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My heart began to pound, my brain began to contract, and I thought my skin was going to crack. I heard heavy breathing, and for a while I felt like the world was closing in on me.

This was my punishment for a life of bad decisions after bad decisions. This was where my life of vice was leading me, and I had nobody to blame but myself. Was this my hell? Or was this just the purgatory that I was condemned to while I wait for God to come up with my damnation?

I never considered myself a religious man. The idea of an omniscient creator always perplexed me. How can someone know everything and exist everywhere? There was no way someone could possibly have access to all that knowledge. Even the human mind did not have the capacity to retain so much information. The world was filled with many people who worshipped this cosmic entity that had very little intervention with the secular plane. What had He ever done for us? People claimed he was the reason for all that exists on this planet and the reason why they all cease to exist as well.

If there was no God, then what was this sensation I felt as my life slipped away? My blood began to coagulate and I felt my skin start to ossify. Scientifically it was understood that water was the source of all life, containing all the necessities of existence. So it just seemed logical for the lack of water to signify death. A barren wasteland. A deserted region. My body seemed to be depleting of water rather quickly, ceasing to flow in all vital areas. Was this what dying felt like? Was this what Amber felt that night? Then, all of a sudden, all those traumatic memories flooded back in...

CHAPTER TWO: Glowing Ember

Dear Diary,

My name is Shego and I am going to be the next rockstar sensation! I am a senior at Beebee Q. High, where I am also in band, but not the dorky kind! I play the saxophone there, but whenever I’m at home I actually play a whole ton of instruments like the guitar, the drums, even the triangle! I like to think that I am a certified badass, but obviously I don’t want to toot my own horn. That’s what I have my girlfriend Blossom for!

Yas girl, I love girls!!!! Coming out as a lesbian is the best thing that’s ever happened to me! I was freaked out when my mom caught me going down on one of my friends in junior high and I thought I was going to be sent to a Catholic school but nooooo, my mom was totally fine with it! She joked about it saying she doesn’t have to worry about me getting pregnant! I love how she thinks she is just SOOOOOOO hilarious! I mean as long as that means I can still have a girlfriend then she can joke about whatever.

Blossom and I bonded over being adorable! She was the cutest little ginger I have ever met, and that’s a lot considering that they, you know, don’t have a soul and all. But it’s fine, she has my heart instead! I met her in band and originally I wasn’t even sure if she was into girls too. She was way too into girly things, whereas I love playing video games, jamming out with my guitar, playing lacrosse in my free time, etc. But one night after a football game we were just talking casually and then we randomly started talking about exes and then she mentioned she’s had exes but they weren’t boyfriends, and well, my interest was piqued! I see you!

Anyway I don't really know what to include in my diary. My mom thought it would be good to have, apparently to record my memories, but low key I think she just wants to snoop in and make sure I'm not doing anything awful. Trust me mom, if I was going to do something scandalous, I would not be writing about it. I would be out there doing it. Reminds me of that one movie. What was it?

I guess I don't have anything major planned. There is a party I was invited to by some girl who calls herself Steak, so Blossom and I are going and see if we can find some hot girls to get drunk with (also, mom, if you ever see this, you should appreciate that I am writing this in instead of just hiding it). That should be fun.

Blossom is on her way to pick me up. It's supposed to be across town and it's a little sketchy to be honest but Blossom is going to be there anyway so I'm not super concerned. She could be a tough bitch when she needs to be so if anything weird happens, I think we can squeeze in a few punches. COME AT ME.

Hasta luego,

Shego

CHAPTER THREE: A Burning Flicker

"Bayleigh, what are you doing tonight you whore?"

"Excuse me!" Bayleigh looked around confused. "Try that again honey."

"Sorry about that. I was just trying to see if you were doing anything fun tonight," her friend, Doja, said. "There's a party at Eta Theta Epsilon tonight and I really wanted you to go. It would be fun to just relax a bit."

