The moon was high in the sky as Natalie took slow, tedious steps toward the cabinet in her apartment’s unused guest bedroom. The bedroom she now knew as the one Astian slept in before the… event.

There was only one way to end all her pain for good.

She took a shaky hand and grabbed one of the door handles, opening it to reveal a pistol on the top shelf.

It needed to stop.

She grabbed the pistol and examined it in her hands.

By any means necessary, it needed to stop.

The gun was not loaded. She placed it back on the shelf and searched the cabinet for a magazine. Once found, she took it and inserted it into the pistol.

One little twitch and it’d all be over.

She took the top of the gun and pulled it back, letting go to allow it to slide forward and chamber the round.

Almost there, just a little more.

She turned the gun’s safety off. It was done. All she needed to do now was put it in her mouth and pull the trigger.

She pointed the gun toward her and raised it ever so slowly. She paused when it hit her lips.

“No, don’t stop now. You’re so close.” Her mind rang out.

She opened her mouth and slid the gun inside, aiming it at her throat.

This was it, only one more step. Just one squeeze of her finger and she’d be clean of this mess of lies.

How could one ever make peace with the fact that their entire life was fake? A fabrication that didn’t exist, that never existed. All the friends she made, all the experiences she had, for all she knew, may not have even happened. How could she know for certain which memories were or were not real?

She thought back to when she was nine years old, and learned to ride a bike for the very first time. Her father was so proud of her, and she could still recall the huge smile on his face when she was able to ride around the whole neighborhood without falling. She was proud too, it was the first time she could remember where she felt she really accomplished something meaningful.

But during the trial, there was a part where they went over Astian’s very thorough and meticulous planning of the spell. As it was said, changing reality to alter someone’s gender and making it so that person doesn’t remember their old life was not an easy process. It had to be carefully thought out and Astian needed to heavily consider which memories should be changed and how those changes would be implemented. All to make Natalie’s life come out coherent.

It was a long, difficult process. So difficult in fact that one of the prosecutors jokingly told Astian it would’ve been easier just to convince Nathan to love him as a man, to which Astian angrily replied that he wasn’t gay.

What this meant for Natalie was that none of her memories or experiences could be trusted. That memory of her learning to ride a bike could’ve just been created by Astian in order to make her new life seem more appealing.

The fact that every single one of her memories now had the distinct chance of being fake hadn’t really sunk in until now. It wasn’t just gender specific memories, or Astian being her boyfriend instead of best friend, it was every memory she ever had. She couldn’t trust any of them.

Did this mean all the work she put forth in college and in her current job didn’t occur? Was all the success in her life right now just given to her? Did she not really work for any of it?

What did this mean for other people? Was Nathan a friendless loser in his childhood too? She couldn’t tell. She remembered having a number of close friends in high school that she still followed on social media, but if Nathan didn’t have any friends in high school then could she say any of these people truly knew her? If someone came along and inserted memories in someone else’s head of being friends with a person they never met, then who could really say if those people knew each other? Who could say if they were ever truly friends?

Hell, what did this mean for her parents? The ones that knew her as “Natalie” their whole lives? The ones that thought they had raised a girl through false memories? How would they react when told the child they thought they raised wasn’t the child they actually raised?

Her entire life, her fake, imaginary one played out in her mind as she was taunted by the words of others.

“Nathan had a failed suicide attempt, while Natalie would never even think about committing suicide.”

“Stay safe tonight, okay?”

Natalie’s right index finger moved and laid in front of the trigger.

All it would take now was one squeeze of her finger. One squeeze and all the pain and confusion would be over. All the fake memories, all the trauma she’d have to relive through her dreams, it would all cease entirely.

She tightened her index finger very slightly. If she pulled it there was no chance anyone would be able to save her in time. She’d die, leaving behind the mess of a bad life and a good life that never actually happened.

It’d be so easy.

Natalie didn’t know how long that gun was in her mouth for, but she didn’t bother trying to guess.

Eventually, her choice was made.

Her body stood in the air.

But the gun dropped to the floor.

She couldn’t do it.

For the entire time the gun was in her mouth, she was like an emotionless robot, never reacting to the intense situation she had put herself in. Never caring that she was about to end her own life forever.

That was over.

Tears were flowing out of Natalie’s eyes as she laid on the floor.