How long had he been here?

How long had he been here? Time seemed to blur and fuse. His sweaty palms gripped the butt of the gun tighter as he heard them shuffle in the hallway. The door was bolted but they would get in.

The small room, which now seemed smaller, consisted of the chair on which he sat, a broken desk and a table light unable to illuminate since the power went. A small window in the corner, hastily boarded up, added to the gloom inside.

His body grew tired but fear inhibited his mind to succumb to this.

She entered his thoughts again, standing there in that floral print dress she would wear in the summer. “Jesus she was beautiful.”

As she turned and walked away in his mind, tears stung his eyes. What had he done?

Movement outside the locked door jerked him back to reality, they were close now.

Spasms in his calf muscle forced him to stand, never taking the weapons sight from the door.

He quickly glanced down at his skinny frame and the stained vest and shorts that partially covered it. How long had he been here?

The drugs had long escaped his system and the headache they left gnawed at his fragile skull.

Sitting again he waited.

A deep unhealthy cough rattled up through his chest causing him to spit out the phlegm on to the grubby carpet that lined the floor.

His body’s temperature rose and sweat now poured out where it could. The odour worsening inside his tiny prison. Nausea invaded his being.

How long more could he stand it? He raised the gun to his temple but again could not go through with the final act.

Fragments of his childhood swam in and out of his thoughts. Things were normal before, before all this. Where was his loving family now, what had become of them?

The door rattled as they began to force their way in. It would not be long.

He stood again and braced himself for the inevitable. Two rounds left and that would be it.

Another smash against the outside of the door and then another.

Splinters and dust as the door came off its hinges.

Raised voices shouted something, the words distorted. He began to fire, bodies slumped.

Ammunition spent, he dropped the gun and raised his arms, it would happen now.

Three piercing bullet cracks, he felt the first two not the last.

He fell lifeless onto the chair. How long had he been here?