The waterworks started. I opened my mouth to scream, but the man clamped his hand over my mouth. I couldn't believe what I had done. I pulled away from his firm grip. I crouched down next to the man. Even though I knew he was dead by the nasty gash in his side, I put two fingers on his wrist to check his pulse.
"No. No. No, no, no, no!" I sobbed into his sleeve. I inched away, horrified at what he had become: a lifeless man, a vacant body with no soul to occupy it. I buried my face in my hands and cried. Hard. My shoulders shook and my upper lip trembled.
I was shocked at the fact that I had no idea who the man was, yet I felt so much loss and pain at his death.
His death by me.
I cried even harder. I almost forgot about Mystery Man, who was standing in the corner of the room, not a lick of emotion on his face. I pulled myself up and staggered over to him.
"Nobody can find out about this." I told him, my voice wavering. "I don't wanna end up in jail. I'm too young to go to jail. I have my whole life ahead of me. I haven't even finished college!" I realized how much I sounded like my mom, and at the same time, realizing how much I missed her.
I cried even harder.
"Oh. It's too late to worry about that." He said, his mouth stretching into a smirk. "The police are already on their way." My ears perked up at the sound of the police.
"What!? How do they even know about this?!" Ignoring my question, the man rambled on.
"In our gambling organization, we have to agree that whoever volunteers to kill the traitor has to confess to the police and go to jail. Since I volunteered, I am the one who has to take the fall for it. But who wants to go to jail, right?" I nodded slowly. But there was still one thing I didn't understand.
"If you didn't want to go to jail, then why did you volunteer?" I asked, sniffling the remainder of my tears away.
"Because I was the only one who could." He said, as if I were the stupid one. I pondered over this for a moment. Why could no one else do the deed? I opened my mouth to speak, but something stopped me in mid-sentence. The dreadful sound of a police siren whined in the distance. Without stopping to think, I picked up the knife and craned my neck in an un-successful effort to find a hiding place for the dagger. The siren noise was getting closer and closer by the second.
"Hey! Help me find a place to put this!" I called out. I realized all to late that the Mystery Man was gone. He had abandoned me...
I squinted my eyes shut, trying to push back bad memories of abandonment. But it wouldn't go away...
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I ran off with him, into the moonlit night. We went to our tree, the special oak tree in the woods behind his house. It had
Everett+Anova=Love4life etched into the trunk. I leaned on his shoulder, taking in a deep sigh of content-ness. He looked down at me and I tilted my head up to his. He kissed me ever so softly. I felt a wonderful feeling, a feeling I only got when I was with him. He turned to me looking into my eyes, into my soul.
"I know this might sound strange to you, but you give me this feeling I never get. You fill a gap in my heart, a gap that has been empty for years. Will you come with me? We could run away, never having to listen to anyone ever again. We could play the game of life by our own rules. Together." His offer sounded so tempting, and I wanted more than anything to go with him. I knew it was dumb and senseless, but we were only 16. But nonetheless, I told him I would give him my final answer in the morning. That morning, I ran to our tree. I had made up my mind. I would go with him and never return. But he was nowhere to be seen. I searched for him for days. Days turned into weeks. Even his family didn't know where he was. I had given up hope on his return. My love for him turned into fiery anger, burning a hole in my heart. He had gone forever, and he left me behind.
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I heard footsteps crunching the dead leaves outside the building. I looked around in a panic, searching for my escape.
Bingo. A back door. When I opened it, it creaked in protest. I slipped out the door un-detected. I bolted, running as fast as my legs could take me. When the building disappeared on the horizon, I sat down against a tree, and I cried myself to sleep.