Intimidation

1st Person Mode

To be quite honest, I was scared to death of Daniel. Although he hadn't raised his voice in defense or had shown any signs of being much of a threat, I was rather intimidated. Of course, I couldn't quite put a firm finger on my fears for what had been happening. There was that one clue of perhaps some type of lead: that paper with a lead to a family tree, perhaps?

All beyond was darkness, much like the emptiness below the rusted grates below my feet. I feared that any second, this limited floor beneath would collapse and I would fall into a neverending void. I gripped the handgun tighter.

Guns actually frightened me. Yes, I was trained fairly well with them and knew of their dangers. My father was a former police officer, and was actually more concerned for my safety after quitting the force when he heard that one of his members on the team had lost his son due to a misfire in the home of a domestic gun. My father was very overprotective. He's taught me of firearms since I was eleven years old.

And here I was, letting fear get in my way. Don't think, just shoot, so said my father, but how can you not think about what you're possibly going to kill? What if you're in a line of duty? Sometimes, I questioned my father's conscious.

I sensed danger. I fell to my knees when I felt static ringing in my ears, and I feared what lied ahead. I heard Daniel's local footsteps.

"Are you alright?" he asked, knelling to my side.

"I'm fine," I confirmed, holding my ears still. I had dropped the handgun. The ringing was unbearable.

"I'll take that," Daniel said, swiping the gun from off of the ground before I had a chance to retrieve it.

"Give that back," I yelled, my eyes wincing from the siren.

"You don't have the courage to shoot another human." He smiled. "Rookie."

"What do you mean by that?" I said, standing as the static subsided.

"I mean this," he muttered, taking the barrel of the gun to his head. I quickly swept it from his hands as he pulled the trigger. A bullet rattled against something metallic in the distance.

"What's wrong with you?" I cried. "Are you insane?"

"I'm stopping any threat that may come to you in the future," he said.

"What are you talking about?" I said. "You're no threat to me."

"One of us has to die, Unique," he screamed.

"How do you figure?"

"I'm not going to kill you. I won't kill another human, but Dahlia seems to think.." He stopped.

"What does Dahlia have to do with anything?" I quipped.

"She's.. my mother," he admitted.

"Your mother?" I stopped. I backed slightly from him. "Then that means that you're Walter Sullivan's brother?"

He did not reply.

"Daniel," I began. I stepped forward towards him, and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Just because you're the sibling of a killer doesn't mean that you have to die."

Again, he did not reply.

"Alright?" I pushed.

"Unique," he began, and laughed. "You're so ignorant." He looked up. I clearly saw that he was holding back his tears. "But I can't tell you what's going on. You wouldn't understand even if I did."

"Then explain," I said firmly, pushing him back some. "What's going on? Maybe I'm not the senseless little girl who knows nothing."

"The premonitions.." He paused.

"My premonitions? What of them?"

"They're not your own. You'll find that out soon." He brushed past me, and further still into the darkness beyond.

I looked behind me to see the handgun still lying on the rusted ground. I picked it up, and pursued after Daniel. "What do you mean they're not my own?"

"The Sacraments! Don't you see? Didn't you remember the Walter Sullivan Case? The Twenty One Sacraments?"

I said nothing.

"Well, the Sacraments are not complete." He fell to his knees, his eyes leaking tears. "I promised I would never kill another human being.."

"Daniel?" I said, knelling by his side to comfort him.

"But it wasn't me," he continued. "It wasn't my fault." He looked up to me, his eyes, glazed with tears. "You'll hate me forever."

I said nothing. I assumed he was going crazy. I stood and gently helped him stand. He said nothing else, or nothing else I could understand, anyways.

We have to get out of this town, I thought. It's driving both of us to the point of insanity.