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I wake up in an unfamiliar place. Before I open my eyes, I try to guess where I am just by what I can feel and hear. Obviously, I'm not in my room. I hear the sounds of strangers talking and a lot of beeping noises. A doctor's office, maybe?No. I'm in a bed. This has to be a hospital. I groan at the thought."Oh, you're awake?" a voice says. It's a woman. I open my eyes to see a doctor staring at her clipboard. She is a fairly young blonde woman. Probably in her early thirties with no one but a cat waiting for her to come home. I take another look at her. Maybe two cats.I look around to see that I am in fact in a hospital and I let out a sigh. Why am I not dead?"I'm alive," I say quietly."Yes, you are. It just wasn't your time. Maybe you shouldn't try to take your own life and wait until it's your turn.""That'll take too long.""You have a whole life to live. Live it."The last thing I need after I wake up in a hospital is this stranger telling me what to do with myself. I have my reasons for attempting. I'm not going to waste my time explaining them to her, though. "I suppose," is all I say to her. It's all she deserves."Are you hungry?" she asks."Starving," I answer."We'll have a meal brought up for you in just a moment then. Your parents were here earlier. They told me to call when you woke up.""You don't have to. They'll just come back tomorrow.""It's past visiting hours anyway. Don't worry." The doctor smiled at me and turns to leave, hopefully to get my food.I wait there in the darkness of my hospital room with only the fluorescent lights of the rest of the hospital as a light source. A few minutes go by before I realize I have the option of watching TV. I don't usually watch TV but I like having background noise so I turn it on and put the volume on low. From the corner of my eye, I see a dark figure walk by my room. By the time I turn my head to see who it is, the figure is gone. I shrug it off as a resident walking by and go back to finding a channel to keep on. A few seconds later, I hear a team of doctors and nurses running by in the same direction the figure was heading."We're losing him!" one shouts. Someone's dying. I wait a minute or two before I hear them again. "12:28." Well, now I know what time it is.The doctor from earlier comes back into my room with a cart of food. "I hope you like spaghetti and pudding," she says."You're in luck," I respond. "Because I do." She pushes the cart close to my bed and I sit up. Snack Packs are my life, to be honest. The one thing committing suicide would really take away from me is Snack Pack pudding. I remove the lid over the plate to see a large mound of spaghetti. Oh, yes. Pasta and pudding. I'm starving. I see one Snack Pack pudding next to the plate and quite frankly, I am disappointed. Just one?"I stole a few more for you." The doctor reaches into the pockets of her coat and pulls out three more Snack Packs. I knew there was something about her I liked from the moment I woke up.“Amazing. Thanks.” Behind her, I could see a grieving family walking in the direction of the now dead patient. She turns around to see what I’m looking at and then turns back to me.“Don’t put your family through that,” is all she tells me before leaving. If she’s going to be like that, she’ll need to bring me more puddings. I begin to scarf down the spaghetti while mindlessly staring at the TV. Family Feud is on. What an embarrassing show. Something about this show has always bothered me. There’s something about families competing against one another to answer stupid questions for money that irks me. Maybe it’s the family aspect of it. Maybe I’m just not a family person. Never have been.It takes me a whole episode to finish the spaghetti. Another episode of Family Feud starts as I push the now empty plate aside to make room for my Snack Packs. I don't bother to look at the flavor. The pudding was white so I assume it is vanilla. My favorite. But when I put the first spoonful in my mouth, it isn’t vanilla. Its texture is different and the taste is odd. But it’s actually really good. So I continue to eat it without any questions. A few minutes go by and I try to savor the pudding. I only have four and I don’t know when the doctor is going to come back so I can ask her to bring me the hospital’s whole supply.Once again, from the corner of my eye, I see the same black figure from before walk by. I try to catch it but it disappears before I can. Now I’m curious. A few seconds later, another team of doctors and nurses runs by in the same direction as the black figure. After a minute or two more, they