No Second Chances

Snow falls lightly around me, settling on the ground only briefly before melting. A slight breeze swirls the snow occasionally, but otherwise the white flakes are undisturbed in their descent. The air isn't cold, but the people below me are still bundled up in case the weather decides to take a turn for the worst. The cold doesn't touch me, since I can't feel anything.

The mass of people sway to and fro, swirling like the snow, and there seems to be no end to their foolishness. They search for the perfect gift for their loved one, but how long can that last? One gift this year; one gift next year. Material things are lost and broken so easily.

I bring my cigarette to my mouth, but pause as I see my hand shake. Sighing, I inhale and wait for a calm to come over me. I exhale slowly and watch the smoke counter the downward action of the snow.

A face in the crowd pops out briefly and I sneer at it. It's the woman who hadn't had the decency to leave this morning, and instead decided to cook my dad and I breakfast. Dad just smiled at her and I just left.

Climbing on top of the ledge, I scan the crowd again. I spy a happy couple strolling down the street and roll my eyes at them. I use the cigarette one last time and let it drop, hoping it will hit that couple.

The cigarette descends faster than the snow, picking up speed as it nears the ground. I watch fascinated and can almost feel it trying to pull me down. A faint yelp sounds as I see it hit someone, but it misses its intended target.

Scowling, I tighten my ponytail. There's only one more chance to hit my target, and I suppose it's now or never. My last chance to ruin something else.

I step off the ledge.

The ground below me is warm when it should be cold, drawing me out of unconsciousness. It smells like flowers, which is impossible when I should be on a busy, concrete street right now in little, splattered pieces.

Most of all, I shouldn't be alive.

"You aren't alive."

This voice startles me out of my thoughts, and my eyes fly open to look for it. The search is abruptly ended, since the owner of the voice stands right in front of me. I scrunch my nose at him, trying to figure out what exactly happened.

"Yes, you did jump and go splat," the guy speaks again, rolling his eyes. "Didn't you hear me before?" He offers me a hand, giving me something else to stare at rather dumbly. He takes the initiative and reaches down to grab my arm, pulling me up. "The name's Raphael. You're in the Middle Garden right now."

Scanning the meadow one more time, I still can't find the answers I need. My life is supposed to be over. I never believed in what they taught at school. How can there be something after death?

Raphael laughs, shaking his head. "How ignorant you are! How can you believe that nothing would happen after you die? Before you were born, there was something. Why not after you die?"

I open my mouth to speak, but then firmly shut it. Why should I have to talk to someone who is clearly not real? Walking away from this apparition, I stop suddenly since I realize there is nowhere to go. I groan, turning back toward the unreal being to find him rather smug.

"You might as well stay and listen to what this fake thing has to say. I'm the only person you'll be seeing for awhile," Raphael chuckles, holding out his hand. A deck of cards appears and falls neatly into it.

Raphael starts shuffling as he speaks to me, "This is your deck." I stare at him blankly, growing more confused. "Don't worry; it's not a normal deck. The cards are quite special." He pulls one out and throws it to me.

Catching it, I give him one last look before studying the card. This side is all black, so I turn it over. I catch a glance at a moving, laughing girl before I drop it in surprise.

"Now that wasn't a nice thing to do to her," Raphael pauses in his shuffling to scold me. He walks over and picks up the card. "This is your best friend, is it not?" I look closer at the card and nod. "She's in a different state, so she still doesn't have the news about your death. A call should be coming soon, and it will devastate her." I just shrug, not worried. She's seen death before.

Raphael sighs and pulls out another card. This time it's of my dad, although I almost can't recognize him. He's sitting in the living room with a bottle in his hand, muttering something unintelligible and looking absolutely horrible. "Your dad got home just in time to see you go splat. He found out it was you only after the police came. His lady friend came after that to comfort him, but it didn't work too well," he says, gazing into my eyes. "The next morning, while driving to work, he's going to be involved in a collision. At least the semi-driver survives." The picture on my dad's card slowly changes so it can show what's left of my dad's car, which isn't much. Somehow I can't believe that this will happen.

