The Carter Hollow Murders

Arthur Knightgale - Challenge Three

User: 8Umbra

More students and teachers dead and we found ourselves locked inside the gym, campus lockdown the Principal called it. The gym is perfect for it, safer, it's open with no spaces to hide but I still don't see how safe can it be with a killer among us.

I sigh heavily running my hands through my hair, many students and teachers shake, the adrenaline passing and fear sinking in, I look at my own hands, trembling too, I feel cold with the shivers that rack my whole body.

I can't stay here, it's just...too much, the light is sickening as it fall over the polished wood floor, everyone talks in hushed whispers trying to keep a certain level of respect for those that have perished today.

I make my way to the announcement balcony resting my hands against the cool metal railing not bothering to look around for those that may accompany me in my place of comfort. I take a deep breath but it does nothing to calm me and shivers continue but they have nothing to do with the cold that now assaults my body, it doesn't register the sensation, the lack of warmth it's just another dull feeling on my trembling body. My hand tightens against the railing and I have to swallow down a screamer sheer desperation I feel enough to terrify me, my breathing comes in pants as I hang my head letting it loll from side to side coming to rest against one of my shoulders, I don't know which one direction having no important meaning anymore.

I close my eyes tightly forcing my breathing to become deep and slow bit it does nothing to calm the rush beating of my heart, it would pop out if it wasn't too scared to do so.

I finally manage to look up taking in the darkness of the sky only fought by the forceful gleaming of the stars, there aren't as many as there are at the country side having been dulled out by the lights of the city below them, I bet I could count them if I tried. One, two, three, four...

My heart still beats loudly in my ears the blood rushing through my body making me feel too hot, feverish, against the cool air of the night.

Ten, eleven, twelve...

Never once do my eyes stray from the beaming white points plastered against the infinite darkness of the night, even as my breath ghosts out in the form of whine mist I don't stop counting.

Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen...

My pulse slowly dies down the beat of my heart still recognizable against the devastating silence of the night, but it's bearable, I can breath again without my lungs constricting, without feeling trapped.

Twenty three, twenty four, twenty five...

Finally the cold catches up with me and a gust of wind passes me through, stealing my breath away and forcing my lids close, the stars lost to my sight, their shine no longer a beacon in the undying sea of blood that has now become the night.

I used to love it, the silence even when it's thick enough to cut through it with a knife, now it terrifies me, staying silent, no more words spoken, whispered.

I can't hear my heart anymore, there is nothing but blissful silence.

I open my eyes again looking for the stars without thinking, I count again.

One, two, three, four...