"That would make sense," Bayleigh started, "but have you forgotten that I have an important final to study for soon? It does not seem like a good idea at all to go out and get wasted just for the sake of getting my rocks off."

"Getting your rocks off?! Bayleigh, are you forty? Stop talking like that", Doja laughed. Bayleigh smacked her on the shoulder.

"Girl stop playing," Bayleigh replied. Doja laughed once again and Bayleigh started to smack her again.

"Stop!" Doja laughed. "If you do not want to go, I will not force you. But your girl is going to go enjoy herself. If you want to spend time with your studying,  go ahead. But you know what?" Bayleigh looked up at her. Doja continued, "If you really did manage your time well, then you would have made room for this party". Bayleigh rolled her eyes and laughed. "Suit yourself. I have a cute little pink cat crown I want to wear too. PURR!"

"Alright, well have fun at the party!" Bayleigh said as she waved goodbye to her roommate.

"Yeah yeah, will do!" Doja exclaimed as she slid her pink tiara on. She grabbed her keys and hurried out the door.

Bayleigh walked over to her mirror. How can people not care about their academics at all? School was not a cheap expense and she knew her parents were paying for a ton of it out of pocket. She also had the burden of maintaining her high GPA in order to keep her scholarships. She needed to study for her exam, and she was not going to have much success doing so if she was drunk out of her mind. She powered on her laptop and while she waited for it to boot up, she decided to check out her social media.

Her best friend Nick posted another selfie of himself at the gym showing off his body. Her ex-boyfriend Lucas was vacationing in Australia and petting kangaroos. Her neighbor Reggie was preparing a fruit salad comprising of kiwis, strawberries, blueberries, oranges, and coconut yogurt. Everybody had such different priorities in their lives.

Then, Bayleigh stumbled upon an article on the internet that caught her eye: VIGIL MARKS TEN YEAR ANNIVERSARY FOR SLAIN COLLEGE GIRL. She clicked on the link and skimmed through the text.

Amber Martinez was jogging home one late afternoon, trying to outrun the tumultuous thunderstorm that appeared suddenly, when she was struck by a vehicle that had lost control due to the slippery roads. The driver had contacted authorities and waited by her side while the ambulance rushed over, but by the time they were able to help her, she had suffered severe internal bleeding and she passed en route to the hospital. The accident happened across the country but Bayleigh remembered vividly about how much the story impacted her life.

So now ten years had passed since her death and her family had organized a vigil in her honor. Friends and family came to visit her, as well as strangers from all over. Amber Martinez was not just another victim of vehicular manslaughter. She was an aspiring lawyer who had dreams of defending the rights of the oppressed minorities in the world. She recognized that the judicial system was filled with inherent flaws that needed to be addressed. Unfortunately, in a world where being different from the "norm" was frowned upon, where it was a crime to have anything other than white skin, a disadvantage to be anything other than a straight male, she knew and accepted that it would be an uphill battle yet persisted with her studies, never giving up hope. In her first year of college, she managed to find an internship at a firm where she was able to establish connections with lawyers with various backgrounds, winning them over with her optimistic outlook on life. There was not a single person who could hold anything against Amber, and she had been the angel that was given to the world to change things for the better, but all this came crashing down one fateful night. People wanted to pay their respects. Her family originally wanted to keep this event exclusive, but many people expressed interest in wanting to mourn the death of a beloved individual.

Bayleigh felt her eyes begin to water. This particular story had touched her heart when Amber had passed. She did not know the girl, but Bayleigh was about to enter junior high when she heard about it. Her own father had been wrongly accused of a crime he did not commit, specifically being identified as a suspect in a home invasion. Apparently there was a night where he broke into someone's residence and stole from an elderly couple after forcing them into the closet and beating them with a pistol. The problem was that when this happened, her father had been at home with Bayleigh, helping her with her science fair project. He never stepped away, was always in plain sight, and she knew deep down he was not the type of person to ever engage in such violence. Unfortunately the description that the elderly couple gave was attributed to him, even though the description was too general to ever properly identify someone. And one day at the local supermarket, he passed by the couple where they told store management to call the police as he had been the suspect in question. And just like that, he had to bear this stigma, losing his job as a banker and being shunned by his neighbors and friends.

