I hear the gun shot and feel it pierce my chest as if it were a movie, rather than a my real life.
I fall to the ground in slow motion, hands clutching automatically to my wound. Blood blossoms out of me, spilling through my fingers and onto the ground, staining the fresh snow with red.

This isn't fair! I have only just finished college, I have so much more to live for! I know it is too late, my breath hitching with gasps as clouds of freezing breath are expelled from my mouth. I am going to die.

I've haven't fulfilled my dreams! I haven't bought a house, or gotten married! I haven't had children! All my life I wanted to be a mother, when the time was right, and now that time has been snatched from me by a cold, metal bullet.

My thoughts drift to my family, all standing in the living room of my house. My brothers, sister, parents all smiling and standing, waiting for me. The warm is aglow with a soft light that makes the scene so much more familiar. A flutter of hope runs through me. Will I see them again?

Life bleeds slowly from me, and I catch sight of a distant peak. Mountains. Always have I lived near mountains, always sheltering me. The majestic angles guarding me always, sharp against the sky. The mountains are my home.

Home. I regret that I spent so little time at my home throughout college. I shove the thought away; now is no time for regrets. But with that thought, my other regrets pile into my head like a bunch of football players.

I regret losing my first love. I regret not making a move before it was too late. I regret not being able to save the wild birds my cat always seemed to injure. I regret not making the most of each day. I regret being vile to unfriendly strangers. I regret not realizing how lucky I was to be here, alive, healthy, and safe.

For the most part. I was never completely safe, wandering the alleyways of the city that I'd lived in for four years. You could always get shot. Like I did tonight.

My time is close now, I can feel it. But I do not fear it, for I know that this is not the end. I will lead another life. When I am judged on my actions, I hope the forces choose not to make me human. Humans are the most evil of all creatures, and I have realized this in my years of this life.

But would it be better to live my life out as an animal, constantly hunted by the creatures I so despise, in spite of what I am in the life? Or if I was not hunted, I would be driven from my home, or gawked at, or living as a house pet.

There would be no better life for me, I think, than life as a blade of grass. Unthinking, unfeeling, oblivious to the pain around me, pain I cannot hope to erase. Enduring, yet fleeting, life determined only by nature's due course.

I hope to be such a being, a blade of grass, where I can escape for a few brief months, a fragile respite from the agony of this world. I have tried, in this life, to change the world around me, yet I am but a small fish in the sea of the world, trying without success to change.

My seconds are numbered, only a few remaining. But now, after I die, perhaps I will get my wish and become a blade of grass, nestled in the mountains. Home. Home agai-