So I don't.

"Your family was supposed to have their reunion this year," Raphael continues on, pulling out a different card. "It's going to be earlier this year. Just in time to celebrate you and your father's deaths." I watch as a long line of black clad people file past in the card, their faces encased in grief.

Shuffling the deck again, Raphael says, "It's so easy to look through your deck and find a sad story resulting from your idiotic decision." He pulls out my best friend's card again. "After hearing about you, she's unable to cope and stays out in the rain too long; getting a sickness that will affect her for the rest of her life, not to mention shorten it considerably.

"Even people you may have not known will be affected by your decision." Raphael sits down, pulling out three cards. "This woman was supposed to be your English teacher next year. Because she didn't have to correct one paper that was supposed to be yours, she went home too early to find several burglars at her house. It wasn't pretty after that." He sets that card down, drawing out the next one. "This little girl's parents will divorce because you weren't there to make the gifts she would've bought to help bring them back together." Laying that card down next to the other woman's, he shows me the last one. "This baby won't be born because you weren't alive to get an internship at the hospital he was going to be born at. There was a shortage of workers and they were too late to save this one." This last card is set next to the other two.

Raphael deals out several more cards, pausing to show me one. "You remember him, right?" I nod since it's a face I had copied on my notebook numerous times. "If you would've given him more time, he would've said yes. But no, you had to take his silence as a negative. Now he'll end up drinking a little too much and having a kid with someone whose face he can barely remember. You could've been his anchor, but you had to give up too soon."

My knees give out, and I fall into a sitting position next to Raphael. "Do you know why all the cards in your deck have one black side?" I shake my head as I watch him deal out all the cards in some strange pattern. "The color represents how you look at life. All you can think about is how worthless you are and how miserable life was." He puts one last card down and looks up at me. "It is you who decides on how miserable your life can be. If you truly believe that nothing will get better, then nothing will because you won't do anything to try to help it get better. The opposite is also true. If you believe that life can get better, than that outlook will affect everything around you. Everything will shift toward getting better since you won't give up on that belief." I look down since I can't stand the way he is staring at me. "Everything is based on what you believe and how you believe it."

"You see these three rows?" Raphael points to them and then flips one card over, causing the whole line flip with it. "This shows the chain reaction resulting from your decision. Each person affects the other, but you started it." He flips the other two rows and I stare at all of the faces staring back at me. "This stack over here shows how many people died because of you," he says and slowly spreads out the cards. I look away since I know that my father is in that pile. "That stack represents how many people were hurt because of your death, and the other is how many people you could've saved if you stayed alive." He lays down three cards right in front of me. "This would've been your husband and two children."

Tears begin to fall down my face and I back away from Raphael, but there is no escaping this tormentor and his cards. No matter how far I want to run away, my body will not respond. I pull my legs up by my chest and wrap my arms around them. Laying my forehead on my knees, I try to stop the flow of tears, but all of the faces won't disappear. So many people are affected. None of this is supposed to happen. Life is supposed to be better without me.

"One last card for you to look at," Raphael says softly as he kneels down next to me. Somehow I'm compelled to move and look at the card, but I wish I hadn't. This one is completely black; there are no pictures on either side. "This card represents what you believe, which is nothing. It's hard for a person to believe in nothing, but it's not impossible. The card tells us one more thing."

The card suddenly expands and engulfs the world around me. Beneath me a hole opens up, and I can hear wretched sounds that can't possibly be human. A terrible heat rises, and I scramble to get away from it. My effort is futile since the hole only widens as my fear increases, and I can feel the heat slowly closing around me and pulling me into this horrible abyss. I scream for Raphael to help me, but my voice is gone. Pleadingly, I look up at him, but there's no sympathy in his eyes as a pair of demonic wings unfurl behind him.

"Since you believe in nothing," the demon explains as the heat burns me and pulls me down, "there are no second chances."