The Prisoner Project

EIGHT

(THERES A NEW CHAPTER BEFORE THIS! Read SEVEN BEFORE EIGHT. I UPDATED TWICE)

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"I am sorry for only two things. These two things are I am sorry that I have mistreated some few animals in my life-time and I am sorry that I am unable to murder the whole damed [sic] human race."
- Carl Panzram.

EIGHT

"I SWEAR TO FUCKING G-D, if you don't pull the trigger, I'll kill you!" He hollered, dark green veins pulsating through his neck. Saliva sprayed from his mouth, merging with the horrible words he was spitting at me. His eyes were a dangerous red, bloodshot from anger or fury, whichever was the worst.

My hands shook vigorously against the blazing metal of the gun. It wasn't simply hatred that I felt for the man before me. You couldn't call it hatred and put a full stop at the end of it. It was much more pure, unadulterated, and dirty.

But for some reason, the slide of my fingers wouldn't pull the trigger.

He stepped closer, his head tilted downwards to face me. He used his left stocky palm to repeatedly slam the top of his head. "Right there." He continued shouting, egging me on to end his life. "Put the bullet through here! It better go balls deep in my fucking skull because you have one bullet left and if I'm still alive when it's been used, you'll regret being born."

My heart thudded against my rib cage. I tried to step back from his shadowed form but my legs had stopped working. I tried, and tried with all the force within me to step back, to pull the trigger, to scream, to do anything. But I couldn't. I couldn't move. I had become a statue built from the clay of fear and helplessness.

I whispered, watching him realise that I wasn't going to kill him. "I can't..."

He dropped his hand and then slowly lifted his head. His eyes were now a vibrant hue, almost fluorescent in the midst of the ugly shade of red his irises seemed to be. His chest rose and fell from how hard he breathed. "You can't?" He chuckled. "Christ, you're so fucking dumb."

I shook my head violently, in a depressing attempt to swat away the months of mental, emotional and physical abuse that he had bestowed upon me. My brain was surrounded by a mesh of ugly words and so my thoughts drowned in depression.

It was all his fault.

I flexed my fingers, tightening my grip on the base of the gun. "Not dumb. Don't call me dumb."

His eyes widened and then he threw his head back and howled into the night air. Suddenly, he looked like a beast of the night. A creature from the underworld.

Then he snarled. "Where's your fucking mommy now, bitch?!" And he reached for the gun, wrenching it from my grasp, probably to beat me to death with it.

But before anything else could happen, I was greeted with pitch darkness and wicked silence.

And my eyes flew open.

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I wiped my stray tears from and cradled the phone by my ear. I was huddled on the bed, my pillows and double stuffed duvet kept me warm even when my insides felt hollow and cold. "It's the first nightmare I've had of him in months."