Bayleigh had grown tired of the racial injustices that seemed to plague society, but none of that mattered. As far as she knew, she was a minority, in not just one category, but two, as she was a woman of color. She had to fight twice as hard just to be even considered to be on the same playing field as the women she was surrounded by, and even then, the women still had to overcome the gender discrimination. She had to work harder, smarter, better than every man she had ever been around. This in turn was why she had always put an emphasis on her education. She did not just want to make a difference; she wanted to BE the difference. Her father, despite losing his career, reputation, support system both financially and emotionally, worked multiple less-than-ideal jobs in order to give his daughter the education she deserved. Her mother had a tough time finding a job that would pay her respectfully, as she had her resumes consistently glossed over, more often than not because of her name alone. And even the job interviews she did land, it was apparent she would not get the job when the hiring managers always kept a distance, never hearing a callback.

When Bayleigh heard about Amber's story, she was devastated that there was a woman who had wanted to change the world for the better, give everyone the chance at life they deserve. Society should not be about who had access to the better resources or who had the looks of the poster child for "Most Outstanding Citizen". Everyone deserved the same opportunity, but not everybody received it. She had known many of her friends to grow disenchanted as they got older. Her high school friends refused to go to college, claiming that it would be impossible to get into, and even if they did, it would be a financial burden that they would not be able to recover from due to the lack of jobs that would even consider them. She argued that times were changing and they had the chance to be anyone they wanted - the doctor who finds a cure to cancer or the astronaut who visits space or the engineer who helps build a better world. But the sad truth was that society closed the door on them before they even had a chance to get in. The closed door was a sign that they were not welcome in, even though it was not a locked door. And any signs of entry would immediately have led to mass hysteria. Why even try bother going in if nobody wanted them there?

Amber's death lit a fire under Bayleigh, who then vowed to herself that she would never give up and she would focus on the world at large instead of just her own personal gain. There were too many tragedies and not enough happy endings. She did not want the abysmal news to discourage people like her to give up or settle for anything less than they deserved. She wanted the world to know that if she can overcome hardships then they can as well...

CHAPTER FOUR: Taming the Fire

"Do you remember anything else that happened that night?"

The young girl lifted her head up, her eyes sunken into her face, her lip swelling, her teeth wobbling in place.

"I can't," she whimpered. "I can't talk about it." The girl looked up at her counselor, her entire face flushed and translucent.

"We do not have to talk about it," the counselor promised her. "We can talk about anything you want."

The girl shook her head and grabbed her hair. Her whole body started to tremble. She buried her face into her scratched up hands.

"I just don't know why it happened to me," she screamed. "It was supposed to be just a party. I went with her. We were supposed to be good." She lifted her fingers to her mouth and started to bite her fingernails. "We trusted them."

The counselor gazed at her in sadness. "You did nothing wrong. You wanted to trust the boys. Do not blame yourself." The girl lifted her head and stared directly into the counselor's eyes.

"She's gone because of me," the girl uttered out. "Because of ME!"  The counselor looked at her in morose, but the girl just continued to shake in her chair. A quiet ringing entered her left ear and she felt as though her entire body had fallen numb.

"Sometimes we put our faith in the wrong people," the counselor responded in despondence. "It's not something that you should make yourself feel guilty over." The girl stared into her lap, isolating herself from the world around her. The counselor continued, "So you were going to Steak's party?" The girl nodded in silence, still keeping her gaze on her lap. "And you did not know anyone else?"

"Correct," the girl replied meekly. "Just me and my girlfriend."

