It seemed like the best option at the time.

In my defense, I wasn't exactly thinking clearly.

Neither did I have much time to consider other alternatives.

It was either lose the hand or suffer some fate so horrible

that the loss of a hand seems almost trivial by comparison.

The events leading up to my self-severance are, as you can expect, rather terrible.

Why else would someone mutilate themselves?

I was with friends hanging out at what I guess you can call an abandoned building or yet to be finished one depending on how you looked at it.

It was some sort of dormitory or loft, something smaller than an apartment, and from the sign that had been out in front,

meant for a classier standard of living than other housing in the area.

The project had been started a year prior to the trespassing, which led to my dismemberment, and then abandoned a few months in.

Apparently, some girl and a boyfriend had ventured there one night to hook up, and an unsecure beam above them had fallen, impaling them both.

They were found like that, speared through their chests, embraced in wide-eyed shock at the disruption of their and more as activity.

You'd think this incident of extreme mortal misfortune would deter others from trespassing

on the property, if not already deterred by the various signs

which threatened fines and arrests.

Well, if that were the case, I wouldn't be here.

Telling you about how I had to cut off my hand with a box cutter would I?

My friends and I would often sneak onto the property, unwatched as it were,

and hang out beneath its barely finished skeleton, chatting, drinking, planning out our nights,

which inevitably found us exploring some other property we probably shouldn't have been at.

In our defense, the city, the contractor, or whomever was in charge of the place should have just torn it all down. We were a small

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