ᴀʀᴛʜᴜʀ ғʟᴇᴄᴋ x ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ | ɪᴛ's ᴛɪᴍᴇ ғᴏʀ ᴀ ᴄʜᴀɴɢᴇ

Chapter 7

You sighed as you pushed a cart filled with supermarket goods along the aisle and began to stock up the shelves. You kept staring at your watch hoping it was 6 pm, your shift started at 11 am so you were rather eager to leave work and go home. You thought about Arthur, you hadn't seen him in a couple of days, it seemed he was becoming rather busy lately but you didnt know what he was doing, he was becoming quite private and you didn't know whether or not you should be concerned, however you knew how quirky and odd Arthur could he so you put it down to that. Thankfully your shift quickly came to an end and you made your way to the back of the store and grabbed your jacket from the staff room, heading out the back door and through the alley way. It was dark and cold tonight, you zipped up your jacket as you made your way through the street, you stopped in your tracks as something caught your attention, it was noise, lots of yelling and shouting followed by smoke that infested the air, you followed the source and turned a corner to see a small rally had formed in the middle of the road, they had made a bonfire. The perpetrators were all wearing clown masks and acting crazy, jumping around and scaring the passerbys. You had never seen one of these rallys before, only on the news, you read a sign one man was holding that read, "Fuck the rich." You didn't quite know what to do, most civilians were running from the bonfire but you wanted to walk towards it. You looked to your right to see a trashcan, there was a clown mask in it. Something came over you and you weren't quite sure what it was but you grabbed the mask and secured it onto your face and entered the rally. "What the hell am I doing" was all that rang through your head as you jumped and yelled along with the crowd, something about this made your adrenaline rush faster than ever, you were enjoying this. Another masked person tapped your shoulder, you turned around to look at them, they were wearing an identical mask to you, they handed you a smoke bomb. You took it from their hands and watched them skip off lighting it and disappearing into the smoke. You put it in your pocket and continued to throw yourself around the roads and streets, joining in on the chaos. Just then you spotted a familiar face, a woman tried scurrying through the crowd trying to get away. It was Mae. You almost lit up when you saw her face until you realised you were no longer her friend, she tried turning you into the police for Christ's sake. You began to feel angry and found yourself making your way towards her, you took the smoke bomb from your pocked it and lit it, throwing it in her direction and blinding her. You appeared through the smoke, jumping in front of her and giving her a good scare, she began to run and scream as you harassed her all the way through to the other end of the crowd. You had no intention of touching her, you just wanted to scare her and the fact she had no idea it was you was quite exciting. You watched her run away and unfortunately caught a glimpse of some police car lights. Shit. You turned around and ran through the crowd, you took the mask off and threw it away. You ran towards the bus stop, you were just an innocent civilian now.

Your bus ride home was quiet, you felt high with excitement as you tried to calm down from the events of the rally, you didn't feel bad about scaring Mae, in fact you kind of liked it. You made your way home, you tried unlocking your door but it was already unlocked, you swore you locked it before you left for your shift this morning, you began to feel slightly uneasy as you opened the door and pushed it open. You stepped inside, "Hello?" You said. There was no answer so you made your way into your home, you flicked a light switch on and gasped as you saw a figure sitting on your sofa, he was hunched over and appeared to be wet from the rain. You almost screamed until you realised, this man was Arthur.
"Arthur? What the hell? You almost gave me a heart attack!"
You wondered how he even got into your apartment, he was silent for a moment before talking, "I had a bad day."
You slowly walked towards him, "What happened?" You asked, feeling rather concerned. Arthur looked up at you, he didn't look good.
"People are so awful." He said under his breath.
"Arthur you can tell me if something happened." You said as you placed your hand on his, he immidiately tensed up and jerked his hand away, he stood up and began to pace around the room, you were becoming slightly scared by Arthur's behavior, he didn't look like himself. "Arthur calm down and tell me what happened." You said as you slightly backed up.
He stopped pacing and looked at you, he looked like had just woke up in that moment, like he had snapped back into reality, "I-I'm sorry."
"It's okay just calm down alright?" You said.
Arthur gulped, "Can I show you something?" Arthur said as he rummaged through his pockets. You raised an eyebrow as you waited on him showing you what he was looking for. To your surprise Arthur took a Walkman from his pocket and handed it towards you. You were confused," Arthur? You bought me another Walkman?" You smiled as you took it and held it in your hands. You looked at Arthur who was still so tense, he looked worried, "No." He whispered. You didn't understand, you looked down at the Walkman and turned it over to look at the back, you saw that oh so familiar sticky label with your name written on it, there was dried blood on it. This wasn't a new Walkman it was your original one. Your mind began to race, how did Arthur have this? "Arthur how... why- where did you get this?" You asked, your heart began to beat as your blood ran cold.
"I killed them." Arthur spoke.