The bullet came faster than she could see until everything went slow.

She had no thoughts, her mind went blank until she felt the pressure on her skin, the power of the bullet caused her to lose her balance and fall over. She felt the world fall along with her, the sky slowly coming into view. It was light, the sun almost blinding but calming in a sense. She felt as though she cries in pain or scream in anger but for some reason, she felt peace, as if everything would be alright. As her head made a connection with the hard concrete pavement she lost her sight and all sensation of pain. Robin shot up clutching her chest, where the bullet had once been pierced into her skin. There was no pain, not even a hole in her clothing where the bullet had pierced. Had it been a dream? She swung her legs to the side of the bed and rubbed her eyes trying to get them to adjust to the darkness of the room.

She looked around, no sense of familiarity in this place. The only source of light had been from a door on the far side of the room with a small window that had allowed a dim rays of lantern to bleed through, other than the bed she had been placed in there wasn’t much furniture besides, a small side table and a screen that had been sealed into the wall. The room’s walls were painted what seems like a white amidst the darkness and the floors were a white tile. She stood up and walked across the floor, the tiles feeling cold against her bare feet. She stood directly in front of the T.

V and stared at her reflection. She looked like herself, her chestnut hair still reaching below her shoulders and her blue eyes piercing within the dark. She reached up and touched her cheek as a confirmation that she was still human, still a being. As she watched herself the screen switched on, the sudden light causing her step back, causing a stinging feeling in her eyes. She could still feel, she smiled slightly relieved.

She looked back at the screen a simple animation of the same side table that had been in the room being opened and a phone being removed. She quickly, almost racing with herself to open this drawer, there it was a phone. The phone itself wasn’t like the phone she had in her lifetime, it was an older flip phone. It is made of a grey plastic that seems to have been through hell and the small screen on the front dimly shows “12:20 pm”. She stared at the time, waiting for it to change but nothing.

 When she flipped it open, there were no home screen, games or any programs. There is only the list of contacts. The names are familiar until a sudden realization came over her. “These are my contacts…”These were the first words she had spoken since she had been in this place her voice was hoarse but that didn’t seem to matter as she scrolled through the names, she knew who these people were but no memories were connected to the names.  She paused once she came across a contact that had been listed as ‘Mom’, she immediately clicked on the call symbol just from the calming relief the title gave her.

As the phone began to rang she could see the T.V began to light up once again, but this time music began to play. It was a calming melody but nothing she had ever heard of before. The T.V began to display a photo of someone, Robin began to move closer putting her hand on the photo, memories starting fill her brain, memories of laughter, memories of sadness, but mostly memories of a loving a mother. The phone rings three times.

A click. Robin hears her voice on the line, the voice of her mother. She doesn’t greet her or even says hello but immediately she starts talking, giving you a description. At first, Robin didn’t want to be listening, she just fell to the floor and began to weep, trying to scream into the phone. She begged her mother to listen, her voice became hoarse from all of her cries of desperation.

She continued this process throughout her contact list until she finally gave up on crying and actually heard the voice on the other line. She looked at the contact it was ‘Phillip’. She paused for a moment allowing his words to fill her head, this was the man she had loved for so many years but never felt as though he returned her feelings.

“We worked together and, to be honest, we barely spoke at all. You were a very shy person and quiet people would make me nervous if I’m being honest. One day I randomly got the courage and asked you what you do for fun, after many months of working together, trying to understand you and get a feel for you.

All you said was you didn’t really do anything, you just hung out in your room. I laughed then said I didn’t really do anything either, so we should do nothing together sometime. I thought it was a completely innocent suggestion and I wouldn’t have thought anything would have come from it but from the first time we made plans to hang out, I fell in love with everything about you, from your laugh to your dimples. I regret never having told you this. “There was another click before the line went dead. Robin dropped her phone. It was a bittersweet feeling, knowing that the man she had loved returned her feelings but knowing she could never be with him as she had finally come to the understanding that this was it.

This was the end of her life, the gunshot that hadn’t been meant for her ended her life. Robin had just unfortunately been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Robin picked up the phone once again, calling her loved ones, part of her wishing she hadn’t, at this point, it didn’t really matter what they had to say or how you impacted their lives because after each click that signified the end of each call the walls of the room began to shrink.

Eventually the room will be no more, she will know her impact on the world but in the end, to her, it will mean nothing because she will be nothing. Some of the voices on the other line would speak horrors behind her name and speak of hatred or how they became anxious just at the sound of her name or how they are eternally grateful for her presence, how with her gone their world is just dimmer and with her gone they don’t know who they are. No matter what these voices have to say about her, she is still alone all she can do it stare at the faces presented on the screen and hear voices.

It’s as if she’s a ghost behind the Ouija board, listening to strangers questions but she has no answers and even if she did no way to respond, this is hell.