Chapter Text
Sitting by his desk at his apartment, Levi feels small. Metaphorically speaking of course, he feels small. His voice is too low, footsteps too light, and presence barely there at all. The unimportance of his own being brings him close to a spiral, but fortunately not today. No, not today.
Levi decided to die. He’s ready for it too, in an odd way his body craves it, his mind as well. He cannot explain the hunger of it all, the desperation and how it clings to every single fiber of his being. Words are not enough to explain the feeling, and he’s always been a man of very few words anyways. Lucky him.
He pulls out the five bottles of sleeping pills and he squares his shoulders even more than usual like he’s ready for a fight. It feels like he’s been in a constant battle all these years, body trying it’s hardest to protect itself from these imaginary blows that Levi can’t figure where they come from, or if there even were any there at all. But right now he relaxes his shoulders and feels something pop in his neck and almost chuckles in amusement, almost.
Levi goes for swallowing them one by one instead of diluting them in water. He figures it’s much easier to stop after taking a few than to drink a cup and regret it as the liquid dries on his tongue. Additionally, these are much stronger sleeping pills than usual, prescribed specifically for his unforgiving insomnia that seems to be unfixable and a permanent part of his life since a child.
It’s a rather empty feeling in his heart as his stomach fills with the pills. Not an unwelcome feeling though, his body is already much used to the emptiness and wherever it inhabits and makes a home out of him.
Because he doesn’t know how long it will take until he loses consciousness, he takes his favorite book and opens the window in front of him. It truly is quite a beautiful day out. A sense of serenity washes over him as he rereads the last few chapters of the book he favors in his right hand.
Finishing the book one last time is bittersweet for him. He loves it, and he’ll never have it again.
He softly lays the book down, it’s been a long 10 minutes and he finds himself feeling fine. He doesn’t want to overthink it though, it will only leave room for potential regret, and he isn’t regretting it now so there’s no reason to second guess this. He will keep waiting, and waiting, and waiting.
Levi opts to stare outside, looking down at the bustling city view in front of him. He feels so alone, so small, so insignificant. Perhaps this is a perfect time to ruminate on the pain inside his chest. Or maybe it’s a perfect time to say goodbye to this world right then and there. But here right now, Levi decides to think about life.Right now, with death nipping at his ankles like a desperate dog, he finds himself unable to conjure up an explanation for life. Life was hurt and be hurt, hurt the ones you love and be hurt by them all over again. Living is pain for oneself, and for everyone else. Why? He does not know. The sky in front of him, in this somber evening, served as a reflection of his confusion. He felt a persistent pain prodding his insides. And the world and life were already a great desolation.
Well, the problem wasn’t to give life meaning. It was to live life without any ounce of hope that you’ll find its meaning. And although the hurt was invading his whole body in something fierce, he knew that in the eye of the storm lay his sweet relief. Just keep waiting.
He sighed, the time has arrived where he should be proud of himself. That he had the guts to do this, to act upon his suicidal thoughts, and doing it in a way that wouldn’t be bothersome.
Levi had thought about ways to kill himself for far too long. He thought about slicing his veins, but that would be too much work and very hard to clean. Suicide makes the person think first about themselves, and then about others. And Levi was willing to do anything possible to make his death as easy as possible to deal with and not cause problems for anyone else, but if it had to be ugly he would’ve written down an apology note next to his bleeding body. They would clean the room, take out his belongings, and rent the apartment back again to anyone who wanted it, because well, people still believe in ghosts. But that’s just how life goes.
Truthfully he thought about jumping off the roof of the building. Then he thought about someone having to come and identify his disfigured body, and his thoughts drifted to his old friends Isabel and Farlan. But that wasn’t a better solution than cutting himself either, for it will most likely scar whoever has to see him that way all mangled and torn up.
They’d move on his from death, but moving on from the sight of his skull split open on the road with the remnants scattered about seemed much more difficult.
Shooting himself would be difficult because he didn’t have a gun, and hanging himself was unappealing to him.
Regardless, Levi knew life was just about waiting for the right moment to act upon. So when he got an accidental double shipment of his prescribed sleeping medication, he thought luck was on his side that day.
And here he was, happy to have reached the end, but bored with the time he had left. In that brief happiness he second guessed the need to die and his decision. But it was too late, the pills were already in his system. And besides, he’s felt happiness like this before and he still wanted to die. He has walked the streets of where he lives in a beautiful evening, has looked at the marvelous snow fall outside his window before, and that one time a stranger called him beautiful in passing at the subway. Levi lived a normal life and considered himself a normal person. He justified his way of thinking with two main reasons.
First, despite having good moments, he’s still gone through horrible ones that time and pleasant memories simply can’t get rid of. The bad outweighs the good inside of him, and he still found himself feeling this way, still wanting to die. He finds himself in this horrid constant depression that he can’t shake, and thinks there’s nothing else he can do to make it better.
And second, everything in his life is the same. Nothing new. Nothing different. He finds himself feeling like a half dead half alive creature learning how to walk, stumbling over his feet all the time like rocks he can’t move, like the same lessons he hasn’t learned. And once his youth passes him by, decadence will follow him. It will leave irreversible traits on him, and the diseases that come with age. There’s no good reason for him to keep going anymore, in fact continuing to live will only make it worse for him, and bring more pain.
However, in a few short moments his life will take a turn for something different, death. He thought about what it would be like to die, but he still didn’t have a concrete answer to that just yet. But he didn’t have to worry too much about that, he was likely going to die soon anyways. Didn’t know how much left specifically, but he was a little excited to answer the question the living asks themselves so often. “Does god exist?”
Despite that being a constant turmoil in many peoples lives, it wasn’t in Levi’s. His mother nor uncle were religious in any sense, and thought that life ended after death. However this sweet old lady that lived across the street once took him to church when he was a young boy, and there they talked about this heaven. A place you get to go to after you die only if you were a good person while simultaneously dedicating your life to god.
After living all these 26 years, he concluded for himself that life ends after death. There’s nothing else, not for him anyways. No heaven and no hell. No reincarnation and no spiritual completion. No answers and no eternal void. Just death. Simple, the way he likes it. That’s why he chose suicide, freedom at last. But he couldn’t help but ask again, “does god exist?”
If god does exist, then he would understand that every human has their limit. It was god himself who created the chaos and pain and the misery in this world. Perhaps he had good intentions, but failed spectacularly. If he existed, he’d act kind to his creations that decided to get away from this earth, and maybe he would even apologize for making them go through here. God knows everything anyways, so they say. Past, present and future. So he would know Levi would have ended up killing himself. He shouldn’t be surprised.
Levi then started feeling sick, and dizzy. His stomach gurgled and cramped painfully and he had to suppress a groan. Soon he was losing his train of thought and could barely concentrate on the view before him. However, a man caught his eye and smiled brightly, though nervously. Yet he didn’t know Levi was over here dying. It’s strange how life works.
Levi isn’t that self deprecating to deny himself a simply pleasure, so he smiled back, maybe awkwardly. It made him realized how long it had been since he last smiled, his skin was pulling and his cheeks hurt too fast after the barely there second that passed. The man lifted his hand to wave at him, but Levi couldn’t find the strength to reciprocate it. The man frowned, turned away and went back to walking away. Levi was saddened he couldn’t wave back, but happy that even in his final moments he was still desired and appreciated.
His stomach churned once again. ‘If I throw up now, I won’t die’ He thought. Trying to take his mind off the pain, he focused on the darkness creeping into the edges of his vision, and how the sounds of the city kept getting quieter and quieter. For the first time today he felt fear, immensely so. But it was too quick for him to process, as soon enough he lost consciousness.