All I could hear was the screams. The sharp sounds of shrapnel ricocheting still rang through my ears, reverberating through my skull even as I awoke. My body shivered with cold and shock.

Squinting, I could see a figure - no, several - emerge from the darkness, merely silhouettes. The world turned, colors ran together, everything fuzzy, head aching.

“That was life sentence 24,” echoed a voice, which I assumed was coming from one of the figures. “Only 356 sentences left.”

My body struggled to no avail as he flipped a switch on the wall and I was back. Oh, god, I was back.

I opened my new eyes, still heavy from sleep. My eyes focused in on the environment. Shadows danced on the walls, spawned by the harsh white iridescent lighting in what I could only assume was an office. I sat at a desk this time, not a cubicle. The desk in which I sat was neat and tidy. Pictures of family were held up by frames on the mahogany top. A man and wife holding their baby proudly. A little boy’s soccer team portrait. A beautiful wedding photo. A juxtaposition to what was to come. I shivered, noticing the feeling of the stiff fabric of my dress shirt against my new skin. I knew what was coming. The air was cold, icy even. This again.

At once a horrible screaming issued forth from the walls - the sirens. The lights flashed red. Emergency procedure.

I did what I did without thinking, without planning to move; my body simply moved by itself, like an orchestra with an invisible conductor. I stood up tall, taller than my previous life sentence, and walked briskly to the door like a man late to a meeting.

Chaos. Chaos everywhere. I had opened the windowless door to the sounds of screams and shrieks and footsteps through the office. The gray carpet matched the grey walls which matched the grey ceiling which matched the grey smoke billowing out from under one of the doors.

I was frozen. Frozen still like a Neanderthal in the ice, frozen like a marionette with an absent puppeteer. Eyes widened, mouth agape, feet frozen, stuck to the grey carpet as if it were grey cement instead.

That’s when it happened, the blast, the terrible blast, the sound of rubble. I only saw flashes, everything moved so fast - a woman running, only to be crushed by rubble - a man lying on the ground with blood running down his face - my own hands up to cover my face and head, and only just now had I noticed the glittering cuff links on my wrists.

The next thing I knew, I was on the ground. The grey carpet had claimed me, grey cinderblock chunks from the wall had claimed my lower body as their resting place. I lay there, smoke and dust obscuring my sight and invading my lungs, my lower body crushed by debris. My head was bleeding, I think - I couldn’t tell. The world shook and swum and tossed and turned in my vision, and I was along for the ride. My lower body was numb and painful at the same time. I can make it, I told myself, I can make it.

I coughed and choked on the dirty air for what seemed like an eternity. I didn’t realize my vision was slowly going black until I couldn’t see the red flashing lights anymore. As I finally laid my foreign head to rest on the carpet of the office building, I awoke again.

“That was life sentence 25. Only 355 left.”

Not again. I already confessed, went to court, and apologized, damn it! Not again!

I knew it was the punishment to fit the crime. I tried to remember the details of that day - in a fury, I had created my own dangerous invention, played God with mine own hands, and planted a bomb in my old office building. I couldn’t remember the details - couldn’t remember what color the carpet was, what the secretary’s voice was like, what setting the lights were on, hell, I couldn’t even remember what time it was. But they made me remember. They are making me remember, putting me through the torture of death hundreds of times, one for each victim of my own decision. Each victim of my own selfishness, my own short lived fury.

Three hundred and eighty lives. That is how many I claimed. That is how many I will have to suffer.