A Shot Rang Out - (From Prompt: “You Find Yourself the Villian in the End”
It’s cold and dark.
So cold.
Icy metal rests in my hand, as I groggily raise my eyelids.
The stench of burnt brass lazily wafts in the air, stinging my eyes and nose.
I go to move and can’t feel my leg.
I look down to see a mangled mess.
There’s nothing I can do.
Nothing.
I give myself thirty, maybe twenty minutes if no help arrives.
Nevertheless, I pull my sweat-stained shirt off my back and attempt a makeshift tourniquet.
It might buy me five extra minutes.
I don’t remember what happened.
The smell of iron is covering the room.
A puddle in the corner, dark.
So dark.
Another mangled form sits there, a hole in their chest.
Just like me, they don’t move an inch.
What happened?
The doorway…someone’s in the doorway.
Sirens explode outside.
Red and blue lusters around the figure's silhouette.
I hurt.
I ask for help.
I don’t receive it.
The person is set in stone.
They’re a statue, set in stone.
Cold stone.
Why won’t they help?
I feel their glare across my face, it burns me, just like the spent brass sprawled around me.
As they approach, I look down at my lap and see what the metal is.
A gun.
They come closer.
Closer yet.
They’re on top of me.
I can’t breathe.
They retreat rapidly as I quiver and move my hand around the metal lump in my lap.
Help me.
They don’t.
He’s still in here, he’s not moving. It’s been twenty minutes.
It’s my fault, all my fault.
The memories come back.
The house, the break-in, the dopamine-induced trigger pull out of fear.
All I needed was a couple hundred to get me out of the state.
They tried to fight me, not five feet I had stepped.
A shot rang out.
The sirens, they’re loud, so damn LOUD!
Yeah, I have him, he’s in the bedroom by the window.
I’m cold.
I raise the gun, not at the statue, but myself.
A click.
I’m not going closer, just get in here.
The gun is jammed, yet one round remains.
I smack the slide into place, grimacing in agony.
A click. The round is chambered.
He has a gun! You’re the police, get in here!
I know there’s no other way out.
I can’t go back.
They won’t help me.
They won’t.
I have the only way out.
I raise the gun again.
It’s my fault, it’s all my fault, all for a couple hundred dollars.
Yeah right.
It’ll be a couple hundred years now.
Not on my watch, I can’t live like this.
I won’t let them have me, never.
A shot rang out.