walk out and declare the time of death of the patient. Who is this murderer that they are not catching? And why are they so good at their job? I am almost certain they’ll walk by again, so I decide to wait.I sit up and face the door, pushing the cart with the plate over so I can put all of my puddings in front of me. I pull up the blanket and wrap it around me from behind so the breeze through the hospital gown doesn’t get me. I wait patiently for the mysterious murderer to walk by again as I begin to eat my second Snack Pack and I still haven’t seen the figure.I make it a personal goal to catch this silent murderer tonight and maybe ask him for a favor.As I start my third Snack Pack, I see it. The figure walked by again and I caught the best sight of it. The black hood, and the long scythe. It was most certainly Death himself. The actual Grim Reaper. And he was here to take the dying patients. And hopefully me. Maybe if I watch closely, I can call him in here when he walks by. Maybe I can convince him to take me even though it may not be my time. I wonder if he’ll agree to something like that. I mean, it is his job to take people whether they want to or not.I wait patiently for him to walk by again.Five minutes go by. Then fifteen. Then twenty-five. Still Death doesn’t come. Why the sudden stop? I’ve seen him four times already and there wasn’t this much time in between the sights. Honestly, what the fuck, Death? This is absolutely aggravating. It’s been a half hour now and he still hasn’t shown. Someone in this hospital needs to die. Obviously, he only shows up when that happens. But who knows when that’ll be? Besides Death himself, I mean.But maybe he is still in the hospital. Just on a different floor, perhaps?I make the executive decision to leave my room. But not before taking my last pudding for the walk.I make my way down the hall towards the elevator. I guess I’ll start from the bottom up. As the elevator doors open, I see my doctor. “Fuck,” I say quietly.“What are you doing out of your bed?” she asks.What am I going to tell her? I’m looking for Death to convince him to take me so I don’t have to live anymore? I know how crazy it sounds to other people so I’m not going to say it. “I have no legit answer,” I tell her.“You shouldn’t be out. Come on.” She guides me back to my room. “Don’t leave again,” she says and then she leaves. She makes a right out of the room and almost immediately Death walks by from that direction.Now’s my chance! “Death!” I whisper loudly. No luck. Quickly, I run to the door and poke my head out to see where he’s going. He goes into the room diagonally from mine. He’s so close. The hallway is colder than it was a minute ago. He leaves a trail of cold air behind him when he walks. Now I know a way to track him in case I lose him. Quietly, I tiptoe in my hospital socks to the room he went into and I watch as the hooded figure stands over a sleeping patient.The patient is an old gray-haired man. Probably dying of old age, or whatever it is that old people usually die of.Death extends his hand and waits a few seconds. His hand is exactly what I thought it would be. Bones. Underneath the robes is totally a skeleton. I can see a transparent version of the sleeping patient grab Death’s bony hand and leave the physical body. The heart monitor flat lines and I just know a team of doctors and nurses is going to show up really soon.I watch as the now-deceased patient stands up and looks at their physical body. They do not look sad, or even scared. They look peaceful and understanding. Is that what it's like to die? I wish to achieve such an enlightenment.Death and the ghost start walking towards me. I back away from the door and continue to watch. To be quite frank, I am shocked at what I just saw. As Death gets closer to me, I can feel the air getting colder. They walk right past me and begin to walk down the hall."Hey!" I say to Death. They both stop in their tracks and the ghost turns to me. Not Death. Just the ghost. The one I wasn't talking to. "Take me with you.""It is not your time, child," the ghost says.Now, I'm annoyed. "Excuse me?" I scoff. "And who are you to decide that?""It is not I who decides, child, it is the Grim Reaper who does.""Then why does it seem like I'm talking to you.""Death does not speak. Death chooses who speaks for him."This is annoying. Before I can even respond to something so asinine, the ghost turns away from me and disappears with Death. "You gotta be fucking kidding me," I breathe. Before the team of doctors and nurses arrives, I head back into my room.Looks like I have a long night of chasing Death ahead of me.