The word was fear.

That was the only word for it.

It hung in the air like mist.

It infected everyone in its reach.

Need to survive. Need to survive all the fear. The fear grabbed me just as I thought those nine words. I was going to die. I knew I was. It was inevitable, I couldn’t avoid it. I was going to die. This wasn’t a fairy tale where a prince rides up and saves the beautiful princess from despair. No, this was reality. And in reality I was going to die. The only way around it was to die, before I died. I know… it makes absolutely no since what so ever. I couldn’t die before I died. Could I? If I could…I would… go on living. I might make it through dying if I was already died.

But how to do it? How to kill myself before I died? I didn’t have an answer to that. I knew that I didn’t have very much longer to live, so I had to think fast. The fear was killing me. It was sucking the energy out of me to feed itself.

Ha. If someone would have told me a couple of weeks ago that fear was going to kill me. I wouldn’t believe them for one second. Ha.

But now that it was killing me, I would regret not believing them. They were right, I was wrong. And now I had even less time to live.

How? I didn’t see anything around me. I was going blind by the fear. If there would’ve been a knife or a gun. I could kill myself so easily. And then… I wouldn’t have to die.

I screamed. I don’t know why I screamed, I didn’t even hear myself scream. But my mouth opened, took some of my supply of breaths and screamed. I tried to close my mouth, but for some reason I couldn’t. The fear. I should’ve known. The fear was seeping into my open mouth. It wanted all my supply of air. I couldn’t let it have it. I wouldn’t let it have it. But how do I get rid of fear.

I could’ve cried for joy. I did. That was the answer that I needed. I didn’t have to kill myself before I died. That would’ve just taken the pain out of it anyway. The way out was not to die. The way out was not to fear. The way was to live. The way out was to love.

It sounded so simple. All I had to do was love. Love what? I asked myself repeatedly. What am I supposed to love?

As if an answer to my question I heard a voice on the wind. I craned my neck so I could hear it better. Everything. The wind whispered.

Love everything. Simple enough, right? Wrong. How can you love everything, including the thing that’s killing you? You couldn’t. I couldn’t. I couldn’t, but I tried. If that was the only way out of dying wouldn’t you try to? For me, that was the only way out of dying. I loved. I didn’t let one thought escape my mind except love. I love everything. I love the trees, the birds, the flowers. I even love you, fear. No this was wrong. I can’t love fear. It’s like loving evil. Some people could do it, but not me. I closed my eyes and waited to die.

I would not love fear. I would not love evil. I would not love hate.

The pain. Oh the torture of pain. I was going to die of pain. I was going to ask the fear to kill me before I had anymore pain. I couldn’t go on living with this much pain.

First it tore through my back, then at my thighs. It felt as if it was shredding the skin off my bone like a carrot. I tried not to scream. I didn’t want to give the fear the pleasure of hearing my screams. I would die. Yes, I already knew this. I would die. But I would not let it have the satisfaction of giving me more pain than I could bear.

I promised myself I wouldn’t scream. So I didn’t. I waited. Yeah, I wiggled. I couldn’t help but try to get out of the pain. I shouldn’t of. I should’ve just waited it out. But I couldn’t. I would die.

The answer! I had practically already thought it. No fear equals no death, right? I thought so. I let go of all my fear. I didn’t fear a thing. I didn’t care about what was going to happen to me. I didn’t fear the fear. That was the purpose of the fear. The purpose of the fear was to fear it. If you didn’t fear it, it couldn’t touch you. It would pass you by like a rock in the middle of the Rocky Mountains. So I simply didn’t fear.

It didn’t go as I planned, exactly. It didn’t just pass me by. But it didn’t kill me either. I wish it would’ve. I screamed again. Shut up! I screamed in my head. Shut up! Shut up! I promised myself I wouldn’t scream. And yet what am I doing? I’m screaming. Figures. I felt a tug on my hair. Ow! Whoever that is stop it. You’re hurting me. You’re hurting me. That’s exactly what they wanted to do. They wanted to hurt me. They wanted to kill me. But I stopped fearing, I stopped death—in a manner of speaking. They couldn’t kill me because I refused to fear. And since I refused to fear, I wouldn’t die. I hope.