Jump

“Jump”whispers the voice. It's clear as day. Like someone is standing behind me. Yet I am alone. Alone in a world of fake people. As far as I know, the world is not real. It's all an act with characters put in place to interact with me. My life is a road with only one destination. The story is finishing whether I'm writing the ending or not. Maybe it's the author's voice I can hear. The voice inside my head. It tells me what to do. It tells me where to go. It's telling me to jump. I used to believe in reality and that we choose our own destiny. I believed that everyone was just like me and that the world had been created by chance. Of course, now I realise that I was wrong. Someone, somewhere, has created me like a character in a book. They watch my every move and narrate them like a story. I can't take this any more. I want to believe in life again, I want to feel free within myself. So here I stand, looking down to the motorway, speeding cars and lorries that will escape my presence. My end.

When I was younger, I dreamed of being famous. Looking back now, I see the irony of my ambition. A life of being followed around by cameras, every experience written in black and white on a piece of paper - then to be sold to millions. I achieved my dream from the moment I was born. I didn't know it until last February. At first, the voice was kind - smooth, gentle. I was sat in my flat alone; I'd just been to the funeral of my parents. They died in a horrific car accident whilst coming back from France. They'd treated themselves to a well deserved holiday �" I believe that my time at home with them had caused this decision. I have ADHD and it's my fault they're dead. I should have been the one in that car, I should have died. I always played with their minds until it drove them insane. They never gave up on me, which I hated the most. They should have sent me away to a gruesome children's home. When I finally moved into my own flat after my 18th birthday, they booked the holiday. I am a monster and I killed them.

That's when it started. I was alone and angry. I was crying and smashing up the vase on the mantle piece. I picked up a piece of glass and sliced my arm open. I sliced it a thousand times until the blood had stained the carpet and the wood underneath. I tried to cut the life out of myself, to feel the pain that my parents had felt. Then I heard it.
“Stop this!” the voice shouted, as if someone had walked through my door and witnessed my actions. I spun around to see who's life I was going to ruin now. No one was watching. I didn't feel scared or nervous. I thought it was a voice from above �" an angel, maybe. 
“You can deal with this!” it screamed at me. 
That's when I blacked out. I woke up in a hospital bed, hours later; someone had found me before I bled to death. I was hooked to a machine, new blood dripping into my arm every so often. Most of the experience was a blur. I only remember telling the police that I had simply been moving the vase to the table but fallen over in the process, shattering the glass onto my arm. The skin was so torn and the glass so shattered that my lie was believable.

After my outrage, the voice often returned. It gave me confidence and told me how well I was coping. Then one day I was having an argument with my only friend. All of a sudden, the voice was disagreeing with me. It explained that I didn't deserve any friends and that I ruined everything I had. These were the only words I needed to send me spiralling back into the 'world of darkness'. A place that no one else can understand until they are submerged within the depths of the blackness. A place where every colour becomes black ,and a physical, aching pain is felt deep within your chest. Thoughts are tangled like spaghetti and sounds become muffled. You cannot eat or sleep, despite the everlasting fatigue. Tears sting your eyes and fall in silence like raindrops. I soon found myself regularly picking up the nearest and sharpest tool that I could find. I once again began the cutting. The pain inside me counteracted with the pain in my arm and it became my only escape. I was stuck within the endless cycle of tears and blood, sadness and anger, pain and more pain.

Each time I reduced myself to the slashing, the voice would get nastier.
“You deserve this” it told me.
“You're worthless and don't deserve to live” it continued.
Until one day, “Why don't you follow through and kill yourself”.
I'd thought about suicide many times before, but I never felt the courage to do it. I'd already experienced a near-death situation but I didn't want to wake up in some stupid hospital again. If I wanted to die, I wanted to do it in a way where there could be no return. A way that would be full proof. It lead me to where I am standing.

The air is cold. It's nearly the end of November and the sky is just beginning to grow darker. I love it's colour, a pale navy blue, the colour of  light denim shorts - that gorgeous, stunning girls with long, tanned legs wear in summer. Somewhere in this town, they will be huddled in blankets, drinking hot chocolate with their boyfriends. I've hardly even touched upon a relationship. Friendships were hard enough to secure when I was eleven. I was the awkward kid who sat in the corner on my own. I misbehaved a lot to try and attract attention to myself. Then I found that I couldn't stop it and I wasn't doing it on purpose any more. That's when I was diagnosed with ADHD. I was given medication of course, but I recently stopped taking it; I can't bear drugs. As I stare below at the moving traffic, fear crosses my mind. Fear of what I'm about to do. One last thought crosses my mind. Maybe �" I think, maybe I'm being stupid. Maybe I...
“Jump! Just jump! No one wants you here!” 
There it is again. There's the voice. I really thought that maybe I could be saved. That maybe I could hear a director shout “Cut!”. I almost convinced myself that I was simply an actor that had lost my mind somewhere in a production.
“Jump!”
I take a step closer to the edge of this flyover. I take a deep breath. I'm shaking with fear but at the same time I'm happier than I could ever be. Finally, this will all be over. Finally, the voice will be gone forever.
“Jump.”
And that's it. The last piece of encouragement I need. I take a step off the flyover until I'm hurtling to the ground. It's getting closer and closer and closer.
“You're going to hell.” 
And that's the last thing I hear before the blackness hits me once more.