Prologue
Current Day:
Bleeding out in a blue Paw Patrol kiddie pool of all the ways to die, I never imagined anything more fucking pathetic than that. Chaos spins around me. People shout and scream, but their voices are muffled, distant, as if I’ve slipped beneath the surface of a silent ocean. I can’t move. I’m a puppet with its strings cut, carried through blurs of faces and flickering memories I can’t hold. My mind claws for something familiar, a scent, a voice, but the raging pain fogs my thoughts. The agony pouring out of the side of my body narrows my world to a pinprick. Is this what it means to unravel, fading out heartbeat by heartbeat? Furniture scrapes. The cold plastic against my skin keeps me conscious, absurd against the fire in my body, as I’m lowered into the pool. Conversations splinter. Faces swarm with towels, hands press, voices plead, and somewhere inside, I laugh: this is how I go, soaking the grinning faces of cartoon dogs with my blood.
