The plan to hop in my fathers car and skip town was put on hold when I remembered I had never driven a car before. I was at least able to start the car before figuring out how everything else worked.
It was about five minutes of button pressing before I finally learned I needed to step on the pedal on the left before thirsting the stick thing sitting between the seats. Choosing between PRNDL I figured the R meant reverse. Hesitantly pressing on the break I clutched the top of the stick and pulled it down to the R.
When nothing happened I immediately relaxed. I haven't even left the driveway and I was ready to call it quits. Instead I pulled it together and let up on the break. The car startled me when it moved so I stomped on the breaks again.
I practiced driving in the neighborhood for about an hour. By then I was sick of driving, but at least I felt confident enough to go out onto an actual road.
That confidence shot out the window once I realized there were other cars on those roads. Every time one of them passed me I would tense up because I thought they would hit me. The only thing saving me from actually getting into an accident was the fact it was the middle of the night.
Driving eventually became too much for me so I pulled over to the side of the road, got out, and followed the asphalt. Now I could stare at my surrounding without worrying about running into anything. I've only ever been able to see the outside world through my bedroom window, and even then I could only see cars, grass, the sky, and our neighbors house!
Tall lamps lit up the streets with orange light, there were a bunch of small buildings further down the road all lined up next to each other. I quickened my pace–wanting to know what the building held as soon as possible–but it was not meant to be.
Bright lights flashed somewhere behind me, followed by the sound of a blaring horn. I covered my ears against the noise and spun around. The sight of a semi–a giant monstrosity on six wheels–barreling towards me froze me in place.
It just kept coming and coming and coming. Why didn't it stop? Wasn't there someone driving it? Why was the end of it swinging across the road like that? And ohmygoditImgonnadie–!
The headlights of the semi blinded me. Even when I shut my eyes against the light it was still there. My body tensed in preparation of being hit, but all I felt was a gust of hot air. I shuddered in terror but inside my mind I couldn't help but think this was just my luck. Finally kill my father and feel free; only to get hit by a semi on a highway because I decided I didn't want to drive anymore.
It took several minutes for me to wrap my mind around the fact nothing hit me. I left my fingers in my ears and stayed in a crouched position but cracked open one of my eyes.
My surroundings had both of my eyes snapping wide open, my arms falling against the wet pavement, and my body slumped back so I was sitting down with my legs half-sprawled in front of me.
There was no lit up highway with semi's and small buildings in the distance. Instead I was in the middle of a street surrounded by rundown buildings, garbage, dingy street lamps, and stale air.
I didn't understand what was going on. Where was I, and how did I get there? Maybe the semi actually did run me over, but I was killed instantly so I didn't feel it. Does that mean this was the afterlife? I thought heaven was supposed to be white with clouds and a golden gate. Unless this was hell. The dirty surroundings would probably fit hell better than heaven.
Finding more answers meant I'd need to move. Taking a steadying breath I dragged my feet underneath me and pushed myself into a standing position. I spun around in a circle to take it all in. Something told me this wasn't hell. I knew I wasn't asleep because I still had dried blood on my hand.
With calculating eyes I drew up my hood and walked over to the sidewalk. I had no desire to actually get run over. This time no doubt I would actually get hurt.
Reaching into the pockets on my pajamas my hands came across the earrings, phone, and money I'd shoved in there. Blinking in surprise I pulled out all of the earrings and put them in the pocket of my sweatshirt. They had less of a chance falling out of there. After a quick check I discovered I was still wearing the necklaces and bracelets.
The phone was an iPhone 6 Plus. I wondered how my father could have afforded this instead of an abortion for my mother. Although I always heard him bitching about me being an accident and mother wanted the gender to be a surprise. He could have put me in an orphanage, but apparently that would have been too merciful for a "fuck up".
It was only 4:17 on the morning. Whatever place I was in now probably didn't have any open stores this early. Counting out the money I'd stashed I my pocket I frowned. There was two hundred and seven dollars. I could get a hotel room maybe, but that wouldn't leave much for food.
Growling in irritation I crumpled up the money and shoved my fists into my sweater pocket. My fingers uncurled to mess around with the earrings while I turned down a small side alley. I needed to find somewhere to hunker down, or at least sit until I could search during the day time.
