Have you ever had a moment in life where you daze off and think about yourself? Not a conceited thought, but a thought about who you are and what your point on Earth is.
All teachers and parents will brush away your tears when you’re upset and tell you God made you for a reason or everyone is put on Earth for a reason. Well, that’s great. And I believed it.
I told myself I would be an archeologist with three daughters, a loving husband and a home close to a worksite where I would discover the World’s Greatest Artifact. I had it all planned out in my mind. That would be my reason to be on Earth.
I decided to take my life slow, sleeping in each summer day, going to Six Flags and trying to grow up. Trying to grow taller, but I knew that the doctor told me the absolute tallest I would grow was 5’3. A girl could still dream.
I never doubted that I had a place on Earth. I knew I had to be there, but I guess someone else out there disagreed. I had no choice but to hold on…Which in this case, I didn’t.

“Don’t worry, you only feel the dropping for, like, five seconds!” I said, gripping the safety bar on the American Eagle at six flags. It wiggled, which I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to do that, but it wasn’t like I was going to tell Lucy about that.
“Spencer, I swear to God if your lying, I’ll beat the s*** out of you.” Lucy whispered shakily. She was turning green, and the ride hadn’t even started yet. I knew she was terrified of heights and the dropping feeling on roller coasters. But it’s not like I was the one who wanted her to go on the ride. It was her choice, completely.
I laughed, right as the ride jolted and started to move up the track. Lucy gasped and clutched one arm to her stomach, the other wrapped around the safety bar. I felt awful, but I knew she’d love it once we started really going. We were halfway up the big drop, and I held up my hand to give Lucy a high five. She glanced at me, quickly brushed her hand past mine and slapped her hand right back onto the bar, which shook oddly beneath her hand.
I zoned out on my Purpose on Earth Dream, and before I knew it, we were already on the second drop. Lucy was screaming, horror on her face but pure joy in her eyes. We were going up and down and up and down, the wind blowing my hair away from my face.
I don’t really remember the rest, but I’ve seen videos on the port screens. I don’t like to watch them, because it hurts mentally and physically.
There was me, laughing my head off, gasping for air, the wind whipping at my clothes and hair. I saw it all in slow motion, my hands lifting from the bar, the bolt slipping away from the middle of the ride, my body whipping away from the ride, falling ten stories to the gears and boots of the ride. Immediate death. And I see Lucy hanging by the neck from the wires. Her death quicker than mine. And each time I watched the port screen show my death, I felt guilty. Guilty that Lucy’s first time on a roller coaster in five years, despite her fears of exactly this happening, ended up in blood and catastrophe. But this wasn’t just an accident. This was a murder.

I heard nothing in the blinding white room I had been in for what I thought was two weeks. It was weird. I didn’t breathe, I had no pulse, I didn’t need to eat or drink. I just sat there, deep in thought. The room was empty except for a plush white bed, a white-framed mirror, and a pearly white hairbrush. The brush brought dark feelings into the otherwise blank room. There was something wrong with it. There was a secret I knew I didn’t remember. I shoved it under the bed, not wanting to see it.
I looked in the mirror when I first woke up here, and screamed. I saw a hole going straight through my lower abdomen, blood circling it on my white tank top. My head was caved in, half of my face burned off, I only had my right arm and my left arm was twisted backwards, paralyzed. There were deep gashes, electrocution marks and blood all over my body. I felt barely any pain, but I didn’t feel normal. I didn’t feel like me. I cried a lot in the room. I knew I was dead, I knew my parents were in a whole different world than me, but I didn’t know where Lucy was. So I just waited for someone to come.

There were no doors or windows in the room, but a woman in a black dress walked straight through the wall. She looked at me, I looked at her. She held out her hand, motioning for me to follow her. I obeyed, and we walked straight through the wall and into what looked like a hospital room. There was equipment, some of it like I’d never seen, port screens, and two beds. One of them was occupied. The woman in the black dress led me to one bed, and I laid my head against the pillow. Whoever was in the other bed whimpered a little, and a nurse came in and whispered something to her. I realized the woman in black was gone.
“Excuse me?” I whispered loudly.
The nurse looked up at me, and I felt her black eyes boar straight through me. She knew all my secrets, she knew what I was thinking. I felt discomfort wash through me. I always thought when an angel or someone from Heaven would look at me and love me, respect me, understand what I was feeling. But I felt unsafe, as if someone was to jump down my throat and rip open my heart.

The other patient must’ve said something, because the nurse leaned forward, still looking at me, and nodded her head. I felt my heart racing. I wanted to call to my mom, I wanted her to be here and make me feel better. But she wasn’t.

The nurse stood up, walked over to me, and pointed to the other patient. I looked over, squinting hard in the brightening lights, to see Lucy. My best friend of four years, Lucy. Her neck was bleeding, her face purple black and blue. Her arms were white, her eyes popping. I took in a shaky breath, tears welling up in my eyes. What had I done?