The Second Sunday

Endings

   I started breathing heavily, at the sound of the footsteps coming closer and closer.  Jared pulled me close and put his hand over my mouth to catch the sound of my panic.
  He leaned closer and whispered in my ear
"Katherine it's gonna be alright"

   And I really thought it was. I thought he was going to leave, and I was going to go back down in the basement and save Amelia and it would all rainbows and butterflies and we would live all happily ever after.
But of course that would of been too easy that way.

Mr.killer notices the basement door I unlocked, and quickly turns around to scan the room. He rampages through the bundles of hay to see if anyone is hiding in them. And of course someone was.

I lean over to whisper to Jared
"He's gonna see us, we have to do something"
"Let me see the knife Katherine"
"What why?"
"Trust me Katherine"
"Jared.."

  I reluctantly hand him the silver lined knife while he softly kissed my forehead as if he was a solider leaving his wife for deployment.
But he wasn't, he was too young, and too gentle for this. But he does it anyway.
  He quickly jumps up spreading the hay around him exposing our secret hiding place. Mr. Killer quickly jerks around but Jared took the knife and in heroic fashion stabbed his left arm as deep as he could.

"Jared!"
I screamed

  While the killer was disoriented from the insane amounts of blood spewing from his arms, Jared and I leap into the basement closing but not locking the door behind us.

It was pitch black.
Just like I remembered it.

"Katherine we need to find a light switch"
Jared hollers to me

"Hello, who's there! Help me!"
It was Amelia.

"Don't worry we're gonna get you out"
I holler back while Jared and I scan the walls looking for a light switch.

Finally Jared spots one and flickers the lights on revealing Amelia looking as distressed yet as beautiful as I remembered.

"Who are you, help me!!"
She screamed
"I'm gonna get you out, stay calm"

And then I hear the footsteps on the stairs in the distance patterning like lighting down each step.
While I furiously try to pick the lock of Amelia's cage with my Bobby pins.

"How'd you find me here, how'd you know"
Amelia was asking
"Save the questions for later"

And then I turn around as the killer runs down the stairs
Me and Jared immediately jump up from the cage wondering how we were going to fight him.

"Well it seems I got caught"
He remarks as he runs to Jared.

"Nooo"
I yell

I grab the gun out of my pocket shooting the killer multiple times in all directions, carefully making sure to not shoot Jared.

Blood ran across the cold, basement floors and I ran over to Jared.
He was bleeding
Bleeding out.
With the killers knife stuck out sharply from his stomach.

"Jared, no come on"
Tears start pouring from my face like a broken faucet and I lose every sense of my being and every hope of happiness in that moment
"Katherine, you're so beautiful"
He looked at me and smile with all the life he had left in him
"No, keep fighting"
I scream
"Keep fighting"
I scream even louder
While covered in my own tears, swear and Jared's blood.

Then it happened. Jared closed his eyes. Took his final breath of air, and spent his final moment of life with me in an cold, heartless,stale basement in the middle of a state he never got out of.

"I'm so sorry"
The tears pour while I lean over his dead body
"I'm so, so sorry"
I say in an pleaful, voice that's lost every ounce of hope it's ever contained.

And in this moment I realized my potential of being happy is gone, the life Jared deserved was gone, someone I loved and someone I had the potential to love we're both gone and it was the man bleeding from my gunshots fault. And he would pay.

My body felt with an unseen rage I never once felt before. How could someone do this, take away so much from somebody. What gave anybody the right.
  I crawl across the floor reaching for Jared unused knife the killer knocked across from his grip and I take it into my own.

And the truth was he could of lived, he was breathing with no life left to fight, but he could have lived.
But I couldn't have that. He took away so much from me and now it was time to take something from him.

So I gripped the knife in my sweaty desperate palms and stab the killer right in the chest breaking through the bone and flesh that protects him.
I stabbed him, like he stabbed me
Not once
Not twice
Not three
Not four
But five times
Right in his chest.
Hurting him like he hurt me

I saw his the life leave his body while he eyes grew still.
I killed him.
I murdered him.
And he could have lived,
But then I asked myself if he deserved to.
And to that I still haven't found the answer.

"You killed him"
I hear from behind me, who I just realized witnessed all the events that took place
"I'll get you out"
I crawl over to the cage and stick the Bobby pins in unlocking it.
"Thank you... And I'm sorry about your friend"
I stare blankly back at her not responding
"But how'd you know where to find me"

And to that I couldn't respond, because I couldn't just say the same man murdered me so I leave it at
"That guy tried to hurt me once"
"What's your name"
She asked in response
"Katherine"
"That's my mothers name"
"Yeah I know"
She looked back in confusion
"I mean, I don't never mind"

  Amelia talks a little bit more, but I stay silent and freeze myself in the moment staring at what I done, and what had happened to me.
I look down at the two dead bodies in front of me wondering why exactly life turns out the way it does. Why it tricks you into believing everything will be alright and then it's not. That's just life I guess.
So I lied next to Jared his cold,dead body next to my very alive body but now dead soul and I just lied there, because that was the only piece I had left of him.