NoSleep

The Fatal Mistake

The cold night air seems to slap me in the face. I walk along the dusty dirt road, I can barely hear the sounds of the highway in the background but I'm walking far away from that, from everything. I feel alone, I can only hear the howling of the trees or the occasional bird chirp. There's nothing to see out of the ordinary only me and the woods. I lose myself in my thoughts and then I remember the things I've been trying to forget, my brother's death. The words still feel raw.

He was murdered last night and they found him in the abandoned cottage a few hours ago. My brother's best friend had found him there; she stumbled into the body after a friend had dared her to enter the cottage which was rumoured to be haunted. This was a popular thing to do among the youth of the town and perhaps a fatal mistake by his killer as they increased the odds of the body being found. However the police force in our town isn't exactly to be trusted so rather than turning to them she ran towards our house and told my mother and she was drunk at the time like always but it hit her like a truck. She was devastated.

She sent me out to find him, something I was definitely not looking forward to but for my mother can be done. I approached the abandoned cottage and walked up the creaking stairs and opened the cracking door. The cabin was empty, the windows were broken and tiny shards for glass lay upon the rotting floorboards. On those floorboards there was a dotted trail of blood which I followed.

The trail let to the body. It was covered in blood some of his major organs lay beside him covered in many different bodily fluids. The man that was once my brother lay dead on the ground. I wish I didn't have to kill him but he knew to much and was going to spill it.

Mom found out though a friend of a friend that he planned on going to the provincial government with our secret drug operation he could have had us all arrested so he needed to be shut up. Honestly he should have that. Mom had put up a good show pretending to be the heartbroken and I just needed to clean up the mess in case someone stumbled upon this mess like his friend. Looking down at his body, I do feel a pang of regret I truly wish that it didn't come to this.

I slowly begin to clean up the mess and slowly hid any proof that I killed him. I take the knife out of the body there was still blood dripping from it like a melted ice cream cone. Suddenly I begin to cry the tears were running down my face. I tried to ignore it but soon it became overwhelming, I sat down against a rotting wall with my head in my hands crying. I just killed my brother. The realization hit me like a bullet I had killed my own brother. I sat there alone the lone body of my brother wasting away near the door.

I continued crying completely forgetting to try to act cold and kept it together. Then I hear footsteps, I brush it off thinking it's just a mistake it's just a broken branch with sounded like a footstep. The odds of someone coming here right now in slim. A thought shot into my head, what if it's the the cops? What if for once in my life the cops actually care about a murder? I noticed the sound of footsteps getting louder and louder almost. My breathing increases and my heart is pumping faster and faster until I think it's going to explode. Then suddenly its dead silent the wind even stopped blowing.

Everything is quiet. I can't hear anything almost as if I'm deaf then suddenly I hear a ringing that slowly grows louder and louder until it's all I can hear. The ringing starts to fade and I hear a creaking coming from the closet. I quickly turn my head towards the closet and it slowly begins to open and creaks even louder. Creak. Creak. Creak.

The door starts to open and I think I see a body inside it but it's not a human. It's face is narrow and sunken in its jaw lay open bone clearly showing. It's skin was leathery and melting off and where the eyes should be were large empty sockets. The empty skull was filled with a black mist unlike anything I've ever seen. Then the mist began to leave the body, it started slowly but spend up speeding toward me. It formed into a large hand and grabbed my neck and began to choke me. I gasped for air but to no relief. Suddenly the rest of the mist turned into a large face one that I had seen a million times. My brother's. His gaze was now stone cold and lifeless. His face now more narrow and drained not to mention he's surrounded my the black mist.

"You..." He begun his voice crisp and full rather than its usual joyful tone or excitement.

"Took... my...life." He added his voice filled with anger along with the chill.

"And now... you will.. PAY!" His voice was now pure anger nothing like in life.

The grip gets tighter and tighter until I hear a crack and my body falls to the ground I'm nearly dead I can feel it, the life is leaving my body it's becoming numb and I'm resisting closing my eyes . I shouldn't be alive right now.

"And now... you will be judged.. for your crimes." He hissed the coldness but evident than ever. I looked up one last time to see the face before the darkness incomes me and I feel nothing. Nothing at all.