I'll be There Soon
You look at the cut across your stomach, blood slowly cascading down your body to pool around your legs as you sit helplessly on the ground. You glance around the room at the blood stained carpet and the splattered walls, at the bodies of others you did not know blurred through your cracked glasses. You can still hear their screams, pain mixed with fear as they realized they could do nothing to save themselves or anyone else. You don't understand why this all happened. As far as you can tell, you are the only one that isn't dead.
You reach up to remove your glasses, inspecting the damage. The lenses have numerous cracks and the left arm is bent outward at an odd angle. You sigh. They can't be fixed. You'll need a new pair. You carefully slide them back into place and look around at the fallen bodies once more before you pull your phone out of your pocket, wincing at the pain it causes in your stomach. You dial the number of the person you trust to not freak out in this situation the most and wait for him to pick up. You don't have to wait long – he picks up on the second ring.
"John?" he says immediately.
"Dave," you breathe out.
"Is something wrong? You okay?"
"I need you to come home, Dave. Now." Your stomach hurts from talking so much, but you need him to be here.
"John, I can't just skip out on work."
"Dave," you say in what you hope is a serious tone.
"I'll be there soon," he replies, hanging up.
You begin to set your phone down beside you, but stop when you realize you don't particularly want to get blood on it. You put it back in your pocket instead. As you wait for Dave to return, you replay the previous events in your head.
/\/\/\/\/\
You entered the hotel doors, greeting a few people you had seen around the building before as you went. When you started up the few small steps to get to the elevator, a loud noise from somewhere behind you caught your attention. You turned to see a tall man in a black suit and tie and a black pinstriped fedora with a gun pointed outward. You looked down and noticed a woman's body lying on the ground a few feet in front of the man, a bullet hole in the very middle of her forehead. You watched as blood slowly seeped out of the wound, leaving red trails down the sides of her head. You looked at her dead eyes, the shock of having been shot still present in her expression. When you looked back at the man, you noticed another man beside him dressed similarly. The second man suddenly pulled a butter knife out of nowhere and threw it across the room, hitting the concierge in the throat. He made a series of sounds before collapsing to the ground behind the desk. You decided to call them Gunny and Knifes-a-lot. Gunny said in a loud, deep voice,
"You are all going to die tonight. There will be no mercy. If you try to run away, you will not succeed. There will be no survivors."
The atmosphere instantly changed to something dark and terrifying as everyone in the lobby was thrown into a panic. Gunny spoke up again,
"Let the fun begin."
The lights went out, causing several people in the room to scream. You heard gunshots and more screaming. You wanted to run and hide, but you couldn't see a thing. You wondered how Gunny and Knifes-a-lot could see, but you figured they had some sort of night vision goggles. But they couldn't have been goggles because you couldn't see the lights that would come from them.
You looked around, hoping to see a shadowy figure or two in the dark, but had no such luck. You were terrified but you refused to show it. You had to stay strong if you wanted to survive.
You took a few small steps forward until your foot collided with something. You knelt down and reached your hands down, trying to find whatever it was your foot had hit. You felt something wet and sticky cover your palms as you slid them across a solid, unmoving object. Instantly you knew what it was.
Blood.
The blood of an innocent victim.
As you continued to slide your hands along the body, you found the wound. A cut. Deep enough to kill. Knifes-a-lot it was, then.
Your hands shook as you stood. Suddenly you felt a sharp pain spread across your abdomen. You stumbled backward and fell to your knees. You put your hands to your stomach and felt the blood seeping through your blue shirt. You lifted it up a few inches to run your fingers across the length of the cut freshly etched into your pale flesh. It was deep, but not deep enough to kill you instantly. It would take time, but you knew it would be the death of you. You sat there, leaking an unimaginable amount of blood, until you heard the sounds of gunshots and ripping flesh die down. The doors opened and closed loudly and you looked around the suddenly bright room with a dismal look.
Everyone was dead.
Everyone except for you.
But soon enough, what Gunny had said would be true.
No survivors.
/\/\/\/\/\
You put your hands lightly against your cut through your shirt, feeling nothing but pain as you waited for Dave to arrive. You feel blood once again trickle through the fabric and you sigh. You don't know if you'll live long enough to see the face of your best friend one last time. You hope to God you will. You've never wanted to see those shades-covered eyes in your entire life more than you have right now. He means everything to you and you want him to be the last thing you see.
