“–prison breakout on 98th street, citizens are cautioned–“
I took out my earphones, standing up from my bus seat. The bus was slowly coming to a stop, the doors opening automatically. Swinging my backpack on my shoulder, I made my way off the bus, not at all ready to walk myself home in the searing heat. The dull ache that had been building at the back of my head since school was only starting to get worse.
As always trudging home in the hot sun was torture, I was already starting to feel faint, could already feel the sun frying my brain. The gate to the house was thankfully unlocked. I remembered telling my brother to leave it like that so I wouldn’t have to shout for him to open it for me when I came home.
Taking my shoes off on the front porch, I clicked my tongue, looking at the dirt tracks someone had left on the floor of the living room. Someone must’ve used their shoes inside because they were too lazy to take them off, I’ll have to sweep later.
The bright light from the skylight burned my eyes as I made my way to the family room tossing my bag to the ground, accidentally hitting it against the boxes of who-knows-what that are even more scattered around the room than usual, mom must’ve been looking for something this morning. My throbbing headache and blurry eyes stopped me from trying to clean anything. I’ll deal with everything later.
The house was quiet, everyone but my brother left in the morning, they’re all probably still out, lunch wasn’t cooked and I was way too tired to make anything myself, I’d have to have the will to open my eyes larger than a squint and that wasn’t happening anytime soon.
My brother’s door was slightly parted open and the light was off, he must be taking a nap. A nap started sounding like a better and better idea, especially seeing that my head was still continuing its drum solo.
I shed my jacket, making my way upstairs to my room, my eyes were burning. Opening the door, heavy footsteps came from downstairs, slowly making their way up as well, brother’s probably awake. Half aware, I chose to ignore him and stepped inside my room, closing and locking the door. I don’t feel like dealing with anything but sleeping right now. I flung myself onto my bed and covered my head with a pillow. I closed my eyes and everything fell from my thoughts.
I’ll deal with everything later.
A loud bang pierced through the darkness of sleep, making me jolt up reflexively. The abrupt movement introduced a sharp throb in my head making me groan, plopping my head back down to my pillow. My hand came up to rub at the stinging pain.
“What the fu- “
My small raspy words were interrupted by my bedroom door flinging wide open, the wooden slab slamming against the opposing wall. Immediately sitting up, I ignored the pain that jolted up my neck, my blurry eyes trying to identify the figure that had busted down my door.
A large man was standing in the doorway, one of his legs slowly lowering to the ground. His wild eyes zoomed in onto my figure, the crooked grin on his face stretching wider, I froze, not knowing what to do.
The man was holding a knife. I couldn’t take my eyes off of the blood that was still freshly dripping off it, my head flashed to my brother’s room. Dread rose up my throat.
The man stepped inside my room, still staring straight at me with his demented eyes. The fear crawling up my spine still left me frozen, his slow movements somehow making me even more terrified, my limbs refused to move.
A foot from my bed, the man suddenly swung down with his knife, the sharp movement jolting me out of my stupor. I jolted backward on my bed, a cry leaving my mouth as I held my hands up in front of my face reflexively. The knife slashed at my arm, the sharp blade leaving a long cut right across it, a louder cry leaving my lips.
The pain finally shocked me to moving, bringing my brain back online. I launched myself off of the bed, ducking under his arm that was once again raised to slash at me, the growl of anger he let out only making me run faster. I ran past my broken bedroom door, running straight up the first stairway I saw. The man’s heavy footsteps not far behind me, I hurriedly pushed open the gate to the roof, a small garden that our family kept.
My bare feet slapped painfully against the garden’s searing hot grounds as I ran through the different plants and gardening equipment scattered throughout the area, the maze-like surroundings slowing the man down as I ran as fast as I could. I was clutching at my heavily bleeding arm, panting out desperate breaths when I reached the roof’s edge, looking to the ground, finally seeing just how high up the roof was.
I turned back to the quickly approaching figure of the madman, the adrenaline still rushing through me from the run. The man lunged at me again, I grabbed at his hands, struggling to hold the blow from landing. He finally shoved me straight to the ground, the impact pushing the breath out of my lungs. Holding me down, he stabbed his knife at my stomach, a harsh scream immediately leaving my throat.
In a last-ditch attempt at struggling, I curled my legs up as he winded up for another stab, pouring all of my strength into a sharp kick at his stomach. The kick sent the heavy man stumbling back, his balance momentarily lost. Ignoring the pains from my wounds I stood up, blood gushing out of them, numbness was setting in. Letting out a hoarse scream, I rammed at the disoriented madman with my shoulder. The man fell backward off the ledge shouting and I crumpled to the ground, all energy lost.
My headache had reached unbearable minutes ago, the dizziness was making the world spin, nausea settled heavily in my stomach.
I needed to call the police, the ambulance, my brother-
My eyes started to fall shut as the dizziness started to overtake me, darkness was swarming my vision, everything was going numb.
I’ll deal with everything later.