"So you met these guys there," the counselor said, "and you two left the party to hang out with them in private?" The girl froze in her place, not saying anything. Finally she looked up and locked eyes once again with the counselor.

"We did not know they would assault us," the girl cried. "We expected everything to just be a good time! We were supposed to be there for each other in case something happened, and it did, and now she's really gone!" With that she broke into tears and pulled her hair in front of her face. "I wanted to forget about all this. I told the cops everything the night of. I did not want to live through it ever again. Steak set us up. She introduced us to those creeps. Those bastards wanted to hook up with us and we told them we were not interested. Then they grabbed us and tried to force us into their truck and we had to fight them off! One of them punched me in the face. Most of my teeth are loose now, some are chipped if not already gone!"

"It's okay," the counselor told her. "Just breathe slowly. Take your time. We do not need to let it all out at once. We can take it slowly." The girl sat in silence, once again.

"I just feel like I failed her," the girl replied. "She just wanted me to protect her and I could not do that. We tried to run away after we fought them off, but neither of us expected him to pull out a gun. I should have been where she was. I could have survived the shot, or at the very least she would have been alive."

"Death is never an easy loss," the counselor calmly said, "and it will be inevitable for everyone. What happened to Shego is an unfortunate tragedy but there will be justice administered to the criminals. Blossom, you did what you can, and you are a survivor. That is something worth living on for. Be strong. Do it for you. Do it for her. I will be here for you always."

The girl looked up and quietly said, "Thank you so much."

The counselor smiled at her. "It's my pleasure. Life isn't easy. We experience hardships on a daily basis and with each one we get through, we become a little stronger. We will get through this. It might be soon. It could be forever. It's not about how quickly it's done. It's about progress. My only request is that I need you to be okay with this. I will not force you to do anything you do not want to do. So, are those fair terms?"

Blossom sat in silence, and then slowly nodded her head. "I think that's fair. There's so much to get through. I don't know where to start or where to end. I'm just relieved that there is someone like you here. Thank you. I appreciate it, Miss Dayton."

The counselor came in to give her a hug. "Please, call me Bayleigh."

CHAPTER FIVE: Extinguished

I remember how smoky and miserable the clouds were that night. Lightning bolts seemed to rip through the sky and desecrate the natural beauty that once stood proudly. The clouds were saturated with stale water, and the quality of my eyesight diminished significantly. I had been helping my mother at the ranch. She needed help maintaining everything since my father had passed. I only intended to stay for a while, but she had fallen behind with everything and I knew I just wanted to help her out as much as I could. By the time I had finished I knew I wanted to get home before it got too late. The drive was a three hour drive, and the worst part was that it was in the middle of nowhere. There were not any major interstate freeways that I could use, so I knew that my best bet was to just zip through it before I got stranded in the middle of nowhere.

By the time I was about two hours in, I noticed that the skies were starting to darken. I figured it would rain sometime soon, but there was something menacing about how quickly the skies were overtaken by the shadows. And now I was stuck driving through a storm where the raindrops pierced through the top of my car. I thought my windshield was cracking every time Mother Nature spat at me. The roads in the area were not the most developed, so it was no surprise that the rainwater quickly changed the streets into slippery paths. I should have known then and there that I should have pulled over instead of going through with this. Because every time I replayed this in my head, I heard the sound of the impact grow louder and louder. I remembered everything that happened before, I remembered everything that happened after, but everything that happened in between was a blur. It all happened so fast. One minute my main goal was to just make it home safe; the next I was calling the ambulance to get this woman saved.

