On the darker side (warning: may be quite upsetting)

It was a glorious Saturday afternoon - what a time to be alive! Rather sunny, but not too hot, with a light breeze. As Christina Rossetti put it, "When the leaves hang trembling, the wind is passing through." I was in the city, having just caught up with old friends. Laughter, happiness, bliss. It all ended way too soon, as reality set in and the afternoon wore on. After fond farewells and promises to meet again soon, I began walking home, feeling radiant as if sunbeams shone from my face. It was that marvellous a day.

Then, I reached the crossing.

It was at a large two way road, each direction bearing four lanes of traffic. One long pedestrian crossing to go and I would be blocks away from the comfort of home. A typical Saturday, the city was buzzing with life, and many people waited on either side of the crossing, as the cars streamed past. The light turned green as I was still about fifty metres away, and I began running. I'd never been fond of having to wait. I was midway across the road, between the two directions of traffic, when a shrill voice screamed.

"Stop!"

I froze in my stride, along with about fifty others around me, and even more people closer to the ends of the crossing. For just one moment, the strangest thought crossed my mind. The voice was so familiar. It was just like Bellatrix Lestrange out of a Harry Potter movie. Frozen in the moment, I almost chuckled at the thought. That was when the bullets flew.

Screams rung out as bullets pierced through flesh, ricocheted off street lamps, shattered glass windows and dented car doors. Chaos reigned as people shoved each other out of the way, desperately clinging to what sense of self-preservation prevailed in their minds. Cries of fear mixed with howls of anguish clouded the air. I couldn't speak, couldn't think. I was bolstered along by the crowd, rushing across the road, tripping over bodies that littered the ground.

"I said, STOP!"

The voice again. Shell-shocked and fearful, the crowd listened this time.

"Everyone, to the middle of the crossing. Now. Or I'll open fire."

As I dragged my protesting feet back to the middle of the road, my eyes took her in. She stood tall, clad in a skintight bodysuit, military boots, with latex gloves, all black as the night. Her hair was thick and fell around her shoulders in tight ringlets, and her eyes were as cold and reflective as glass marbles. She had the air of a dominatrix, and a sadistic smile lingered on her heartbreaker-red lips. Hoisted up on her shoulder was a machine gun, which she easily supported with the biceps straining against her outfit.

There were now about thirty people in the middle of the road. One man, however, remained at the side, unable to move, but did not go unnoticed by the woman. She sauntered over towards him, and delicately placed her left arm around his shoulders, turning him to face the rest of us, looking on in horror. The man appeared to be in his early thirties, stolidly-built and wearing a flannel button-down faded with sawdust. He was paralysed on the spot, his mouth slightly open, and eyes glazed over. His fear was betrayed by the beads of perspiration rolling off the bridge of his nose, and slight tremble of his clenched fists.

With a venomous smile, the woman cooed softly in his ear. His eyes remained fixed on an unidentifiable spot on the road, as his mouth moved a fraction. She beamed at him, before speaking up.

"Everyone, this is Jim! That's a lovely ring you've got on, Jim. Are you married?" His head jerked down slightly.

"Ah, beautiful. Kids?" Another slight nod, and teardrops leaked from his the corners of his eyes.

"You look like a good man, Jim. What do you do for a living?"

"Archi-" He couldn't cough out the last syllable.

"Architect, dear? How noble. Did you get that, everyone? Jim here sure is a family man, working hard as an architect to support his wife and kids back home. In fact, I think he's on his way home right now. They're probably expecting him for a family meal or something, yes Jim?" The corner of his  mouth twitched, and the tears and sweat mixed, rolling down his cheeks.

"Well, what a man we have here. I think he deserves to go home." His eyes widened, and it was as if he'd suddenly remembered how to breathe. She unwrapped her arm from around his shoulders.

"Go on then, honey. We wouldn't want your wife to worry." She gestured forward, and Jim gasped for air.

"Th-thank you." His eyes filled with life and he stepped forward, about to break into a run.

He hadn't taken more than two steps before she whipped out a pistol and put a bullet through his skull. A collective scream rose from the crowd as his figure crumpled to the floor, and the bullet tinkled as it landed not too far away. She smiled and wandered back amidst us. A middle-aged woman dropped to the floor at her feet.

"Please, please, I beg you, let me go! My children need me, they have noone! Please, have mercy-" A bullet ripped through her stomach. As her delicate chiffon dress stained a deep crimson, her eyes bulged and her figure fell lifeless on the ground. That was warning enough for the rest of us to stay rooted to the spot.

"Why all the long faces! It's as if someone died round here!" she shouted, before laughing maniacally at her own joke. Everyone else remained silent.

