Scared and Alone

          Scared and alone, I am hiding here. There is a killer loose, somewhere nearby. He has already killed three, and there are four remaining. He is one of us, for we are the only ones here, but we don‘t know who. I have been accused.
          I am no killer. But I am now alone, under suspicion. And I am hearing footsteps, quiet and pattering in the rain. Slowly, I rise to my feet, trying to make as little noise as possible, and peek around the corner. I see a figure standing in the rain, holding something in his hand. I duck back around the corner, my heart rate jumping a good 20 beats per second. I think about all the wonders of life, of society and joy, of movies and dogs and girls, of music, and I feel like clinging to life even more. I begin to cry a little, my tears mixing with the pouring rain, and draw out a knife I have been keeping for protection.
          I try to hold my breath as the tears come, the knife shakes in my hand and the footsteps grow slowly closer and closer. I swallow and close my eyes, trying to regain composure, but the images of the dead come to me quickly. I open my eyes again, and there he is.
          He is standing in front of me, but not noticing me because his back is turned. I know him as Brent, the real estate agent from out of town. I had always been suspicious of him. Now, I know he is the killer as I spy a gun nestled inside of his right hand. I am shocked, but I know what I must do.
          As I begin to move forward, my foot scratches against a pebble on the ground, making a noise I am sure he wouldn’t miss. However, he shows no signs of hearing. He continues holding his hand up to his forehead to keep the rain out of his eyes, peering around for any sign of life. When I get right behind him however, he suddenly whirls around and fires a blind shot at me. He did notice!
          The bullet erupts from the end of his gun, flying at me with terrifying force. The small piece of metal tears through my shirt and enters my left shoulder, forcing out the supply of blood therein and tearing out the other side. I scream, and clutch at my shoulder, and instinct takes over. I hold the knife out in front of me, and plunge it deep into his stomach. The look on his face is horrible, shocked and pained as the blood begins coming out.
          He collapses to the ground, feeling the life pour out of him with his blood. I stare at him in horror, having never killed a man before. The most morbid of feelings comes over me as I see his spirit leave his body and his eyes slowly close in the rain. His breathing becomes ragged and short, and he coughs up blood. He stops moving.
          I grab his gun, clutch my shoulder, looking around for a bathroom. I stumble towards the nearest building, the one I was hiding against, and duck inside. I stumble into the bathroom and wash up, cleaning the blood off my hands and my arm. The pain becomes more of a raging throb, and I begin to feel weak. I drag myself out of the bathroom, and find Elissa, one of the survivors, standing there. Before I can speak to her, my legs go out underneath me and I collapse onto the floor. She rushes over to me, gripping me tightly.
          “Elissa!” I cry, “I got him! He’s dead!”
          “Who? Who’s dead?”
          “Brent….he was…..the killer…”
          “No!” she cries, “Brent wasn’t the killer! He was locked in a room when the first people were killed!”
          “Wha…?” I begin to ask, but then I realize. Brent was just trying to find the killer.
          Then, another, even stranger idea occurred to me. The faces of the dead flashed in front of my eyes briefly, and memories begin to surface. I remembered them, terrified of the killer as he came at them, and as I drew my knife I plunged it into them as they fell one by one. I’m not the killer…I’m not the killer…
          I am. I had thought they were the killers, so I had killed them. I’m the killer…
          I open my eyes, to see her leaning over me, but this time she has blood on her hands, and a knife. She lowers it towards my face, grinning. I’m not the killer, she is! Before the blade touches my skin, I react by pure adrenaline and shove the knife into her side. Her eyes open wide as blood begins to come out of her, and I have once again killed the killer. She collapses onto me, still alive, and I roll out from underneath her. I shakily get to my feet, and look down at her. She is looking up at me with a hurt look in her eyes, confused and betrayed. It goes away as she closes her eyes for the last time…
          But something is different. There is no longer any blood on her hands, and there is no knife save my own. I glance at my own my hands in horror to find they look exactly as I had seen hers, as the killer’s hands. I am the killer…
          What have I done? I fall to my knees, crying. There is blood everywhere. I have now killed five people in a day. The sheer idea of it is overwhelming, and I can think of nothing else to do.
          I reach slowly down onto the ground where I have tossed the gun aside and bring it slowly up to my face. I put it inside of my mouth, pointing at my brain. I think briefly of life, and find it wasted and disgusting. I close my eyes, clamp my teeth down on the barrel, and pull the trigger.