Ultraviolet ✔️

1.1

Chapter One

The woman on the subway just touched me. She just touched me and she doesn't have the slightest clue that it happened. As she'd settled into the narrow plastic seat, her elbow brushed my fingertips. One second. In hindsight, it wasn't even one full second. It was enough, though. It's always enough.

I recognize the feeling before it really catches up with me. It's like being trapped in a tunnel, one with light warped and uneven, the way a funhouse captures it. Nausea hits me; a wave of it shows up right before I'm grounded in the scene.

She's not with me on the subway anymore. Instead, she's alone in her apartment. It's a small place in Bed Stuy, and I'm just a specter. I watch her set her purse on the counter, clicking the button on her answering machine to hear the messages for the day. As someone on the other end of the line rants about her husband, the woman pours herself a bowl of granola, douses it with milk, and settles into a chair at her table. The gossip is background noise, and she eats in an unfocused haze. It's an unassuming scene.

She returns the call, calmly. The weird thing is, her words are unspecific to the message. It's almost like she wasn't listening in the first place. I take she must be close with the lady who left the voicemail, because she tells her she loves her.

The words are wrong.

The words sound wrong.

That's the moment I figure it out.

I've seen quite a few suicides. They don't outnumber any other cause of death, but I've still seen a lot of them. There are a number of ways to take your own life, and I'm pretty sure I've borne witness to every single one.

Her lifeless eyes, her calm resolve, the emptiness in her face— it's all a sign. She's scribbling onto a notepad now, writing a letter presumably. I keep trying to pull myself from the vision, but I know what's coming. I know I'm probably gonna have to watch anyway.

She's eerily calm as she takes a blade from the kitchen, a short, thick knife for cutting meat. Then, she lays in bed, assessing her forearm. There's only a moment of hesitation before she drags the metal down the length of her wrist, and slits her veins wide open.

The blood spurts everywhere, leaking across the crisp sheets of her bed. She cries out, and her hands are trembling so bad she can't cut her other arm up. It doesn't matter. She's done enough damage on her own to bleed out.

It's a terrible way to die.

When she takes her last breath, I'm shoved back into reality. I fall into the plastic seat hard, struggling for air. I look around me, scanning all the faces, examining the train car. I'm on the subway again, and there's bile rising in my throat. If I'm lucky, I won't throw up.

The woman glances at me, the corners of her mouth tilting upward stiffly before her eyes fall away. She looks normal. She doesn't look suicidal, and yet she's about to go home, eat a ceremonial final meal, and kill herself. I want to say something, but I don't know what. I know, deep down, that I can't save her.

I can't save her, and it's going to tear me up inside.

I've lost count of how many premonitions I've had after over a decade of them, but the ones that get me the most are the ones that could be stopped. Change one factor and that person could go on living their life. They're so easy to prevent, yet they happen just as I see them. Every death I foresee comes true, and it's a disturbing, plaguing thing.

Sitting next to her, knowing tomorrow she won't be taking the train again, is driving me up the wall. I'm so desperate to move, to escape this situation. Even despite how warm it is in the subway car, I tug my gloves back onto my sweaty hands and stand. My stop is several blocks away, but I'd rather walk than spend another minute here. I shove my way out, take the stairs two at a time, and try to get as far away from the woman as possible.