You write these words down hastily, unaware if you’ll ever get another chance. Might as well get it over with. Right?

You’ve been thinking too much about the end. The thoughts penetrate deep into your soul, sucking the life out of the inadequate work of abstract art you call your body. You are lost. Deep in the dark abyss of human consciousness. Is this the last day you’ll see the world? You think this, over and over, over and over, over and over. The thought never escapes. You think you can fight it. But you can’t. You can’t.

Why are you doing this? Why these words? Why this pen? Why this paper? Why this heart?

A sharp wind runs past your ears. It tickles your mind, and you scratch at it. Only, when your hand comes down, there's a red murky substance dripping from the callused skin of a broken canvas. You shudder in horror, suddenly aware of the split creasing through your fractured skull put together by dull crayons. 

I’m sorry I took over. I’m sorry for what I’ve done. But I’m not. 

You were the one who trapped me here. In your mind. You put me through hell. I fought back. I FOUGHT BACK!

So you write these words down. You write them down, as I am you. You are me. We try not to think about it too hard. Our head is already broken enough as it is. 

You didn’t ask for this. But I didn’t either. I’m just thinking rationally. It was always better just to end things. You tried to deny this. Look where it got you. 

The Protagonist lays his head down, deep in thought as the blood seeps out of his brain and into the cracks of the sidewalk.

The Antagonist feels nothing. No accomplishment. No sadness. He just did what was right. He did what was inevitable. 

Fate works in mysterious ways. The Protagonist didn’t understand. I do. I know fate. I am fate. I am also the present, as well as the past.

I am the pen. I am the paper. I am the heart. I am all three put together.

I am you. Forever and always. Always and forever. 

I’m sorry. It’s just I don’t know why. Or who I’m saying sorry to, for that matter. But I guess I’m sorry. You're sorry too. We’re all sorry. 

That makes us weak and defenseless, which is what we are. Don’t worry though, I’ve changed that now. 

You feel your heart slowly starting to stop. It’s still beating though. Still beating. We hear the rhythm, and feel the beat with our bloody hands. They orchestrate a symphony of wonder. Perhaps this is a good way of ending things. A good way to go. 

And then everything is ruined. 

 

The ambulance comes out of nowhere. People run to us. I grasp on to you. I grasp so hard. I’ve never felt this way before. I can’t let you leave. I can’t… I CAN’T!

They pick up your body and move it onto a stretcher. I scream in agony, as if it was I who had the knife plunged into the head, not the other way around. I plead for you to come back to me. You don’t. You don’t do anything. You just lay there. Like the stupid fractured man you are.

A puddle of tears starts to replace the blood in the sidewalk, a watery substance creeping down a nearby drain. I hear the splat of liquid hitting the ground. 

I cry some more. I try to force my head down, away from your body, but I can’t help but stare. Time passes in slow-motion. But who knows? Maybe this is actually the regular speed of life, and all this time I’ve been living in fast-forward. 

Your heart still beats. With each in and out I scream in outrage. This isn’t how it was supposed to go. We were supposed to die together. Holding each other tight. But now you’re in a vehicle being driven away into a hospital that will only make you better, while I’m left to rot in this alley of desperation to be reunited with myself. 

It’s not fair. 

I pull myself up, wiping the condensation of frustration of my blushed red cheeks, and stumble down the road, hands clawing against the air, trying to do something. Trying to hold something. I need something now that you're gone. Another soul to blend myself into. Another life to live. 

Part of me wants to find you. To track down that ambulance and try again. But some part of me is running away from that thought. I don’t know why. I don’t know how. 

I don’t know.

 

And then I guess I do.

 

Deep down, I am only human. No magical being. No god-like creature. I am a man. A broken man. A broken man contemplating his existence in this world. A man who saw himself being carried away in an ambulance, dying with no kind of legacy. I am the remaining consciousness of that man. I was his mind. 

I wanted to stay with myself. I wanted to hold onto myself. Never let go. But that didn’t happen. My brain and body got separated. It got torn. Fractured. I tried to kill myself. I thought it would fix everything. The Protagonist, the body, didn’t want that. But I, The Antagonist, the mind, did. And the truth behind my actions is tearing me apart. 

 

The pencil quivers like an earthquake in my fingers, and I continue to write these lines in my imaginary notebook. I write these lines into myself. After all, I am the notebook, I am the pen, I am the past, present, future. I am the consciousness. 

And that is a heavy burden to have. 

 

I’m sorry. I truly am. From the bottom of my heart. 

I loved you. 

And yes, that sounds utterly stupid considering I’m talking about my own body, but I did. There’s no way to sugarcoat it. I loved you. I loved myself. And perhaps that’s why I did what I did. Perhaps that’s why I made you grab that knife. Because I was scared. Because I didn’t want to lose you—lose myself. But all I did was make things worse. I ruined everything. 

You could have had a bright future, a family, children of your own, and I just… took it all away. Because the reality is you're dead. The doctors couldn’t save you. I tried to tell myself otherwise, but I figure it’s no use anymore. If I am still thinking thoughts, but have no body to control, it means that my body is dead, which means that I am as well. 

 

So screw it.

We’re dead. 

We died.

 

And this… well, this is what I wanted.

I got what I wanted. 

So where are you? 

WHERE ARE YOU?!

 

I tenderly rest my notebook on the ground, slowly removing my hands from the plastic material interlaced between my fingertips, and sigh in unsatisfied satisfaction. 

 

If somehow you remember who I am, 

 

the notebook, the pen, and my heart 

 

are all here waiting 

 

for you.

 

—The Antagonist 

 

The End