I Died And There Was Nothing Novels & Stories

After my older sister, Elise Sterling, is supposedly imprisoned for financial crimes, I become the target of retaliation from her enemies. I can't find a job and live under constant threats. Almost every morning, I find garbage left outside my door. At night, I come home to find my front door splattered with red paint, imitating blood. I break down and fall into depression. Over the next five years, I make three attempts to end my life. The last time, as I lay there after emptying the entire bottle of sleeping pills down my throat, waiting for everything to end, I suddenly hear my sister's frantic voice. "I only wanted to punish Leon! Why did you take it this far?" Her godbrother,

I stared at the phone with lifeless eyes. “Hmm? Why aren’t you saying anything?” My throat worked as I forced out each word. “You don’t need to buy anything. My father is dead. He can’t eat anymore.”

Even though I knew I was going to die, I knew I wasn't going to be in such a mess. As my mouth was wrapped around that gun, everything I'd labored for my whole life passed through my imagination like a girl standing at the balcony, and watching different types of cars pass by. I asked myself if that was how everything was going to end. It was normal for us to die, and not take anything we worked for in this world to the grave. After all we came with nothing, mad we're all going to leave with nothing, but some people got to have closure at the end of it all. In my case, my father was never able to finalize anything, and that seemed to be my case.

He's already dead and you need to accept that! I slumped back on the floor once again and almost pass out. I cried as I stared at his coffin. "I want to die. Bury me with him, please. Bury me with him. I have no more reason to live anymore. Kill me now." I get up and went back in his coffin. I open it up, ready to join him, but I found nothing. The coffin... is empty. I looked at the sign beside it: Here lies NOTHING, it said. Nothing... Nothing inside... That only means---

Please… don’t let this be for nothing. And then, There was nothing. I was completely out.

Life couldn’t have been better. Despite that, I couldn’t help but wonder what the rest of the Duttons were up to. I knew that as long as they didn’t find a body, they wouldn’t declare a death. This led to endless speculation in society about whether the two of us were truly dead. Rumors and gossip spread everywhere, but I remained unmoved. Every day, I soaked up the sun, watched handsome men by the sea, and lived a life of pure indulgence. After half a year, though, I started to get a little bored.

If I didn’t do something— I was going to die.

Death. Everyone was about to die.

I don’t know why, but something is rotten in my gut and it’s never wrong. We storm through the building, Roddy’s being the last room at the end of the long ass hallway. The door is locked and Grouch sticks his ear to it, then backs up and kicks it open. The immediate stench of death I know all too well hits my nose and I can’t believe nobody has noticed it. It’s at least fifteen doors from mine. Missile and Grouch storm in, but I can already see the lifeless body of Ryan “Roddy” Grimes on the bed. I step in the room and see a needle sticking right out of his fucking arm. His skin is already discolored, he’s been dead a couple days. And nobody even realized it. Some brotherhood we are.

“Just today, and now he’s gone. I know he wasn’t—alive, really. But still, it feels like a door slammed in a room I’ve been standing in for years.” Maxwell’s head lifted slowly. “I know exactly what you mean,” he said, voice low. “For so long… he was just there, hooked up to machines. My father wasn’t present in the ways that mattered, but he was here. And now—” He swallowed, and I could see the tightness in his throat. “Now he’s… nothing. And it’s final.”