"Let's have some fun, shall we? I'm going to count to three. All of you can go ahead and run. Run because it's good for the health, you know? But listen close, when I get to three, I want you all to stop moving, and then I'm going to shoot into the thickest part of the crowd. I'll say it again, think about what's good for you. Well, go on then."

She didn't have to say it again. With some incredible burst of energy, the crowd split as everyone made for either side of the road. I ran with everyone else, but her words rang out in my head: "Thickest part of the crowd!"

I looked ahead, and the little voice in my head told me the crowd was thickest just slightly ahead of me. As much as I would have liked to reach the end, I slowed to avoid the hotspot.

"THREE!" Everyone slid to a standstill. Her smile was fixed and she stalked towards me, machine gun still up on her shoulder. She never broke eye contact, and a fear like none I had ever known, descended upon me. She stopped less than a metre from me, regarding my terror for just a moment before she spoke.

"Sasha, darling, tell me. Where is the thickest part of the crowd?" My eyes widened. How the hell did she know my name? As I stared at her, her smile thinned out, so I quickly gestured ahead, to the spot I had tried to avoid.

"You're absolutely right, well done! But I noticed something. In my three counts, you slowed. You slowed because you didn't want to be, well, in the thick of things, yes?" she giggled a little at her own pun, while I gave the faintest nod.

"I didn't like that at all, honey. You sure know how to take the fun out of things." Her voice had dropped it's silky tone and she simply sounded vindictive. I knew, in that moment, I was going to die. She wouldn't spare me. She wasn't planning to spare any of us. This was all one big game, and I was going to be the next piece to fall. She stepped back and pulled out a handgun with her left hand, extending her arm to point it right at my face. All sense of reality, every thought, every breath, left my body. There was absolutely nothing left, but me, looking down the barrel that was about to end everything I ever knew. The terror was more than I'd ever felt, it was so completely consuming that I felt nothing at all; hollow. I was prepared for her to take the shot.

Just that she didn't.

Her smile returned as she passed the gun to a young man standing beside her, with matted hair and a bulky build. His face registered absolutely no expression.

"You shoot her," ordered the woman, pointing her pistol to his head. He regarded me for just a moment, before he turned and passed the handgun to a child standing beside him. The child was no more than nine, a beautiful blonde girl with a creamy white dress. The woman looked surprised for a minute, but she cocked her head and decided to go with the change in her plans. The small child looked at the gun, and passed it again, this time to an older man beside her. He was at least fifty, wrinkles set in his skin. He didn't even blink. In one swift motion, he pointed the gun at the woman.

I closed my eyes.

A shot.

The little girl's scream chilled the soul of anyone who heard it, as the old man keeled over.

"Grandpa, no, no, n-" Another shot. She fell over him.

Everything was so wrong, so, so wrong.

"Well, that's enough doom and gloom for now, at least. All of you need to learn that sometimes, what you deem bravery, is nothing more than stupidity. I wouldn't recommend it." The ice cold voice pierced into my mind, and my mind went blank.

The next part I cannot recount with much emotion, because the terror and turmoil had turned into paralysis of the mind, and I could feel absolutely nothing.

"Let's have another run," she said out loud, before turning towards me.

"Where do you live?" she asked. I raised my arm and pointed in the vague direction of the tall buildings a few blocks away.

"Okay, let's start back from the centre. Everybody back!" All the cars at the junction were silent and deserted. Many of them were damaged by the earlier round of bullets, and their passengers had somehow managed to slip away in all the confusion. It had been quite some time. Was nobody coming to help us?

"So our dear friend here lives over that way, and on the other side you can see that magnificent hotel building, yes? So I leave it up to you which way you want to run. This time, I won't count. Remember though, when I say stop, you stop. Now go!"

Honestly, I thought it was some kind of trick. I don't even know what came over me, but I didn't go the way of my house. Either way, I didn't think there would be a difference in her final intentions. As I made for the glitzy hotel, I noticed, running in my shadow, a younger girl. She looked thirteen at most, and seemed to be suffering from down syndrome. She slipped her hand into mine, and said in a soft voice, "You're still alive."

My emotions and thoughts flew back and hit me like a bag of bricks. Here was a child trusting me to keep her alive, based on nothing more than her intuition. I'd stayed alive till now somehow, in the face of sure death. She would go where I went, and I could feel nothing but guilt because I knew I could not protect her.

"Stop!"

Was there a choice?

With a start, it dawned on me that the rest of the crowd had chosen to go to the other side of the road. That left me, the younger girl, and a boy around my age in some uniform, clearly displaying his name, Travis. The three of us were alone, steps away from the hotel's reflective doors. Just that, they weren't the glass doors they looked like from far. They were, greasy, rolled-down shutters coated in sparkly paint that made them shimmer. The hell?

