The Beginning of the End

This is not how it's supposed to end.

That's what Kang Jianzhu is thinking as she watches, almost in a trance, the way her arm convulses once, twice, and then stills. It's quite creepy if you ask me; personally, as your humble narrator and a normal person, if I was ever in a car crash, I wouldn't be watching my body literally break down. I would be breaking down, mentally. But Jianzhu is neither humble nor normal, so that's exactly what she does: feel the way each cell in her body shudders into nonexistence with a scary nonchalance.

She feels the way blood is incessantly seeping into her hair, drenching it, and faintly thinks about what a waste it was to wash it this morning. Unbeknownst to morning Jianzhu, who had been trying to get into a morning routine to get ready for her first year of college, she would not be attending college. It's really pretty unfortunate that she's going to die now, in excruciating pain, just weeks before her liberation to college, surrounded by the musty scent of blood. If she wasn't wheezing right now, she would sigh.

Jianzhu, petty until the end, silently (it hurt to open her mouth) curses the bastard driver who had plummeted into her without remorse like he was playing GTA. He'd just driven on, too, not even slowing down. Since when were drivers so reckless in China? You would think the outrageously difficult driving test would weed out most bad drivers; it's just Jianzhu's luck that she runs into one of them—or rather, one of them runs into her. She mentally scoffs at the fact that someone like this dude can get a license while she'd failed the test three times.

The pedestrians that have gathered around her have long since blurred into colorful patches in her vision. One of them had apparently called emergency services because she begins to hear sirens harmonize with the ringing in her ears, and it all makes for a very unpleasant symphony to die to. Coarse hands grab at her head, feet, waist, dragging her onto a stretcher. Ah, she should be in good care now. She's been feeling tired since the accident; it shouldn't matter if she closes her eyes for a bit. Fuck if she wants to sleep for a while before her death. Such a momentous occasion ought to warrant her utmost attention, after all, so she can't be falling asleep then. She should catch up on sleep now.

To Jianzhu's genuine surprise, she opens her eyes a little while later. 

Look, Jianzhu's not stupid. Medicine may not be her main field of study, but she knows that when you're on the brink of death and you "fall asleep," you're probably just succumbing to death. Sure, it wouldn't have been the ideal situation, what with sweet, sweet college being imminent, but it wouldn't have been the worst option either. Her research into the quantum realm had gone practically nowhere, and the guilt of wasting a $2,000 student science fellowship on defunct research had been eating away at her conscience recently. And all her living relatives had already died, anyway. As cynical as it sounds, she was okay with everything ending here.

Obviously, everything does not end here. Re: the aforementioned opening of eyes.

Let's go back to the first sentence of this story. "This is not how it's supposed to end"; "it" being her world. Her world is supposed to end with her life. Scientifically, logically, and reasonably, it should've ended with her life. Yet here she is, eyes open, looking up at a vibrant blue sky. Not even the gray ceiling of a medical facility—a blue sky. It's probably safe to say what the fuck now.

"What the fuck," Jianzhu mutters.

Her arm isn't convulsing anymore. She gingerly touches the back of her skull to find no wound. Her hair is completely clean, even of dandruff. Jianzhu sits up, and she's not even dizzy. This is better than she's felt in months, with her research starting in May and then gaokao in June and then extreme heat in July. Well, shit, wherever she was sent sure had state-of-the-art medical facilities. Maybe having patients wake up outdoors is some new innovative medicinal practice she's not aware of.

Jianzhu surveys her surroundings. On her right is what seems to be the edge of a forest, the trees growing sparsely at her immediate right but growing denser deeper into the forest. About five meters to her left is the edge of the cliff she is apparently on. She stands up suspiciously easily and walks towards the edge, figuring the hospital she'd been transported to would more likely be under a cliff than in the middle of a forest.

Needless to say, she doesn't find a hospital. Otherwise, this story would be pretty boring, and the title wouldn't make much sense.

For the second time (spoiler: but not the last time) that day, Jianzhu whispers, "What. The fuck." Because her world does not end with death; her world has ended with the beginning of a new one.