Paz
11:42 p.m.
Edge-of-the-Deck taught me that no matter how much someone wants to kill themselves, there will always be some X factor that
keeps someone alive. That stops Death-Cast from calling.
My first intervention was Mom waking up from a nightmare to find me drunk and drugged out on my bedroom floor and rushing
me to the hospital before near death became death. Then for my second suicide attempt—at the same place I’m headed to right
now—I had an accident that made me nervous I would survive with injuries that would make my life extra unlivable if I tried
again. This time I’m pretty damn sure I’ve got my suicide down to a science. The only thing that might stop me before I even
get to try is what I’m hoping will ultimately take me out: the gun.
Just because I used a gun once doesn’t make me an expert, and I didn’t exactly ask the black market seller for a tutorial when I bought the gun off him while downtown on the day Mom and Rolando thought I was having fun at an arcade I’ve never been to (and now never will). Even though I removed all the bullets and put them in a separate pocket in my backpack, I’m still nervous that this unloaded gun with the safety switched on will still somehow shoot me in the back and paralyze me. It sounds stupid, I know, but if I’m not destined to die soon, then that means something is destined to save me.
I’m doing my best to make sure nothing can.
Instead of calling an Uber and risking getting pulled over or ending up in a nonfatal accident, I walked for over an hour
and a half to Griffith Park. I avoided everyone on the streets, scared they might rob me for my backpack and get away with
the gun. I read on Edge-of-the-Deck that a suicidal man was going home to shoot himself with his new gun when the police stopped
him because he fit the description of another man who had just murdered a Decker nearby. The night he spent in jail while
being investigated gave him a change of heart once he was freed. Good for him, but that’s not my story.
Griffith Park is a popular site for hiking—it’s also where I impulsively tried killing myself last month on my birthday and
where I will succeed tonight. The park has been closed since six, but that didn’t stop me from stomping out my last cigarette
ever, climbing the gate, and hopping over; I was relieved when I landed on both feet without snapping an ankle, that would’ve
been a stupid way to get caught. I used my phone’s light as I climbed up through the steep, uneven dirt trails, tripping more
times than I could count, but over an hour later, I’ve made it up here.
The Hollywood Sign. This is where I’m gonna kill myself.
There’s a gate behind the sign that’s warning trespassers away. I’m about to hop over when I hear something—someone?—behind me. I turn around, staring into the darkness of the path that leads up to the Wisdom Tree, but I don’t see anyone. I exhale in relief that it’s not some security guard appearing as my death’s X factor. I hop the gate, which, on my birthday, I thought was gonna electrocute me or something, but nothing then and nothing now. Not even an alarm when I walked down to the sign as the sun was setting. The city claims they have security on the job, but no one ever knocked on my door to fine me or arrest me. If someone is watching this time, I’ll hopefully be dead before they reach me. I skid down the steep hill and fall on my ass, scared that I might tumble past the sign and into the darkness. I dig my nails and sneakers into the dirt, trying to brake, and I bump against a rock that kills all momentum. Of all the saves that could happen tonight, that was a good one.
I wipe the sweat out of my eyes at the base of the forty-five-foot-high Hollywood Sign and start climbing the workman’s ladder
up the letter H . My heart is racing, just like on my birthday, but this time I don’t fall at the halfway mark, scraping and bruising my legs
and arms and getting the breath knocked out of me. This time I keep climbing, rung by rung, until I get to the platform on
the very top. I’ve pictured myself standing up here fearlessly and leaping to my death, but it’s so windy that I’m scared
I’ll be blown back down the ladder, banging all the way down again, and only getting gravely injured. I cling to the platform
and crawl across until I get to the center, sitting on the ledge.
This is a beautiful view of Los Angeles. The City of Dreams. Everyone has a dream, even those of us who’ve given up on them. I look up at all the glittering stars, wishing they could’ve made my dreams come true, but I’m the only one in this world who can give me what I want.
I unzip my backpack and grab my gun. It’s a black pistol, the same model I used on Dad, according to various news reports.
That’s why it felt so fated when I started devising my suicide plan on the night of my birthday and ended up on a black market
site selling this exact model. I sold books and video games and even an old autographed headshot to someone on eBay to afford
the gun. I’ve even wondered if somehow, in the almost ten years since I held it last, this could be the exact gun I used on
Dad. I inspect the gun again, like I’m gonna find my fingerprints or my signature or something. I’ll never know if this is
the gun I used on Dad, but it’s definitely the one I’ll use on myself.
I review my suicide plan in my head.
If there’s a cruel world where I survive this, then Orion and his asshole producers can say goodbye to their movie because
who’s gonna want a story about a fictional nineteen-year-old immortal when a real nineteen-year-old immortal exists? Luckily
for them, that won’t happen. They’ll have their movie with some inferior actor playing Death and I’ll just be dead. Maybe
I should’ve written a suicide note or recorded a Last Message for everyone in Hollywood who wouldn’t give me a second chance.
But Hollywood won’t need a suicide note. They already know why my blood will be on their hands—and sign.
I keep a tight grip on the gun as I stand, my legs shaking. Don’t look down, don’t look down, don’t look down . I focus on the night sky even as I feel my gaze trying to shift downward, like my body is going into survival mode and trying
to scare me from doing this. I’m sweating—no, I’m crying. I hate that I got cursed with such a painful, doomed life. I wish
things were different, but they’re not.
I grab my phone and check the time: 11:59.
I’ll pull the trigger in one minute, right at midnight.
Maybe I’ll hear Death-Cast calling a millisecond before the gunshot.
I bring the gun up to my head while staring at my phone.
My finger grazes the trigger, ready to pull.
“Don’t jump!” someone shouts—someone up here with me.
I swing the gun away from my head and toward the voice.
A boy.
I wipe the tears with my phone-carrying hand and cast the light on him.
This isn’t just any boy interfering with my End Day.
This is the Death-Cast heir.