"Look like I got you good, didn't I?" came the snarky voice. She turned to the rest, frozen close to the other end of the crossing.

"Well, adieu to the rest of you, thanks for the fun. You're free to go!" She fired a few rounds in the general direction. Three men crumpled to the ground while the rest fled. Slowly, deliberately, she turned back to us.

"Ah, so these are my chosen few. I have something very, very special in store for you. Let's go in the 'hotel', shall we?" she said in a sing-song tone, as she prodded Travis in the back with her gun. The shutters rolled up just enough for us to squeeze under, and we found ourselves feeling completely lost. The younger girl still held my hand, and I gripped Travis' arm with the other.

We had entered somewhere pitch black; we couldn't even see each other. The silence rang as loud as the echo of a bell. None of us dared to breathe.

Then came the music.

If you've watched old movies, you know the sound of a vinyl. A vinyl spinning on a record player, letting out the hushed notes of a beautiful classical melody. It was the classical music mothers play to comfort their babies in the womb. It was the sweet lullaby that lovers fall asleep to under the stars. It was the gentle tune pianists numb their fingers playing repeatedly. It was all I could hear.

The hands were pulled away from me, and I was left alone in the darkness. The music became louder and louder, till my own screams were one with the silence. A light came on, a soft yellowish-orange glow in the corner of the room. It illuminated a large chair, with the younger girl seated in it. She stared ahead of her, the woman beside her, gently whispering in her ear. She knew, that her time was drawing to a close. She knew there was no way out.

I stumbled forward and my hands met a large pillar. On the right of the pillar, I could sense the large, burly presence of a man. Afraid, I edged toward the left of the pillar, attempting to stay out of his line of vision, if he could even see anything in the darkness. I stopped short, as my chin came into contact with a cold, metallic, tube. I wondered, just for a moment, what it could possibly be. Then it dawned on me, as I crouched to remain out of contact with the barrel of a rifle, carefully aimed by the large man.

I realised what was going to happen the split second before it did. I turned to the lit corner, as the rifle above me fired. The bullet smacked the girl straight in the chest, and her body lurched over. From the other side of the pillar came another shot, this time, into her head. I watched in sheer disbelief as the blood caused her hair to clump together, and the stains seeped into the velvet of the chair.

Where was Travis? I couldn't be alone right now. Surely they would kill me next. Where was Travis?

The light slowly dimmed and I was back in the darkness, the music louder than ever, a sadistic, sickeningly sweet sound.

My legs gave way and I was panting, clinging to the base of the pillar for support.

A soft glow of light came on in another corner, and this time the horror was even greater. I'd found Travis. Crouched over, with his neck in the guillotine, like an animal ready for slaughter. As the symphony blared on, he looked up into my eyes, and no words were needed. There was no saving him. The life left his eyes before his soul left his body. Behind him, rope in hand, stood the two men from before, masked.

And I watched, as before my very eyes, they sliced off his head.
It rolled away into the darkness.
The light faded.

I was the only one left. I didn't even want to imagine what was coming for me. I couldn't.

All of a sudden,  the shutters creaked as they began to open. The adrenaline spiked through me as I picked myself up off the floor and ran for my life. I slid under the shutters and pushed off as fast as I could. Behind me, I heard her scream.

"No! You idiot!" There was the sound of a heavy blow and a man's muffled grunt.

I didn't know where I was going, the streets suddenly looked unfamiliar and were completely deserted. I just kept running, twisting into every turn I could find. I didn't dare look behind me, although there were no sounds of footsteps following in my wake. I had to get as far away as I could. Had to keep running.

It didn't matter how far I ran. She was still in my head. It was as if I could still hear her piercing voice. She was telling the men, "It doesn't matter if she runs. We're still going to get her back. Let her go."

I was so, so afraid. Running to nowhere, knowing I wasn't really safe. How could I be safe?
They were coming for me.
Who were they?
The fear, the tears, the sweat, everything was such a mess.
What did they want from me?
I was still running.

And then I woke up.


-



I hope you don't think I'm incredibly disturbed after this - I said I'd share stories, and here is one. I did add in some bits of description and dialogue to bring out the plot - you know when you're dreaming you know what's going on, but it's so hard to explain to somebody else. Thank you for reading all the way, if you did. Do tell me if you think I should continue to write, or if you think I should never write again heh. I tried my best to make it a story worth reading, so I'd appreciate your thoughts.

You may think you know what complete terror feels like, but it is unlikely. I thought so myself, until this dream, in which I was completely serious in saying my mind overloaded with terror to the point that I went numb. I can't imagine that in real life, not at all.

"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what."
- Atticus Finch (Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird)

"Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life."
- Bertoit Brecht

Whew.
-sj