"The hardest thing about life is living it…"

-Sarah Michelle Gellar in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

  Black.

  Everything was black… it didn't matter if she opened her eyes or not. Everything was cloaked in darkness… shadows everywhere, there was no light. She felt weightless… like she was floating… floating through the nothingness because there was nothing… only the darkness. She would feel around with her hands, try to feel something, try to find something to hold on to, try to find something! As long as she wasn't the only thing there… but it wasn't so.

  There was nothing… nothing but the darkness and she.

  But she was darkness, now wasn't she?

  She was just as black as this realm she was in… her heart, her hair, her clothes… but deathly pale skin… or, at least, that was the way things were last time she saw… but she couldn't see a thing… for all she knew, she could be completely white.

  Darkness… blackness… nothingness, it was everywhere… it was everything.

  Even me…

  She thought the sorrowful thought… but she couldn't even feel the sorrow. She couldn't feel the fear she should feel for the emptiness. Feelings were gone, too.

  She thought for she couldn't speak… well, she didn't know if she could speak or not… probably not… but she had no desire to. No need… who was there to hear her? No one. The silence ran as deep as the blackness… they worked together in the never ending nothingness that surrounded her.

  I know I'm not lost, I am just alone…

  Or were they the same? What need had she to think? She was nothing… surrounded by nothingness to swallow her whole. She didn't even bother to wonder how she got here… though if she tried, she'd remember instantly… she was here and that was that. There was no escape.

  Is this Hell?

  She would have slapped herself for such a thought if she could have found herself in the darkness… she wasn't sure if there was a Hell in her belief… it didn't sound right. Those who are evil, she tried to kill them all… her God told her and the others too… and so they did. Why would God need them to do that if there was a Hell to punish them on its own?

  No… there wasn't a Hell.

  This was just… nothing. Nothing at all… Did that make her nothing? She believed it did… she allow everything to slip away from her and into the darkness… she lost her name, her look, her past, her life, her loved ones, her mission, her memories, everything she had ever known… she had to let it go.

  She knew that.

  So she did… Let it go... she whispered to herself in her thoughts… Let it go… let it all go. It felt like blood pouring from her veins… like every vein was open to the air, at its mercy, bleeding… bleeding, blood everywhere. Bleeding out her soul into the darkness… Let it go…

  And then, suddenly, and seemingly for no reason, it stopped… it all stopped… all the strange feelings, the bleeding, the letting go; the inabilities… all came to a grinding halt. She felt unnerved… something hit her so completely unnerving. But wait… wasn't that a feeling?

  The unnerving feeling grew stronger as the numbness faded… and somehow, things seemed brighter. So much brighter… her eyes burned. So much brighter! Her eyes burned so! The pain was unbearable… it was too bright!

  And then she noticed her eyes were closed… that was why she couldn't really see the light… and then, she did something to change everything…

  She opened her eyes.

  She had been in the darkness for who knows how long… there was no measurement there. There was nothing… it was a world of nothing.

  She was no longer there.

  She recalled her memories… bringing thing back into her veins until she found what she was looking for.

  Where was she now?

  She had to know… where she was now. It was no longer the world of nothingness… she could feel here… and there was light. There was color, and shape.

  She could even feel herself again… she was there. She was lying on the ground…

  She identified everything slowly… she was lying on a carpet… it was really soft, velvety… and red… bright red. There was something next to her… like where a preacher stands to read his bible… that little… thing, she couldn't remember the name of it. Yes! That's what it was… and above her stretched the tall, arched roof… with the painted white wooden body.

  She was in a church… of all places.

  She sat up… and felt dizzy. The entire world spun… swirling before her eyes with her dizziness, and she wondered if she was going to throw up.

  Once everything was still, she looked around her more… a great fear choked in her chest for who knows what reason… her eyes slowly took in every detail.

  This was completely fucked…

  She retraced her memory… she could remember back a long time… she could remember being little, just a kid… she could remember lots of things… but her more resent memories, the ones closest to this time, were fuzzy… unclear.

  She thought hard… trying so hard to remember… and forced them into focus. She had to know… had to know where she had been, how she got there, and how she got here… she just had to know.

  Slowly, slowly… the blurry pieces came back together and began to form memories… scenes… and soon, she remembered it all.

  Her throat tightened as she remembered the most resent, before being in the world of nothingness… she remembered her own death.

  She remembered, with sickening clarity, the gun fire… the bullet ripping through her side… the pain… and disgust… and release.

  She swallowed hard, and looked around again, before looked down at herself… she was warring the same clothes she remembered dying in… yet, there wasn't a bullet hole in side… and the clothes were perfectly clean. No blood, no mud, nothing… clean.

  Her fingers moved slowly… touching the rim of her collar delicately; she lifted it up a little and look in… and saw a dark, nasty scar – the nastiest scar she had ever seen in her whole "life" – right where the bullet hole should have been.

  She watched, frozen in place, as her own skin moved… It began healing itself, the color of the scar growing lighter and lighter and the edges moved inner and inner, healing itself… until the scar was super small, then microscopic, and then gone.

  Nothing, it was no longer there. There was no proof of death… she was alive again! She looked up at the ceiling, then back down at herself… the place where the scar and bullet hole were not… and let go of her shirt.

  She was dead… but now alive.