| I fade off. Not thinking, not feeling anything I sort of stumble as Tyler leads me along. The body responds but my mind is locked in fear. If he�s killed Brad� I hardly notice the pain when I trip and fall, scratching up my hands pretty bad. Literally I have whoever Mike shot�s blood on my hands now, the little part of my brain actually paying attention thinks. If it weren�t for me, I�m sure that whoever Mike killed would be alive now. It was all my fault. Everything stops mattering, except that it�s all my fault. All I know and feel is that it�s my fault, all because of me that others have suffered� The pain in my hands eventually snaps me back to reality. It happens only shortly before I�m roughly thrown into the canoe. I wait to hear someone else throw in, anything but just those two climbing in, but to no avail. All I hear is them getting in and pushing off. I am alone with Tyler and Mike now� I keep telling myself �No.� in my heart. I couldn�t have gotten Brad killed. No it couldn�t have happened. He ran away, and all the shots came from Mike�s frustration at missing him. That has to be it. No he�s not dead, gone truly from my life. Not forever. No. It cannot be. �It�s too bad your friend isn�t around now. It�s so much fun to watch someone who really cares about my victims to see their friend hurt and in anguish. The pain they suffer is a delight in addition to the actual pain of my victims, Precious.� I don�t even have to be haunted by the chilling accent of the voice to know it�s Mike�s. I am suddenly overcome with rage. I try to take the hood off of my head so even as Mike kills me, I can look into his eyes with hatred and haunt him forever. Instead of light coming, along with fresh air, I find a slap across my head from a paddle. It must be a paddle, hard, cold, flat, and wet. And it caused a lot of pain. �Don�t try, it�s pointless to try and fight it now. I�m going to enjoy watching you die slowly, from the inside and the outside both. Death will come in two ways for you. My Precious has made me angry enough to forget my feelings, all that you mean to me�.� The canoe crashes into land, and I�m thrown off balance. The throbbing of my head is getting worse. My heart�s racing. I feel ready to explode if I don�t do something now. I rip off the hood. So quickly it feels like I took half of my face off with it. I open my eyes and I see Mike. Surprised I did that so fast. My hatred overcomes me. He killed Brad. If not Brad then someone else. He�s trying to kill me. He must die� I lunge after him, but am treated with another sharp blow to my head, this time from Tyler behind me. Stupid paddle, if it hadn�t been for the blow throwing me off, I�m sure that either Mike or I would be dead within moments. In a second Mike has his gun out. �Do you really want to end it all now? I might be merciful, and save your life. But if you force me to kill you now, you won�t be able to earn living back. By doing nice things for me of course, nice things like�� The pain is excruciating. I feel like all the drummers from our school and at least a dozen others are all beating on my head. I don�t know why I wasn�t knocked out. �I wouldn�t do anything for you, never. I hate you. I hate you, you, you� you murderer! The only life I�d like to earn back would be my friend�s. But I can�t do that now can I�� I pause. �You can�t bring the dead to life�� My voice trails off to nothing. Suddenly as I look down at my hands covered in blood, my heart churns and dizziness comes over me. The guilt is overwhelming my senses and confused I see Mike coming toward me�. It�s dark now. My wrists and ankles are bound, and something disgusting is stuffed in my mouth. I jerk awake once I realize this and I look up and see the brilliance of the stars. They taunt me, so happy, perfect yet impossibly out of my reach. Oh well, I guess that doesn�t matter. I hear movement behind and instinctively cringe and tense up. Why can�t Mike just leave me alone, what is there in me that he sees. Why does he see something he wants more than what he saw in Amy? She�s pretty, skinny, practically the direct opposite of me. Gee, it�s not like I have the way I look. Oh well� this thinking is getting me nowhere. It�s pointless. I need to figure out how to get out of this mess. I need to bury these distracting emotions; they don�t matter now� There�s no fire. Otherwise it would be nice to sit by there to think now. Well it would be nice if I could move that is. Think about is it true, are Jeff and Amy really out there tied up in a canoe on the lake, helpless and adrift? But at least they have each other, maybe, unlike me. Her I am. Alone, abused used, violated. Almost anything Mike could have done to me he has done except kill me. The tears are flowing freely now, unlike before. Suddenly a chill goes down my spine. But it�s not entirely from fear. There definitely is a change coming in the weather. Clouds are moving in across the stars. I stare off into space wishing that this was a bad dream and I could just wake up from it. Oh, it�s snowing now I guess. I shiver without meaning to. Mike reaches out and wraps his arm around me. �Come on, I�ll make you warm. We�ll keep each other cozy.