TRIGGER WARNING...
DO I EVEN NEED TO AT THIS POINT?
___
"When I die, fuck it,
I wanna go to hell.
Cause I'm a piece of shit,
It ain't hard to fucking tell."
***
CHRISTINA'S POV:
I push the door of the old house open slowly. When I hear gut wrenching sounds coming from nearby, my hand instinctively wraps around the gun in my waistband.
I know I was supposed to expect the unexpected but the last thing on Earth I'd expect would be to hear a guy mourning over something in this psychopath's house. His sound is muffled and I can hear him yell out a bunch of profanities as I push the door more to open it wide. To my dismay, the damn door makes a loud creak.
Damn, how old is this house?
Whoever it is, clearly heard the door and their loud cries turn into small sniffles. I slowly start to walk towards what looks to be the kitchen where the sound is coming from.
I'm well aware of how loud my heart is thumping but I can't even thinking of backing out. First Liz disappearing and now Niall. I have to find the two. No help or anything, all on my own.
I took enough time to plan it all out. But better late then never I guess. Even though I prepared myself to face the absolute worse; the worst being finding out that Niall is dead.
But nothing could ever prepare me to adjust to the sight that I see in front of my sinful eyes.
The first thing my gaze falls onto is a guy sitting on the floor with his back towards me, leaning towards the kitchen counter. My hand is still hovering over the gun which remains placed in my waistband. When he turns his head back to look at me, his green colored eyes which are bloodshot from how bad he has been crying meet my confused ones.
Harry, is it?
It's when I look around to take in the scene in front of me. My eyes widen at the sight of the blood that covers a large part of the kitchen floor. The blood surrounds him and I'm amazed by the amount of it. It looks like someone was bloody murdered here.
My breath hitches as my eyes catch onto the legs of another person, their upper half is not visible to me as Harry is holding them in his arms and they are partly in his lap. My eyebrows are furrowed when I look back at his face, his eyes are still staring deep into my soul as tears keep flowing from his eyes. I take a few steps to get closer, but I still keep a small distance in case he tries to make a move.
"H-Harry? What the fuck is this?" I ask him as if I've known him my whole life and he is not just the psychopath I'm here to kill. But I'm a human and I'm gonna ask anyone who can give me a clear answer to one of the million questions which are occurring in my mind right now.
He doesn't say anything but he just moves a bit so that I can get a clear view of the person he is holding in his arms.
I swear it feels like someone just pushed the pause button and the whole world stops as I stop breathing subconsciously. It all seems to happen in a slow motion.
When I get a clear view of the person laying in his arms, their face is covered in blood just like their whole body. They are almost unrecognizable but who the hell am I kidding? I grew up with her. I have known her better than I have known myself. Her eyes are still open and they are screaming her identity. Her beautiful ocean eyes.. Elizabeth's now lifeless eyes.
After that, it's like someone pushed the play button and my whole world comes crashing down around me. It feels like my heart didn't drop, it combusted. I'm not even aware of the tears which flow out of my eyes. My hands instinctively come in front of me as if to stop and erase the image which is present in front of my eyes. My whole body goes numb instantly with a layer of goosebumps covering me from head to toe.
I stand there at the same spot and take in the whole scene again. Harry, who happens to be the one to kidnap my best friend, is sitting on the floor and crying his heart out as he holds her lifeless body in his arms while her blood covers the damn floor, coloring it as if the floor was never of any other color in the first place. Elizabeth's poor body has been brutally stabbed what looks to be countless times as a kitchen knife lays on the floor near her body which is covered in her blood.
My brain catches up after a few minutes and I'm broken out of the numb state that I was in and a heart wrenching pain runs through my whole body but still no particular emotion. My knees are about to give out and I want nothing but to fall to the floor and hold her body as I cry my heart out. But I can't. No matter how shattered my heart is, I can't show that.
I take a deep breath to calm myself as I move my eyes away from her body and close them momentarily.
"Did you fucking do this?"
He stays silent as he looks back to the lifeless body and then lowers his head, not looking back at me.
"Tell me! Who fucking did this!? It was you wasn't it!?" I shout at the top of my lungs and he just slightly nods.
I never thought that just a simple nod could make my whole world come crashing down all over again and cause a physical pain that I'm feeling right now.