I tried to think about what exactly happened to cause this and I tried to think of all these scenarios where things ended up differently. Scenario #1 - I just stay at the ranch until the next morning. Scenario #2 - I pull over before the rain got too bad. Scenario #3 - I take my time driving through the rain. But despite all these scenarios running through my head, I knew the damage had been done. It did not matter what I should have done; what mattered was what I should do in the present. The storm did not soften up one bit and the rain continued to stab me on my back as I tried to talk to her. She was unconscious. Was it too late? I was not going to just abandon her. I did not know what to do. Do I sit her up? Do I move her? My face began to  warm up and I felt my tears start to burn my eyes. My stomach started to form knots and I felt dizzy. Where was the ambulance? Why were they not there? I felt nauseous. Why did this have to happen to me? All I wanted was to be a help to a family member and now I stood there with someone slowly losing her life. My fingers began to tremble. My body froze up and I felt like I had been plucked out of reality and jammed into a pit of despair. I turned to the woman who I had struck, and she seemed to be moving further away. I reached out to her but I felt like I was being  pulled away by an unseen force. The detachment had grown palpable and no matter what I did, I was not able to connect with her once more.

These memories kept flashing through my mind. I felt my body begin to weaken. This was overwhelming and I felt my heart starting to slow down. The guilt of taking the life of an innnocent weighed me down.

I heard about all the aspirations she had, all the differences she wanted to make. It seemed like she had to overcome a lot to get where she was, and I had stripped that away from the world. It felt like I had sabotaged the lives of everyone who had been given hope. There was no longer a champion who was actively fighting for a good cause.

For every force in the universe, there is an equal and opposite force. She was a force of good, so did that make me a force of evil? It seemed like that was the case. I did not accidentally hit someone who had been robbing from anyone or planning any nefarious schemes. I did not have a purpose in this world except to bring sorrow and despair. Why did I even belong here? And the truth was, I did not. I had to take matters into my own hands. The only way I could pay back my debt to society is to remove myself from the board altogether. Why would I allow my existence to serve as a daily reminder that I am the Grim Reaper?

I had gathered an assortment of household cleaners. I knew the more I could grab ahold of, the more potent this would be. The faster it would be. The more deserving it would be for me. I mixed them all together in a cup and stirred it. Was I really going to go through with this? This was a one way ticket. I thought about everyone I had affected. I was done. I could not think of a single good thing that would offset this. Nobody cared about me. I felt alone. This was clearly the solution to my problem. The world would be a better place without me. All I had to do was chug it and just lay down. My mother tried calling me but I ignored my phone. There was no way I could possibly go through with this if I heard her speak one last time. It was better if I did it this way. I stood with the cup in my hand. It would be quick.

I took a sip and I immediately felt it sting the inside of my throat. I felt myself wanting to gag and I knew this would be harder than I thought. I did not want to go through with this after all.

My heart began to pound, my brain began to constrict, and I thought my skin was going to crack. I heard heavy breathing, and for a while I felt like the world was closing in on me. My blood began to coagulate and I felt my skin start to ossify. I reached for my phone and dialed the emergency number. My body was incinerating from the inside. I felt my intestines melting. Was this too late for me? This was too much. The conflagration was overpowering. I immediately thought of my family and friends. Were they going to be okay? What if this brings them more distress? Why did I do this?

I thought back to my mother at the ranch. Then I remembered all the fond memories I had growing up with my brothers. We were not the richest family but my family always managed to bring food to the table and provide for so many hungry mouths. Nobody ever starved and we all slept well. We did not care about the material things in life.

My mother was now home alone. She had to fend for herself as her husband had passed and her children lived all over the country. Ironically I had lived the closest to her. What would she do now if she found out her own son took his own life? Would this break her? I did not think about that and now I was freaking out at the idea. Was it selfish for me to just leave her alone to put up with it?

My heart continued to race but the damage had been done. I felt my head glowing, my fingers throbbing, my body beginning to burn. I wanted to get through life after all. I changed my mind. I knew in the movies there was always a last minute deus ex machina. Was there something to get me out of this situation? I was waiting for the ambulance to come, but I continued to feel my body scorch from the inside. I thought about Amber once again. I took her life away and I had been haunted by the memories of that dreadful night. I did not know how to make it up to the world. I tried to let out a gasp, but my body tightened. And then my head started to feel light and the world began to fade to black...