing, but when you’re as skinny as I am and in the freezing cold, you feel as if you were dying. Weighing a mere 95 pounds at a height of 5’3” and age 14 is not a good thing. It is most definitely, dangerous.

My world spins around me as I begin to feel very dizzy and even more disorientated. I clutch my stomach and begin rocking back and forth.

Darkness beginning to consume me, I try to break free. Realizing it isn’t worth the pain, I let the blackness swallow me whole and send me into a deep abyss.

I am beyond terrified. I wonder if I could’ve just died. Though in the past I’ve imagined my death being brutal, I never saw it like this. I open my eyes and see nothing. I try to scream but no sound escapes my lips. I cannot move at all.

Far off in the distance, I see a tiny bright dot. It gets closer and I helplessly try to crawl away but it’s clearly no use. In what I believed to be my last moments, I said a silent prayer. A prayer asking that what just happened to me never happens to anyone else.
The blinding white light envelopes me now and I relax, only to find myself feeling numbness. I hear myself breathing. Each breath is weak and they only get weaker again. To say that I was scared would be a great understatement.

Shallow gasps escape now as I notice I’m crying. Though I’m slowly loosing consciousness again, I am aware of my surroundings. I’m lying in the snow on the side of the road. I’m in the ditch.

A sharp pain in my stomach causes me to scream and whimper inaudibly. I try to curl up but it only makes things worse. All I can think about is ending the suffering I am currently enduring.

Fading into the abyss again, I don’t struggle this time. I don’t want to experience this pain any longer. It is worse than anything I’ve ever felt before.

Instead of blackness, I see red--the underside of my eye lids. Opening them, I see my family and a few friends hovering over me with puffy eyes. They smother me with hugs and I wince. The pain is still there.

Ignoring everyone, I focus on what’s happening with me. I am warm and covered in blankets. I can breathe though I don’t sound like a healthy teenager. I can hear my heart beating.

Processing everything, I realize I just died and somehow returned, only for the same thing to happen again. Somehow, after I was gone the second time, someone saved me.

I just survived the scariest moment of my life in which I left earth twice. I, the weak, fragile, and skinny girl, survived death. And I did not only survive death once, I survived it twice.