The Last Time—pt. 1
Rain pours across the windshield, making the road all but invisible. Trees and the occasional house fly by on either side, ghosts in the night. I can hardly see a few feet in front of my car, but it does not matter. Not tonight. Oh no, tonight, nothing will stop me. Out of habit music blares from my little accords speakers, but tonight it is not the usual classic, old-school rock. Tonight the system screams to the world lines the devil himself could not decipher. All this happens around me, but I know none of it. All I know right now is that someone is going to die tonight. That bastard isn't going to get away with what he's done this time. Images flash before my eyes; images I never imagined I'd see. I see Stefan lying on the floor at my feet, broken and bleeding. That arrogant smile of his replaced by a bloody mess of fear and hate. His blonde hair turned a sickly red by his very life draining from his wreck of a body. Finally I see him die. Die knowing it was I, who used to be his best friend, who said I'd have his back to the end, who ripped him apart at the very foundation. Beside me in the passenger seat a gleam of silver draws my eye. It is my personal Desert Eagle, which my father brought me from Germany for my eighteenth birthday. The silver slide has four words inscribed across the metal: fur leben, lieben, familie. "For life, love, family." My father always told me that these were to be the only reasons I'd ever use this gun. As such, it is a virgin gun, having never tasted the blood of another human being. All that will change tonight though. Lightning flashes bright across the sky, and my mind begins to drift back to the events of a few hours before.
I was tired, oh so tired. It had been a long day at work, and I couldn't even keep my mind on the road as I drove home to where I live with my fiancée, Katherine. Pulling up, I didn't think twice about the Mustang parked in front of my house. As I stepped up to the door something caught my ear. I could hear crying coming from inside. All of a sudden I was wide awake again, and my protective instinct kicked in. Before I could even think through what I was doing a knife from my pocket was in my hand and I kicked open the door. It would have been quite dramatic and theatrical had I not walked right where he wanted me. Stefan was waiting around the corner with a bar stool. My bar stool none the less. I never saw it coming. One second I was charging in and really pissed off, the next lying on the floor having to give it my all just to stay conscious. My vision starts to tunnel, and I can barely see, but Stefan's disgustingly smug face stands out in the darkness grinning down at me. That damned arrogant smile that pisses me off so much. His drawl of a voice drifts through the haze to me dimly. "I always said you couldn't do shit to me." I could still hear Katherine crying. Suddenly my side erupted in blinding pain. The bastard kicked me in the stomach with a steel toe. He didn't stop there either. Three more times I felt that cold boot connect with my ribs, my stomach, each time bringing me closer to passing out. Still not satisfied, he lifted my head from the floor by my hair and then slammed his fist into my jaw one last time before walking out the door. Barely retaining my consciousness, I stumbled to the bedroom. Katherine lay there on the bed, naked and crying. The room smelled of sweat and of a man taking what was never his. Never before had I felt such a blind rage as in that moment. My blood boiled. My skin crawled. Everything around me came into fine detail. Right up until the adrenaline gave out from the sheer pain. Suddenly my knees gave out and the last thing I saw was the floor rushing up to meet me. It was noon when I arrived. I didn't wake up until six that evening.
A clap of thunder startles me from my reverie. I've arrived at Stefan's home. I check my pistol's magazine; two bullets are loaded in the cartridge. The first one I have reserved for his head, but the second one... I have yet to decide what to do with it. All I know is one thing: it's time to end this.