This room is nice enough, except for the machines I’m hooked up to that won’t stop beeping. I’m sick of this room and everything in it: the whitewashed walls, the backless cushiony chairs, the antiseptic smell. Hospitals are no fun, especially when you’ve been impaled with an icicle and nobody trusts you because your words could be the brain damage talking. Yeah, an icicle fell on my head and “grievously injured” me. It sounds ridiculous to me, too.
    My head is swathed in bandages from today’s operation. Despite their best efforts, the doctors claim I’m dying; my condition has worsened steadily, apparently, although I can still understand what everyone is saying! Over in the corner is that hot nurse muttering to the doctor. They keep wringing their hands and shooting me worried glances, as if I won’t live to see another sunrise. If I survived college apps, I can definitely handle this.
    To my left, my best friend Kurt Masterson is sitting with his head in his hands. We’ve been through so much together – going on double dates, playing video games at two in the morning, sneaking out at night. We’ve been friends since third grade, but I’ve never seen him look this serious. Or sad. His mud-brown eyes are dark with concern, and he gently asks how I’m feeling.
    “All right,” I mutter. “I’ll be fine, really. When can we get out of here?” I wouldn’t mind replaying that game of manhunt. Or Assassins’ Creed 2, for that matter.
    Kurt doesn’t reply. His attention is fixed on my heart monitor, which seems to be slowing down.
    That’s strange. Why is everything so dark? Water starts rushing in my head, voices swirl. I see Kurt’s face, the doctors’ tight expressions, my parents’ wide eyes. “Oh, Lucas,” I hear my mom cry. “Lucas, he’s not breathing…”
    I start to drift upwards, towards the ceiling. I’m still in bed, surrounded by people – but I’m also up here, looking down on the scene. Looks like they’ve upped the dosage this week…           Kurt’s blond head is bowed, my father looks like he’s about to go into shock, and the doctors are quiet. My mother’s wild red hair is shaking slightly as she sobs. I hate to see my mom cry. It reminds me of how I’m not the son she wanted: not a superstar athlete or a straight-A student, just a kid who makes too many bad decisions.
    A wind picks up, tugging me away from the scene. I struggle against it, but the current is too strong. Soon other people join me—translucent people, floating along with the crowd. Some look perfectly normal, if a bit old and tired. Others have crushed limbs, or tubes sticking out at odd angles, or dried silver on their bodies. One guy even has an axe in his head! Are they souls? Or has my brain finally cracked?
    The air blackens as the wind herds us through a tunnel. Something roars at the other end; the vibrations travel up my spine and shock my bones. I crane my head over the crowd and see only foggy darkness. A vague scream rips through the air. Is someone dying? I look around, but the hospital is nowhere to be found; I’m packed in on all sides by more people. A group of little kids shivers next to me.
    The roar grows louder as we move forward. The wind drives us into a line and carries us forward like a conveyor belt. Ahead of me are thousands upon thousands of…ghosts, stunned into silence by some sort of drug that’s pumped into me as well. An elderly couple is up ahead. The lady’s hair is tied back in a bun, spectacles perched on a hooked nose; the man is holding her hand, dressed in a suit with a pipe sticking out of his mouth. Both of them stare straight ahead, blank-faced. I watch as the two advance towards a gigantic machine that I can only describe as a massive blowdryer. It’s the source of the roaring, obviously. A light on the side of the contraption blinks yellow, then red. A blast of force pulverizes the couple, and they dissolve into nothing. Just like that. Gone.
    That couple looked so familiar! I swear I’ve seen them before. Then it hits me: they’re my grandparents.
    I still remember when we got word of the crash that killed them, four days ago. They had been driving to a party at one of their friends’ houses when some drunk driver ran a red light and smashed my grandparents’ car into a tree. Everybody died instantly, or so we were told.
    My sister hates funerals – all those sad people and the somber atmosphere really get to her. At my grandparents’ funeral it was my job to watch her, but I wasn’t exactly comforting. I sort of yelled at my sister for crying and then stormed off to drink punch for the rest of the night. And now I can never go back and apologize. In fact, now I can’t apologize for a lot of things that I did, like driving when I was drunk, or cheating on tests to get good grades, or lying to my parents about where I had been.
    I start to shake. This cannot be happening. All my life, my parents have told me that when I die, I’ll go to Heaven for being good. A pair of angels will take me to Heaven, where I’ll get to do whatever I want whenever I want. Ever since my first trip to Church, I believed that, one way or another, when I died I would be happy. It was a comforting thought, especially when I was feeling particularly blue.
    What will not happen is this. I will not be forced onto a conveyor belt and silenced, waiting for a gigantic blowdryer to blast me to bits, scattering my atoms to the wind. Never to return, never to see anyone I love, never to be able to apologize. I can’t even be reincarnated as something else. This is it. This is the end.
    I need to get back to my life. I can’t be killed by an icicle! That’s just a stupid way to die. I still have so much of my life to live. I need to hang out with my friends, go to college, fall in love, start a family. I’m just 18, for Pete’s sake.
    I freak out and try to get off the conveyor-belt-wind thing, until I realize that I’m not moving anymore. It must have shunted me to the side to watch other people get vaporized. I’m safe! The blowdryer can’t get to me! I won’t die today, folks!
    But still my head whispers, I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die... I don’t want to die…
    I have no idea how long I stand there for. Eventually my brain—if I still have a brain—starts ignoring the roar of the Death Machine. My ghostly feet go numb.
    I guess this is sort of it. I can’t go back to my old life now—the wind seems to decide everything I do at this point. So I suppose I should be grateful for the bit of living that I actually got to do. Even if my life seems hideously unfair…
    As if you did so much good in your life, my brain hisses.
    I tell it to shut up. Even if I can’t go apologize to my sister, or to my parents for not being the golden boy they’ve always wanted, or to Kurt for abandoning him, at least I can die knowing that I loved them, for the most part.
    Whatever was holding me against the wall releases its grip, propelling me forward. Perhaps it was waiting for me to accept my fate, so I wouldn’t cause a holdup in the system. I suppose I’ll never know.
    As I move forward, the air turns colder. A nearby spirit smiles at me weakly, as if to say, you’re going to be alright. The machine vaporizes it.
    As the light blinks yellow for me, I mutter a quick prayer to the world.
    The light turns red.