Tom opened his eyes, finding himself in the center of a dimly lit room. He hadn't a clue where he was or how he happened to arrive there. He tried to focus on the light hanging low from the battered ceiling, moving to and fro like a pendulum, but to his dismay, wasn't able to. His head pounded with a concussion, his pupils dilated, the usual after-effects of a cheap tranquilizer that he seemed to be waking up from.
He somehow scrambled to his feet, both of which felt insanely numb, atrophied even, as if he hadn't used them for days on end. Slowly re-gaining control over himself, he took his first step forward, toward what looked like a door.
With a newfound sense of comfort, he gazed around the room, as his eyes fell on a poster, stuck to the wall with cheap sellotape, he recognized an oddly familiar bed. The room had an awkward, uncomfortable, yet warm nostalgia to it.
In a couple of seconds, it occurred to him. The bed, the poster, the door, the ceiling. He was in his room, in his parents' first house. He used to reside there as a child. Although, it was his own house, it was painfully uncomfortable. It seemed horribly wrong, like a twisted tale of fate. He just realized, the reason he moved to New Orleans with his mother, was that this house, which seemed wrongly intact, had withered to ashes, as a result of an unfortunate fire, which also claimed the life of his father (when he was barely 8). His last memory of this house was that of a huge fire and it collapsing into the ground, as he looked on from the backseat of his mother's four door sedan.
He felt a silent tear trickle down from his eye, onto his cheek, all the way down to his chin, and finally, down to the floor below. Before he had even the slightest chance to brace himself, he heard footsteps, rather heavy ones, which obviously belonged to a largely built man, climbing up the stairs, and walking towards this room.
Before he had another chance to think, the door was smashed off its hinges and fell to the wooden floor below with a loud thud, as dust filled the entire room, constricting his vision yet again. He could make out the silhouette of the man standing at the door, holding what seemed like a shotgun in his hand. He entered the room through the splintered frame of the broken door, his large shoulders brushing both sides of the frame. The man approached him, bleeding fury in his gaze and before he could absorb one bit of what was going on, he felt a huge fist thrust square in the middle of his face.
His nasal cavity shattered cuz of the brute force of the thug's punch. Everything went out of focus, as Tom fell to his knees, tears filling his eyes, as he felt the warmth of his own blood, flowing freely from the canals of what used to be his nose.
"WHERE IS IT??", asked the thug, sounding frustrated and angry.
"What are you talking about??", answered Tom. Barely able to speak, as blood filled his mouth. Dumbfounded by the question, he had no clue whatsoever, what the thug was talking about. His head was pounding excruciatingly, and the pain of his broken nose, unbearable.
"I'm giving you one last chance, either tell me where you've hidden it, or DIE!!", blurted the thug, pointing the barrel of his 12-gauge shotgun at Tom's forehead, more than willing to pull the trigger.
"I DONT KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKIN....", before he could so much as finish the sentence, he heard a loud BANG, as he saw the yellowish-orange flame exit through the shotgun's barrel. The iron pellets following the flame, entering his forehead and making their way to the back of his skull. Bursting it open like an egg thrown on a marble floor. His senses went numb, as his ragdoll of a body fell to the floor. The wall behind, splattered all over with blood and what seemed like parts of his brain. The insides of his skull, weren't inside anymore.
His dead, lifeless body still twitching as a result of jumbled up electrical signals being sent to his limbs through the spinal-cord.
The killer stepped towards the corpse, pointed the gun to Tom's mangled, broken face.
After what seemed to be an eternity, he succeeded in thrusting his second foot forward for a second step. He could feel his temples throbbing as his senses slowly started returning to him, and was mildly re-gaining consciousness. It felt like heaven, being able to see again, to be able to feel life in his limbs all over again, to feel his heart beat rythmatically in the confines of his rib-cage.
BANG!!!
Tom woke up with a jolt, drenched in sweat, the sound of the gunshot still ringing in his ears as if it actually happened.
"God damn! It was just a dream!"
Or was it???