� I try to scream but this gag is just too much. I curl up in a ball wishing that he�ll go away, this will all go away that I can just escape into nothingness, this will just be a nightmare that I can just wake up safe at home all curled up under about five blankets. Even as I wish all this to come it nearly happens. I pass out in the night all tied up. I�m too exhausted to resist sleep even though fear now clutches my very being. But I soon awake to being alone. The sun is rising across the lake in a spectacle of beauty that mocks this situation. The rope on my wrists is cut and the gag is gone. I�m surprised that I didn�t wake up at least it didn�t register in my mind so I�d react. Alone. All absolutely alone am I. The canoe is gone too. By the fire ring and one of the packs I think maybe the food pack there�s this envelope in a plastic bag. I take the envelope out of the bag and then tear it open to find a note from whom else but Mike� �Well, I�m sorry my precious. I must leave you. I fear that those hikers you met would bring attention to us here so I must escape from here because if the police catch me� well you know what they�ll do to me. What you�d have them do to me� I�m sorry that I must go. But as you can see I left you nearly all of the food and a sleeping bag and tarp. You should theoretically be able to survive until help arrives for you as long as you don�t try something crazy like try to swim for it, not like you would ever do anything like that� Oh there are a lot of tools in the pack too like a knife, hatchet, and rope for you to try and keep yourself from going crazy. Ha-ha it�s not like you won�t anyway. I can see it in your eyes when you let me look in them. There was so much fear there to begin with in them that what I did was much worse to you than it was to the blonde girl. But your fears are well founded. You can�t be sure even if your friends are alive at all. And you�re stuck here without anything that you can leave here with. Good luck at not going crazy. You will be on my mind forever and for always my precious�� Great, I�m here stuck on an island in the middle of nowhere, absolutely alone. I open up the pack. Sure enough, everything he said would be in there is there. The hatchet, sleeping bag, tarp, food, rope� and the knife are all there. Cautiously I pick it up. It�s one of them that has the blade in the handle that is released by pushing a button and can be locked into place. I open it and the blade is shining and sharp. It gleams in the rays of the rising sun. I think to myself about how easily I could just cut my wrists with it and bleed to death now. Yet as I press the knife against my flesh and am getting ready to put pressure on it before my eyes flash pictures of my friends. Jeff and Amy are in the canoe huddled in fear, and then just Brad�s face hovering there, eyes open and begging me not to do it with their silence. I can�t do it. I pull the knife back. I have to do my best to save them. It�s my duty, my purpose in this world right now. I know they would do the same for me so I must at least try. But how, how can I possible save them. I sit down by the fire grate on a log frustrated. Hmm� a log. An idea pops into my head. Maybe I can build a raft out of some logs. I look around. There are quite a few logs here by the fire area that look like they are about the same size and could make a nice raft with the rope that Mike was stupid enough to leave me. He must not have thought about the possibility of me making a raft. Although the idea of a raft is simple, making it turns out to be tougher than I had first thought. Moving all the logs together takes forever it seems. I get all of them moved into place and the ropes tied around them and realize how hungry I am. I need to eat something. I haven�t had anything since that oatmeal. Looking through the pack I find a couple energy bars and have them. I notice there�s a little drawstring pouch in there, but it�s empty. I decide to pack it with the knife and a couple more energy bars for, well hopefully for Jeff and Amy. Then I tie it around my waist. I�m here in shorts and a tank top although it�s freezing because I don�t want my warm clothes to get all wet. I left them with the pack and wrap the tarp around the pack so that no water will get into it hopefully if it were to rain or snow. I take the raft the short distance to the water and climb on and start to paddle with my hands. I see a silver glint along the shore of an island not too far away yet far enough and aim for it. The work is hard and I make it to the island I saw the canoe on but end up a ways down the shore from it. I beach the raft enough to keep it from floating away and I run down the water�s edge toward the canoe. The water splashing up and getting me all wet and cold. It�s treacherous and rocky and I nearly fall twice but I keep balance through my stumbling. When I got relatively close I slow down, my caution back. I pull the knife out of my pouch and spring and lock the blade and go closer. I look over the edge of the canoe and see Jeff and Amy there, tied up and curled up by each other. Luckily too, the paddles are there. �Hey,� I softly say. Amy and Jeff barely react but I can tell they are happy to see me. I take the gags out of their mouths and cut the binds on their wrists. Jeff then chokes out �Hi,� but Amy says nothing. The look in her eyes says enough. It brings tears to my eyes. And we all can�t help ourselves. We pull ourselves into a great group hug and cry together. Jeff reprimands me, �Gosh Meredith, shouldn�t you be wearing some clothes? Well it�s not like it�s cold or anything, and why did you bother to come out here anyway...." I think of how we should go back to the Island. The Island, connected with Mike forever. I can see it in Amy�s green eyes like I�m sure it�s reflected in my dark brown ones. I don�t want to go back but I fear that there�s no choice but to go there or perish. Suddenly I think of another choice for me. I can leave all these worries behind. �Jeff, please promise me you�ll search for Brad. I�m not sure if he�s alive or not, but I last knew him to be over there, up from that shore a ways. There�s a hiking trail there.� I point there. �We met some hikers after we swam� I�m not sure what ended up happening, but Jeff, promise me you�ll look for Brad�� �Of course I will. You will too right?� He says fervently, pauses and I turn away. �Tell him that I tried to love him, although I was never able to, but I tried to the best of my ability�� I press the knife I�ve had out against my wrist. The blood starts to flow. �No! No�.� Jeff cries out and tackles me to the ground. �No! I can�t let you!� He grabs both my wrists. I can�t move at all. Shaking I drop the bloody knife. Suddenly the pain overwhelms me. �Oh my�� I scream in pain. Everything is starting to go fuzzy. I�m scared I don�t know where I�ll be when I come out of this haze; that is if I ever do at all� |
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