The Prisoner Project

FOURTEEN

"The first good-looking girl I see tonight is going to die."

- Edmund Kemper

FOURTEEN

ALL I COULD HEAR WAS RINGING. Incessant, loud and ear-wrenching ringing. My hands cupped my ears and my eyes were scrunched in an attempt to block out the noise. But I had to be doing the opposite because the noise was coming from me, from within. Was I dying? Did being shot in the face sound like a fire alarm?

I forced my eyes open and took around my surroundings. I knew where I was and I knew what had happened. Hugh had shot me, but for some reason, I felt no pain and I was still standing.

"Oh God." A familiar voice gasped behind me and I spun around. Diana stood there, her hands tight against a smoking gun, and her eyes bloodshot. She was bleeding from the side of her head, and I knew it was because Hugh had slammed the butt of his gun against it to knock her out earlier on.

Diana looked dishevelled, her night gown dress slacked at the neck and her blood stained the sleeves. I noticed instantly that she was shaking, quite violently. Whether it was out of fear or anger or a combination of both was difficult to decipher.

The gun remained up, however, now aimed at me.

She hadn't noticed because her eyes were downcast.

Trailing my eyes to where hers was trained, my hands flew to my mouth to hold back my breathless scream. I had momentarily forgotten my earlier situation because of the gun shock.

There he lay, surrounded in a halo of his own blood, my prodigal brother.

Diana had shot him in the face, just as he was supposed to do me. His head had burst open from behind his eye socket, revealing pieces of him that I hadn't known existed. His internal organs circled his head like a grotesque crown and I felt bile rise in my throat.

Ever since I was a child, I had conjured an image of my brother that was so vile that I had never even thought that he was just like me. He had a brain, a heart, nerves, and bones. He could bleed. He was human too.

And Diana had blasted him to Hell.

"W..what..did..what..did you do?" I stuttered, fear and surprise drowning me entirely. I stumbled back from his body and banged into a nearby wall.

In this moment, I knew that the scene before me would be violently seared in my brain forever. I knew it.

Diana looked up and once we caught eyes, her lips began to tremble. She opened her mouth to speak but all that came out was a cry. She was sobbing. Her sobs were tattooed with a release of years of abuse. Somewhere in there, relief was evident too.

"I k...killed him." She whispered. Taking two steps towards the mangled body for a better look, her eyes widened the more it dawned on her what she had really done. "I killed Hugh."

My eyes were fleeting from her gaze to the gun that was still pointed at me. She had saved my life but she now had my life in her hands. "Diana..."

On hearing her name, she lifted her head slowly to me as if jolting out of a trance. "Aria?"

"The gun." I whispered weakly.

Gasping, she dropped the gun as though it burned her fingers. "I..I'm..sorry." She muttered, trembling physically and emotionally as she took one more glance at Hughs corpse.

And before my brain could come out of my shock to throw in two words, something changed. She let out a breath, a hurdled one. Then she chuckled. And then Diana laughed, and laughed, and laughed, for long minutes. It was altogether humourless and painful to hear.