Death

Nina

The police had been all over her room and the apartment for half the day. They had questioned her two roommates as well as the guy who lived across from her, and they were drawing blanks. One of her roommates had been at work all night, the other was staying with her mother who was sick. The man who lived in the rooms across from her had been at his boyfriends that night and also said if anyone had a right to complain about being watched, it was him. Her curtains were always “twitching,” and it creeped him out so bad he was moving.

The police had been to her work and questioned everyone there because she had mentioned that she had felt like she was being watched there too, but they came up with a big fat nothing. There had been no forced entry, no fingerprints, no foot prints and the blood had been hers, but just how it got onto the wall was a mystery. She had no cuts on her body, and been totally grossed out when a female officer had asked her if she was menstruating. She had been examined by a doctor and he couldn’t even find any puncture sites where blood could have been withdrawn.

Her parents had come over and without much fight at all, convinced her to go back home with them for a few days while the police kept an eye on the place.

She had to admit she felt much safer in her old room and in her old single bed. She was so tired but didn’t think she would be able to sleep because she was still pretty freaked out. However after only a few minutes she fell into a deep sleep.

~*~

The night was dark and cold, the road shined wetly in the street lights and Nina felt free. She loved the feeling of being on the bike….no he felt free. She was a male, and he was looking forward to reaching home so he could get changed and go out to meet his girlfriend. The pattern of lights on the black seal in front of him was almost hypnotic. Bright pools of light that faded to dark before building back to bright again as the bike sped past the lamp posts, add to that the centre line that flashed past on the other side of him and it was calming on the nerves.

The bright lights coming at him caught him unawares; he swerved too late and hit the car pretty much head on. The feeling of being thrown over the bonnet was a bit like riding a roller-coaster, then seeing the occupant inside as he passed over the sun roof was bazaar to say the least. He was sure that would feature in his dreams for the rest of his life. But the pain of slamming into the road again was something he had no words for. It hit him like a red strobe light that reached every tiny cell in his body and proceeded to pulse there forever. Forever and a day, it was unceasing. Voices that spoke to him sounded like fingernails down blackboards, every movement set the strobe light off again, and nothing dulled it. He had heard morphine was amazing, but all he felt was cold ice in his veins. His eyes could still see, but the images made little sense with no details. Just dark moving patches in the red haze.

He was aware of being moved, of being in the ambulance and later being in the hospital, but none of that changed anything for him. The pain still pulsed, the voices still screeched, and his vision was still disjointed, blurry and red.

Finally his vision cleared and one voice came through to him loud and clear. Nina looked up out of his eyes to see herself leaning over him. With his ears she heard her own voice speaking.

“Not dead yet? Oh well, can’t be helped. You aren’t using your heart are you? No? Good, I’ll be having that.”

She watched as she lifted a large carving knife and plunged it into her/his chest and the pain exploded again.

~*~

Nina’s scream woke her as her hands clawed at her chest. The light went on and her parents rushed in. Her mother dropped to the edge of the bed and pulled her daughter into her arms whispering words Nina couldn’t hear over the sound of her screaming.