Epilogue
The sun was hot and fierce, and it beat down upon the corpse of Mark Hoffman, former detective and Jigsaw apprentice. The body lay sprawled awkwardly in the middle of the street, the blood from his wound already drying.
Though the body was in the middle of the street, it was well-hidden from prying eyes- the eyes of the police who now had both John Kramer and Amanda Young under arrest. If one had listened hard enough, they would have heard people cheering in the distance, as it was announced that John Kramer and his notorious apprentice were now imprisoned.
The sound disappeared with the coming of a soft breeze. The long-sleeved white shirt that the corpse was entangled in fluttered slightly. Had anyone stumbled upon the body of Mark Hoffman, they would have been shocked that his muscle-packed arms, his powerful back, and his hard, rippled belly had all failed him.
The tape recorder that Melanie Dwyer had once played for Hoffman lay passive on his chest, still playing. Several birds arced overhead, attracted by the smell of dead flesh. They circled down lower, drawing closer to the body. One was so brave as to even land but a few feet from the body, its' beady eyes glowing with hunger. It watched the tape recorder carefully, as it had never seen such an object before, and it was wary.
As it watched, the object suddenly began to move. It rose and fell with the steady movement of Mark Hoffman's chest, as air was sucked in and then brutally expelled.
The bird let out a squawk of alarm, as the eyes of the seemingly dead man opened. The eyes behind the lids were a piercing shade of blue, and they were cold- like ice.
Hoffman sat up, and the tape recorder fell off of his chest with a clatter. One hand lay passive by his side; it was white and waxy-looking from the extensive blood loss, and it hung off of his wrist like a dead thing. The other hand clutched at what remained of his belly. There was no more blood now, but the pain was great.
The bitch thought she had gotten him, thought she had killed Mark Hoffman, but she was wrong. Hoffman was very much alive, and, as he imagined numerous ways in which to kill Melanie Dwyer, his mouth curved into a smile.
"Bitch," he said.