R/Nosleep (Get Spooked)

Why I Murdered My Best Friend

By: u/WittyisNotWitty

I murdered Aaron Harper, my closest friend. I stabbed him right in the heart. Look, I know how it sounds, ok? You probably think I'm some unstable lunatic. I'm not. I'm really not. I bet you would've done the exact same in my situation. I don't have much time, so I'll just start at the beginning. It'll probably make the most sense that way.

Winter break had just started, and I was bored out of my mind. I don't really have any major hobbies, and college had taken up much of my time anyway, so it didn't really matter. But, now that I had three weeks of free time? I had nothing to do. So, I had reluctantly resigned myself to spending it sleeping and maybe binge-watching a couple of shows on Netflix when out of the blue my phone began to ring. When I fished it out of my pocket, I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was Aaron. Aaron is, or was, my best friend all through high school. I met him on the first day of freshman year and we'd been completely inseparable ever since. We spent nearly every day together. At least, that's how it used to be. I was surprised because it had been a long time since I had last talked to him. Hell, I think that was my first conversation with him since high school graduation. Why would he call me now? I picked up the buzzing phone and answered the call.

"Hey, is this still Tay's number?" Aaron's voice immediately came crackling through the phone speaker.

"Hey, Aaron! Yes, this is still my number." I answered, happy to hear his voice after so long.

"Oh hey! I wasn't sure if you had changed it or not." He had said, a little bit of nervousness creeping into his voice.

"What's up? It's been a while since we've talked." I asked, confused about why he called today of all days.

"Oh I've been doing pretty good, My record shop has been pretty successful. How's college?" He spoke quickly, and his voice sounded almost tight like he was out of breath. There was a good beat of silence before I responded.

"College is good. I'm glad to hear that your business is doing good, man." I awkwardly answered. Not knowing what to say next, I paused, waiting for him to say something. The silence slowly dragged out, killing the already fairly dry conversation. As it got more uncomfortable, I decided to cut to the chase.

"Why'd you call me, Aaron?" I asked, my voice piercing the silence.

"Well, I was wondering if you would want to go camping up on Mt. Mayworth for a couple of days with me."

As soon as those words left his lips, I knew I was going. I had to. You see, back when Aaron and I were in high school, we would always camp up on Mayworth every summer, normally with his brother, Jason. It was our little tradition. We stopped after we graduated. I don't remember why. I had to go with him. I couldn't just let our tradition die out completely, and I knew I needed a break from college.

"Ok, I'll go." I responded, smiling. Looking back on it, I would've saved myself a lot of trouble if I had just hung up.

A couple of hours later, I was outside waiting to be picked up. I hadn't packed much, just some camping gear, my phone, and my old hunting knife. The knife was a gift from Aaron, so it felt fitting. It was a cold day out, I remember that. Puddles of dark rain-water from the previous night still littered the area. It was pooling in every nook and cranny in the street and it flowed into the storm drains, into the abyss that was the sewers below. I checked my phone for any texts from Aaron. None. It wasn't surprising, to be honest. Aaron was the kinda guy to always be late to everything, no matter how important it was. Hell, I remember back in freshman year, he was half an hour late to his own brother's birthday party! Man, Jason was mad about that. I smiled, the image of Jason giving Aaron a noogie filling my head. I miss those days. Why did we ever stop talking?