"I.. But I didn't mean to," he mutters lightly as he looks back at me.
I'm finally able to feel an emotion again. Anger. And it is burning me from inside now. My hand instantly goes for the gun and I take it out, pointing it straight at his head. I have to stop myself right before I pull the trigger. I need answers first.
"Listen up and listen good. I need you to fucking start talking right now. I don't want to hear your whole sob story on how you didn't mean to do it, I want to hear why you did it! So I suggest, you start talking now!"
At first he doesn't budge but when I don't stop my yelling, he flinches a bit and I use it to my advantage to force some answers out of him.
"Do it," is all he says.
"What?"
"Do it. Shoot me. Kill me. I deserve to die. I'm responsible for this." At first, I'm a bit taken aback by his words but when my gaze falls back to Elizabeth's body, I almost lose control and nearly shoot him right there.
"Trust me, I'd be glad to make your wish come true. But before I do that, I want to know each and every single thing that you have done to my poor friend, you sly piece of shit."
After a few minutes of going back and forth and trying to force things out of him, he finally gives in. He moves Elizabeth's upper half from his lap to the floor beside him and slowly closes her eyes with his hand. My heart is literally broken into so many pieces that I don't think I'll ever be able to find them in order to fix it. But yet again, I have to stay strong. I can't let my emotions take over. I'm really not letting my brain come around the fact that she is actually gone and that only if I had made it to this place a bit earlier, I might've been able to save her.
About half an hour later, I find myself sitting against the wall while Harry sits in front of me as he tells me everything. He tells me briefly about how he had blacked out and did it. He was never aware he was stabbing her. He tells me how he loved her more than anything in this world and I can clearly see guilt consuming him. I don't know how to wrap my head around all of this. If I had a heart right now, I might have felt bad for him. But I don't even feel a single drop of pity for him. Too bad.
He's a psychopath. He did this to himself. Moreover, he killed my fucking friend who mattered the most to me.
But now the question is, Where is Niall?
"What happened with Niall? I know that he found Liz. What did you do with him?"
"Nothing. I shot him in the neck. He died." He says as if we're making a casual conversation, not even effected a single bit.
While for me on the other hand, my heart drops all over again and my blood runs cold. How could he? Why did he do that? I can't afford to lose to two of the closest people in my life at the same moment. Even though I'm not sure what I was expecting from Harry to do with Niall.
I get up from the floor and yell at him, "You did what!? Why the fuck would you do that!? He didn't even do anything to you!"
"He was trying to take Eliza away from me. He was helping her escape. And when I caught them, he was acting all heroic and trying to save her and vice versa. I blacked out when she came in front of him in order to stop me from shooting. But he ended up pushing her away and taking the bullet."
When I don't say anything, he continues.
"It was quite a sight to watch though. He got shot in the neck and he bled out. Elizabeth had to hold him as he gave up his ghost. The amount of hurt and pain that I saw in her eyes that day and how she reacted to the whole thing, made me feel weird. It was pitiful yet an amazing thing to see; how she held him and cried for hours while being covered in his blood.. the grief. I had to pull her away so that I could clean up later."
"So you're telling me that you don't even feel half as much as guilt for killing him as you do for killing Liz!?"
"Well, no. It was never really my fault. He was here to take away what's mine and he had to deal with the consequences," he shrugs as if it's no big deal and stare at him in shock. "That day, I kept thinking how I'd never be able to feel the way she did. The pain. The hurt. Oh how I wish that was true, but today, holding her in my arms made me realize how she felt. It feels like I'm drowning but then I'm the on who jumped into the ocean, being well aware that I don't know how to swim."
He takes a deep breath and then continues, "You know, Elizabeth was so much stronger then I am being in the same position. She blamed herself for it all but she never gave up. She learned to live with the guilt, no matter how much it kept eating her from inside."
"You were the one to kill him! You pulled the damn trigger and then blamed it all on her!? She learned how to fucking live with it because that's how it works, doesn't it? Someone has to take the blame. And then the guilt shackles them in a chain."
"Maybe. But either way, now you know everything you wanted to.. Do me a favor Christina. Do what you were here to do in the first place. Kill me. Shoot me."
"As much as I want to kill you, I also want to make you suffer just as much as you made Elizabeth suffer. She didn't deserve this. The poor soul never even told us a thing to protect us from a monster like you! You're a fucking monster!"