The alley I chose wasn't as deserted as I first thought. Further down I saw a man holding a woman up against the brick building. He was attacking her mouth with his and it made me cringe. How could people enjoy that?
I went to turn away, but just as I had the man came up for air. The woman took a deep breath before emitting a sharp scream. The man immediately covered her mouth with his hand and started whispering something I was too far away to hear.
That was not a scream of pleasure.
Analyzing the situation more closely I saw the woman was actually struggling against the man. He was holding her wrists against the wall with one of his hands while keeping her mouth covered with the other.
My eyebrows furrowed in anger and I continued walking down the alleyway. I unconsciously adapted to the silent walk I gained from living my abused life.
Not a sound came from me. Only the soft scuffling from the two further down the alley. I reached into my right pocket to pull out my knife. My other hand came over to unfold the blade from the handle, and I ran my thumb across the flat surface. I paid no attention to the flakes of dried blood as they fell to the damp ground.
Ducking my head a little I walked with hunched shoulders. Its what I always did when I was near my father; my submissive pose. Now it didn't feel like that at all. I felt like I was ready to pounce, and I knew who my prey was.
The mans hands moved again. The woman took the opportunity to bring up her hand and slap him across the face. I continued to creep closer, my black clothes blending me in to the unlit alley, while the man froze. The woman froze as well, knowing she just got herself into even deeper shit.
His body drew up in tension before back handing her right across the face. She cried out in pain and collapsed. The man wasn't having any of that, so he grabbed her by the throat and slammed her back against the wall. She struggled, clawing at his hand, wrist, arm, neck, whatever she could reach. But it just wasn't enough. He was strangling her, and her last thought was of her little sister before everything went black.
As soon as the woman's body slumped against his hands I grabbed him by the hair and jerked his head back. With his neck exposed I reached around with my knife and sliced it across his neck. Just like my father he fell to the ground with a gurgle–hands pressing against his neck as if it would help.
I watched dispassionately as he fell to the ground. Now that the woman no longer had someone to hold her up she pitched forward and right into me. Her face got squished against my neck as I hooked my arms beneath hers.
With her face right there I could feel her shallow breaths drifting over my neck. It was hot, moist, and very uncomfortable, so I quickly dragged her to the other side of the alley and propped her against the wall. Obviously she was still alive, but I would deal with her later.
Turning back to the man I stared at his pathetic form. A twisted idea formed in my head as blood oozed from his neck to form a halo around his head.
Rolling up my pant legs so they didn't get more blood on them I crouched over the dead man. Taking my knife to the collar of the mans shirt I quickly ripped it down to expose his torso. Breathing deeply to steady myself I brought the tip of my knife to his skin and cut two circles right beside each other. I cut another curved line–one above each brow. Then a little below the circles I cut down and then curved it. Under that I made a wide u-shape, then attached a smaller u on the side of it with a line in the middle.
I pursed my lips thoughtfully as I gazed at my work. Something was missing.
When I figured out what it needed I huffed a little through my nose. Taking my knife I went back to the two circles I drew. On the inside, against the bottom edges, I drew another curved line. It made an oval shape with pointy ends. They needed to be colored in with something. So I flipped my knife around in my hold and stabbed several times inside of the shapes.
Pulling away from his body I surveyed my work. Now proudly carved on this mans stomach was a smiley face with its tongue sticking out. I felt very proud of myself until it finally hit me that I just killed a man and then proceeded to carve into his body.
My eyes were riveted on a drop of blood that welled along the end of the face's tongue. Where was the guilt? The pain over the fact I've now killed two people? Aren't I supposed to feel bad about this? Disgusted? Instead I feel completely content. Happy even. And shocked over the fact I don't have any depressed emotions.
I thought of wiping my hand across the face to get rid of the blood, but that would on,y make it worse. It might also leave my fingerprints.
I gasped quietly. My DNA! These two were here and killable then I wasn't in any sort of afterlife. They were also human beings so it wasn't another planet. I was in a town of some sort. A city. I could find out where later but right now I knew cities had police officers. People were going to find this man and see what I did.
