My name is Troy, and I'm going to tell you about a fix I got into a while back. My life was never anything extraordinary. No, my real story began the day I died.

My icy stomach flipped as my brows cried sweat. Not sure if my knuckles or my face was whiter. This had been as trivial of an errand as any. Who would have known that dropping my eggs would lead to this? But isn't that how it always is... It's the tiny things that sneak up on you and change everything.

"Don't you fucking move, you hear me?"

The gravelly Irish accent ordered me as the metal barrel jarred my skull vindictively. I saw nothing of my assailant, save for his bearish glove clawing into my shoulder.

My winter coat trembled in my periphery, and a queasy heartbeat throbbed from my gut to my toes. Soap... The checkout area smelled like soap.

Someone was running. My eyes flashed open as I realized that they had been clamped shut. A large man rampaged towards us. He was probably on the football team in high school. Hot dog buns, two for three dollars. The ad hung in at two o'clock, dull white and blue, shouting that I should, no, needed to buy this marvelous item.

The quarterback shouted, "You let him go, you bastard!"

A click, and the bullet pierced my skull like a nail-gun through paper. The bullet snapped and twisted, shoving grey matter aside like spoiled apple sauce. Blunt force knocked me aside, the world neon and bubbling. For just a split second, an unimaginable pain roared in my brain. Then the silence of outer space.