"And you think I don't know that?" He says with a bitter laugh. I have always been aware of how big of a monster I am and I've never regretted a single thing I have done but this is the first time I have done the thing I once feared the most.. Anyway, if you're going to kill me then just put me out of my misery already."
Now I really want to take him with me and keep him alive in a cage so that he keeps suffering. I want to make him suffer just as much as he made my friends suffer. But unfortunately, that isn't an option. I have to kill him.
I don't have it in me to look at his face any longer. It just reminds me of how bad of a friend I was to Elizabeth when she came to me after her first encounter with this psychopath. I just blamed it all onto her past.
And look how that ended up. She was right after all. How could I do that to her? My misjudgment led to her suffering and eventually dying. I lost her trust. I didn't even notice the things which Niall did. She ended up pushing me away and I just let her. I didn't even try to ask her what was going on once..
And for all of that, I'll never be able to forgive myself.
Now the least I can do is to kill this asshole.
"Sure. But to just shoot you like this? I don't think so. You shot Niall and made him bleed out and then you stabbed Liz nearly twenty times! I can't just blow your brains out and put you out of your misery, now can I, Harry?" I smirk while tilting my head a bit.
"Do whatever you want. I never wanted to do this. I have caused this and I'm the one responsible for losing the most precious thing I had. I deserve to die."
"No shit, Sherlock. So, let's start with this," I walk over to him and stand right in front of him and point the gun at him. He takes a deep breath and gets ready to for me to shoot him in the head but I instantly move the gun away from his forehead to his knee and shoot. "First, Niall's revenge."
He yells out in pain but I don't really give him the time to react as I shoot the other knee. He lets out a gut wrenching scream in pain. But for some reason, not even a single part of me feels bad for him.
"Make it quick! Just kill me already!" he yells out when I move away from him crouch down near Elizabeth's body a few steps away from him. I stroke her face lightly and my finger twirls around a strand of her hair, taking a moment to look at her for one last time.
Harry keeps yelling at me to just kill him already and that he has suffered enough. But what's better than emotional pain? Physical and emotional pain combined together. It sure as hell makes you cry harder.
"I said that you deserve to die but I never said that you deserve a quick death." I get up again and walk towards the kitchen door as he begs me to end it all while trying his best to crawl towards me. I turn back to look at him and my gaze falls onto the stove.
Well I just found the best way to torture you, now didn't I?
I rush towards the cabinets and start searching for the lighter fluid. I'm pretty sure he has it.
"What the fuck are you even doing?" he yells out in pain but I keep searching until I finally find it in the last cabinet.
"What does it look like, Harold?" I grab it and walk towards him. I open it and sprinkle it all over him.
"What!? Why are you doing this!? No! Just shoot me!"
"If only it were that easy." I smile at him as I grab the matches and light one up. "Hope this gives your stone-cold heart some warmth."
And with that, I drop the match on his lighter fluid covered body and take a few steps back as I watch the fire spread and cover his whole body. He screams out in pain and agony. He's screaming and thrashing around while his skin starts to char. I just stand there and watch him struggle for a minute and then decide that I've had enough.
I walk over to the kitchen stove, a plan forming in my head. I have to cover my tracks too. I turn on the kitchen stove and walk out, the smell of burning flesh and gas following me.
-
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BREAKING NEWS!
"In today's breaking news, terrifying moment that huge 'gas' explosion destroys house and leaves two casualties. Authorities have been unable to identify the bodies as of yet. Our biggest suspicion is that of a burst gas pipe, says Fire Marshall John Wilkes. More news to follow soon."
-_-_-_-
A/N:
Aaaaand this marks as the last chapter
of my precious baby
"In the shadows."
I hope you enjoyed the story as much I did.
It was my first shot on the whole writing gig
and I never even expected from myself that
I would eventually end it like this.
DO VOTE AND COMMENT!
This has been possible only due to you my readers.
This started as just a hobby but only due to your support
and reviews did I finish and become devoted to this.
So, I thank you from the depth of my heart.
And lastly, I want to thank everyone
who supported me through such a fucked up story,
most importantly my brother, HBSWrites
who helped me with Harry's past
and Harry's psychopathic behavior.
Thanks for sticking with my bullshit!
I love you! Stay safe!
-Aneesa Saleem.