But, unless he gets to the hotel within five minutes, you don't think that'll happen.
Throughout the next few minutes, you contemplate everything that's important to you as you feel your life slowly slipping away. Dave, Jake, Rose, Jade, Dad... You're going to miss them. You already miss them. The feeling of knowing you're leaving all of them hurts even more than the cut.
You know now you won't survive to see Dave. He's going to get to the murder scene and see you lying dead in the middle of it all. He's going to try and make you come back to life because he's too stubborn to accept the fact that you're gone.
You decide to leave him a note. You quickly realize you don't have any paper, so you take your phone out instead. You open the 'notes' app and start a new note.
'Dave. I'm writing you this note because I know I won't live long enough to see you. This might be kinda emotional and I know that's not really your thing so just be prepared. First I'll explain what happened. When I got back to the hotel, these two guys came in. I was mentally calling them Gunny and Knifes-a-lot cuz one of them used a gun and the other used knives. Basically, they came in, shut off all the lights, killed everyone, and left. It was horrible. I was so scared. I didn't know what to do, I couldn't see a thing. But now that it's over, I just feel pain. Pain from the cut across my stomach, pain from the feeling of leaving everyone. Make sure everybody knows I love them and I'll miss them more than anything. Well, more than anything but you. You're the best friend a guy could ever ask for, Dave. I never understood how someone as cool as you could ever want to be bros with someone as lame as me. But whatever the reason, I appreciate it. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have been able to get through so much. There's so much I would like to say to you right now, but I can't because it just hurts so much. I'm dying, Dave. I'll never see you again and that's what hurts the most. Thanks for being my friend. I love you, man.
~John
P.S. Please don't cry over me, Dave. I'm not worth your cool, ironic tears.'
You sigh as you feel your own uncool, unironic tears begin to tumble out of your blue eyes and down your miserable face. You set your phone down on your upper chest as you lie down, welcoming death upon you. It take a few moments, but soon enough your breathing hitches in your throat and shut your eyes tightly from the pain you start to feel everywhere before they fly open again involuntarily. 'Huh. So this is what dying feels like,' you think. You see the bloody room around you start to get progressively darker and you let go of all thought as you exhale your final breath.
Goodbye, Dave.
/\/\/\/\/\
You, Dave Strider, have just received a call from your best bro, John Egbert. After you hang up, you say to someone you didn't even recognize that you were leaving early because of something seemingly extremely important coming up. You leave immediately after, getting into your car and speeding off toward the hotel in which you and John shared a room in. You have no idea why he had called and insisted you come home so urgently, but you weren't going to stop and question it.
Once you get there, you park your car and run as fast as you can inside. You stop in your tracks as you see the horror that is the lobby. You gape at the sight of the fallen bodies everywhere, the blood surrounding them. You look around until you see the last person you would've wanted to see in this situation.
You see John, lifeless and covered in his own blood. You almost don't notice him, his body melded in with the rest. You run to him and kneel at his side.
"John... No, John... You can't be dead. You can't. You're... No! John! Stop it. John, just stop being dead. You can't be. You're going to get up and we can go upstairs and play that game you wanted so badly... I just got it for you this morning... John, please. Please get up, you idiot. John!" You stare into his dull lifeless eyes. The eyes you used to think were so beautiful with the way they lit up anytime he laughed or smiled. You look at his broken glasses. The glasses you used to call him a dork for. You glance at his buckteeth, which you used to think were so adorable whenever he sent you one of his big, happy John smiles. You look up to his hair, now dampened with the blood his head is sitting in. You reminisce about how you used to pull him into a headlock and ruffle his hair anytime you walked up to him in the fifth grade.
You then notice the light from his phone sitting on his chest and pick it up, looking at the bright screen. There's a note addressed to you. You scroll up to the top and start reading.
When you get to the end you start to tear up. When you read the P.S., you cry even more. How could he ask you not to cry over him? Obviously you're going to cry. You were best friends since you were four years old. You've always been stuck to each other like glue. You were the best of bros.
You drop your head on his chest, not caring you'll get blood on it, and cry. You cry for a good twenty minutes before you sit up slightly and look into his empty eyes. You take off your shades and put them on the ground next to him.
"I love you too, bro. I love you too," you say, before standing and walking out the door, a look of remorse in your crimson eyes as you make your way to John's dad's house.
Goodbye, John.
FIN.