Pain, Darkness and Revenge

Slowly dragging my left foot behind me through the dirt I moved forward. The throbbing pain that has been radiating from my skull down my spine and into my left leg has become duller, which was not a good sign considering all the blood I lost. The only thing that is keeping me from just lying down and giving in to the darkness that I would welcome so much right now is crumpled in my hand. They took everything from me. My parents, my home, my little sister Charlie…I stumbled and fell to the ground and gasped for air. The pain in my ribs, which probably are broken, was nothing compared to my heart being torn to pieces by what they have done to my parents and my little sister. They killed her. She was just an innocent child with a lovely future ahead of her, but they didn´t care. I pictured her round face as she was smiling up at me with her adorable dimples and her beautiful curly golden hair while begging for a cookie. But then that image tore apart and I saw that frightened girl, her hair damp sticking to her head, her forehead glistening with sweat as she saw the gun pointed to her face and then I heard the gunshot and saw the hole right between her green eyes. I saw her eyes, which always were filled with joy and happiness turn lifeless. They took her life; they took her away from me. My sister in mind I fought the darkness that was threatening to settle in to me and continued moving. Away from my home, which was now tainted by the blood of my family. Maybe they already cleaned the house, making it look like nothing ever happened. Moved the bodies and organized the furniture which was knocked over in my struggle of getting away. Probably they even replaced the window I hurled myself out of in order to at least not give them the satisfaction of being the ones to take my life. I didn´t know if I´d survive the fall, but I didn´t care. When I finally slipped my hands out of the ropes they bound around my wrists and jumped out of the window, Charlie and my parents were already dead. If it would´ve taken only few seconds longer I would´ve been shot just like them. Probably they thought I didn´t survive the fall or figured if I did I wouldn´t be alive for long after all, because they didn´t follow me. I´m not even sure if I´ll survive. Surely I won’t survive for long if I don´t get to a hospital, but the next one is 33 miles away and I have no vehicle to get there. There are no neighbors near our house, that could help me, because my dad just had to get a house in the middle of nowhere. I never thought of that as a bad thing till now. I stumbled again and fell flat on to the dirt of the road, but this time I felt no pain. I couldn´t move, I couldn´t breathe and I started giving in to the darkness, embracing the feeling of nothingness. I tried to live, but I can´t anymore. I started to fall into complete darkness when I saw the light. I always thought it was a cliché that you would see the light when you’re dying, but apparently it´s true. It got bigger and brighter, maybe I was moving towards it, I don´t know. Then I heard a voice and felt something shaking me, which pulled me out of the darkness and my eyes fluttered open. I was looking into mans face in his mid 40ies staring down at me in horror and probably trying to say soothing things to me like “it will be fine”, but I couldn´t make out the words he was saying, I could only see his lips moving and hear a muffled noise coming from his mouth. I saw the cars headlights and figured it must have been the light I was seeing. I guess no happy ending in heaven for me after all, not that I ever believed in it, but now that I am on the verge of dying I understand why all the people hold on to that hope, that heaven exists and we will be reunited with our loved ones. I mean what´s the alternative? We die and we will be gone forever? Who wants to think that while dying? The man picked me up carefully and laid me on the backseats of his car. My vision got blurry again and the darkness was slowly starting to creep into me. I began closing my eyes waiting for the bitter end when a bump on the road made the car jump, setting my whole body on fire. My mouth opened to scream out in agony, but nothing more than an almost silent moan filled with pain came out. Regardless, the man must have heard it because I saw his eyes filled with fear and his mouth moving again. “At least they didn´t kill me” I thought and it almost made me smile. “I can feel the pain, I´m not dead….yet” Now that I think of it, I should embrace the pain, for it is a sign that I am alive, that they didn´t get me. Who are they? I don´t really know any them except for Jonathan Draugh, a business partner of my dad, whom I briefly met. At least I thought he was a business partner, but what do I really know? Just less than an hour ago he, along with six other men and two women, stormed into our house and murdered my family. A pain deep in my heart hit me at that thought and my heart was about to burst out of my chest. Then another feeling hit me that was so intense it felt like every single cell in my body was electrified. Hate. The hate I felt towards those people wasn´t comparable to anything I ever felt before. With every particle in my body I hated those people and with all that hate came the longing for Revenge. That longing overpowered everything, even the pain. I loosened my grip and unfolded the picture I had crumpled up in my hand. The one thing I was able to grab off the counter right before I jumped. I stared at my dad smiling while standing right in the middle of the men and women who killed him. My dad knew all of them. They were partners, maybe even friends. Or so they appeared that way to my dad. I looked into their faces and swore to myself they would pay. Every single one of them. If I survive, I will seek them all out and make them wish they had followed me and killed me today. On the back of the picture eight names and October 14th 2011 was written in the sloppy almost unreadable handwriting of my dad. The names of the murderers. The names of the monsters I will find and kill.