A swell of pride rose in my chest and I looked down at it incredulously. Really? I was happy that they would see a dead man and most likely find my traces of my DNA all over the place, then proceed to arrest me and cart me off to jail.
The pride was replaced by determination. There wasn't a snowballs chance in hell that I would be going to jail. If they wanted to get me they'd have to chase me. I even decided to give them a little hint.
Leaning forward I brought my knife against his skin, a little ways under the smiley face. I just made a little dash before cutting a capital T. It's like how people would sign off on artwork or a letter or something.
Now officially done with the man I wiped the blade of my knife with his shirt to remove the blood. Most came off, but the dried stuff from earlier required a little more elbow grease.
Once finished with that I turned back to the woman to see she'd slumped to the side. With a mix of a growl and a groan I walked over to pull her back into a sitting position. I didn't know what to do with her. The idea of leaving her in the alley made me uncomfortable. Killing her made no sense because she hadn't done anything wrong, and I wasn't in the killing mood. That meant I either had to stay in the alley with her until she woke up, or move her.
I wasn't exactly strong. Nothing in my life has graced me with muscles. I was lean from lack of regular meals, but that's about it.
Unfortunately I would have to move her. Staying next to a dead body with a face carved into it wouldn't give a good impression. So, folding my knife back up and sticking it into my pajama pocket, I bent down so my shoulder was at the woman's waist. I pushed her so she'd fall against my back and I used the wall to help me stand back up.
Everything in me screamed "drop her!" but I didn't. Instead I kept one arm against the brick wall with the other curved around her waist to keep her from tumbling off. She looked skinny on the ground, but Jesus she was heavy. Not to mention she was fairly young so she shouldn't be so heavy.
It was slow going, but eventually I made it out of the alley and onto the sidewalk. The sun was starting to rise and I needed to get out of there fast. It seemed the longer she was on my shoulder the easier it was to carry her. I could speed up my walk without worrying about tumbling backwards.
I couldn't just leave her own some strangers porch. Knocking on someone's door was out of the question since they would start asking what happened. Without any real options I ducked into another alley. Those time I made sure nobody was there before going a little deeper and setting her down as gently as possible.
Her breathing was quicker than earlier–probably a signal she would be waking up pretty soon. It had a ragged note to it, and I noticed the bruises forming around her sympathetically I examined the rest of her body and saw how dirty and used her clothing was.
Fingering one of the white diamond bracelets on my wrist I unlatched it. It was nothing special. A silver chain with six small diamonds evenly placed apart from one another. I had plenty of others I could sell.
Clasping it around her wrist I slowly stood up to leave the alley. It was six o'clock now. Maybe there was a library around here that I could try and find. Then I could find out what was going on.
With one last look down the alley I could finally stop worrying about the woman. She was out of sight, and nobody would be able to see her unless they really looked. So with a tired sigh I took off my hood and trudged towards the middle of the city where all the skyscrapers were.
In the middle of an alleyway in the Narrows a young woman slowly woke up. She looked around confusedly for a moment before memories came crashing around her. Her hand shot up to her throat while she cautiously looked around. The horrible man from the night before was missing. He was obviously going to kill her, so what changed?
Taking her hand away from her tender throat, a flash made her look down. Her breath got caught in her throat when at the sight of a diamond bracelet innocently wrapped around her wrist. The bracelet was absolutely beautiful and clean. It didn't belong anywhere in the Narrows, and yet it was on her wrist.
Leaning her head back against the alley wall she cried. Cried for the fact she was still alive when she should have died, and somebody must have saved her and given her this bracelet.
Later that night the woman held her baby sister while watching the news. A picture of her attacker flashed on the screen, announcing his murder. The woman gasped in surprise. She though the Batman had been the one to save her. But she supposed that didn't exactly fit his routine. He didn't give people diamond bracelets or leave a knocked out victim in an alley. The woman looked at the number displayed on the screen for people to call should they have more information on what happened. All she would be able to tell them was that she was almost raped and then nearly strangled to death.
So she ignored it and focused on her sister. Her mind now clear knowing her attacker could never hurt her or anyone else ever again.
