Like a Ticking Time Bomb.

Death.

That's what my life has resulted in.

Death.

People around me are dying, fading away, shrinking into nothingness. As if they never existed. They were born, they lived, they died, they were forgotten. Life moves on.

Death.

I was only six years old when I lost my brother in the fire. He's the one who woke me up, struggling to push me over his shoulders so he could save me. The smoke was forced into his lungs and into his blood, pulsating through his heart until breathing became a death wish. Yet he still held me, holding onto the microscopic amount of life he had left to keep my own heart beating. Even if it meant his would stop.

And as he lay in his coffin, he looked like a lie. He died with burns and cuts on his arms, ashes in his hair and his clothing burned to pieces. He died with pain, his face twisting into unimaginable looks as he spent his last few moments on Earth. He died with his black eyes open, deep with tension, fear and hurt. His blood stained my shirt as it streamed out of his wounds, infecting me like poison as I watched my older brother die on the streets.

He lay in his coffin like an angel, eyes closed. His face was white, flawless, immaculate. He wore a clean black tuxedo and matching shiny dress shoes. His hair was brushed and cut, and there were no more ashes. His hands weren't burned and scarred. It was as if he hadn't died his death, as if people were trying to hide the tragedy behind the reason he was no longer living. It pained me to see people lie that way; to look at my brother as if none of that had ever happened. As if he had never saved me.

Death.

My mother died of breast cancer when I was ten. Her frequent visits to the doctor made it obvious that she wasn't getting any better. Her once happy and prosperous self altered within a few short months; and her life was over. She was gone before she even knew it. Her ghostly pale face and thin, brittle bones made her into a walking skeleton, her words were slurred, hopeless and faded. Her soul was dead before she even reached her deathbed, and there was no use in crying when her body perished.

In her coffin, she looked nothing short of an angel, as well. Her wiry, broken hair was groomed and shiny, and her delicate limbs somehow looked unbreakable. Her eyes stayed close, her mouth curled up in a smile. She did not look dead. When I reached out to touch her, I expected her to open those heavy eyelids of hers and stare at me. But she didn't. And as I traced my fingertips across the tip of her nose and over her chapped lips, I couldn't feel her deathly cool breeze or glow. She was a lie, like my brother.

Death.

My father was murdered by a gang when I was fifteen. They broke into our house one night and slaughtered him, leaving his blood traced along the kitchen floor and his lifeless body in the garage. He was found by yours truly the next morning; the foul smell of death lingering in the air into my nose, bringing me to find my father's body in pieces next to his car. His blood had already stained the hard cement floor, covering him from head to toe, spilled like a bottle from his corpse, a ruthless murder.

I didn't go to his funeral.

Death has taken over my life, my memories, my thoughts. Death has crawled into my family, into my house, into my veins and into the people I love most. It pulses through me, like a ticking time bomb, waiting to set itself off and become the end of me. Death stole my family, my friends, my love. Death has left me with nothing.

Death has killed me, too.

My time bomb has finally set off.