Killing Chris

Stitch and rally

I took a deep breath in and pushed the needle through my skin toward the wound. I had seen my sutures done on T.V. so I knew the basis of what I needed to do. I knew that the needle you put stitches in with is actually supposed to be curved, but mine was a clothing needle straight as can be.

I pinched my skin around the wound and pushed the needle through both pieces of skin. A hot piecing pain rushed to my head. It was the worse stinging pain I had ever felt in my whole life. My arm shook terribly as I pushed the needle through the bleeding wound for a second time. My hands covered in enough blood to fill a bathtub. I dabbed the throbbing wound with a towel and continued.

Each stitch I did pulled both pieces of skin together. Closer to saving my own life. I was about halfway through when suddenly I felt as if the weight of my head was being pulled up by something. Like gravity had switched off. Eventually as I tried to push through the pain and blood my body gave out. The pain faded and I was left with only my memories. Not dead I thought, but not alive.

I remember where my head went that day, took me back to my childhood with Lake and Margo. I found myself at my old house, it was massive house in the country with a creek behind the house surrounded by acres of forest.

Margo, Lake, and I stood on top of my towering wooden playhouse right in the middle of my backyard. You know the one with the sand pit in the bottom and the slide for an easy exit. We were playing our version of army I guess.... or maybe cowboys and Indian's. Margo, Lake, and I were really cool Indian's from a camp called evermore. The three of us were all that was left against the army of marauding evil Indian's, they came from under the trees in the forest.

We stood over the railing aiming into the forests with our bows which were just plain sticks we pretended to draw back. A horn from the forest sounded and a huge crowd of enemies emerged running out of the ground from under the trees.

"Over there!" Margo yelled as Lake and I took our aim.

We drew the strings back and released firing arrows into our enemies and dropping them to the ground, fading into dust when their bodies dropped. We fired volleys of arrows from the railing of the playhouse into the dark forest never missing our enemy targets even once.

"They are making it up here" Lake yelled poking the air with his stick that used to be a bow but was now a sword.

I drew my bow and fired it where the ramp led up to our plat form. Margo ran over to the slide and slashed the air with her stick that had once been a bow but was now a heavy axe, as powerful as the gods themselves.

I looked over the railing and into the forests and saw hordes of the evil Indians running toward us weapons clutched in the hands. As they climbed up all the entrances of our little wooden fort, I knew it was time to jump ship.

Enemy's beneath us, enemies around us, we knew we could take any number of those evil Indians as long as the three of us were together.

"Guys come on, supply drop on the deck!" I yelled waving my hand.

Lake and Margo pushed their enemies back and they ran over to me. I ran and jumped down the slide tackling all the approaching enemy's off and clearing a path for my friends. I stood up from the slide and there were too many enemies for me to make it to the deck without my secret weapon. I reached behind me and held grasped it.

Margo and lake opened their eyes wide and gasped "He brought the light saber!"

I held the metal lightsaber handle in my hands and flicked the switch up causing a a light blue saber to emerge. It buzzed me ear as I swung it around getting into my jedi stance.

"here I brought my other two" I said tossing sticks over to Lake and Margo.

They picked them up flicking their switches on and making the buzzing noise. Margo held her purple saber up to the sky as if she required a blessing from god himself. Lake broke the stick and half and clutched both sticks in his hand like he was duel wielding two green sabers.

I stuck my hand out toward the deck and pretending like I used a strong force push to clear a path to the deck. The evil Indian's suddenly faded into storm troopers as we hacked and slashed our way to the deck. As we swung, we made the lightsaber noises the best we could. As the blasters fired at us, we moved the lightsaber up, down, right, and left deflecting all the blaster fire back into the crowd of storm troopers.

We pushed and pushed through the waves and waves of Star Wars villains from droids to Darth Vader as the boss. When we got to the deck, we opened the imaginary supply drop and grabbed out three smaller sticks a little thicker and longer then a normal school pencil. That level was over, so we ditched the light sabers and the Star Wars villains and instead grabbed wands and fought waves of dementors and those evil Slytherin, Voldemort as the final boss.

We spent hours in my backyard over multiple years traveling into universes wed discovered through movies. We played through the hunger games, star wars, harry potter, power rangers, the purge even though not one of us were allowed to watch more than the first three minutes of any of them. Margo even took us into the twilight universe to battle the volturi an ancient evil organization of vampires. Lake took us into the johto and sinnoh regions in Pokémon and middle earth to fight with Frodo and bilbo to expel the evil wizard from the land. I took our little playhouse to the middle of the transformers universe where we actually pretended to be transformers.

Such fun it was being able to immerse ourselves into a universe and just imagine that we were right their fighting alongside our friends in whatever universe it was big or small, old or new.

What universes did you travel to?

Do you remember the last time you traveled into the imagination realm and created our own games.? When your biggest problem was thinking of a name for your imaginary villain.

One day we gave in to voices shouting into the void "Imagination is for the kids" so we listened to that lie.

Then people wonder why some people struggle with creativity, was it because you aren't creative, or your creative flow was severed at the head to early.

Moral of the story is, we choose the lies we tell ourselves.

We chose to accept that having a vivid imagination as an adult was considered abnormal.

I wished and prayed that I was truly back in my backyard as I lived through the years of adventures we had together. Back when I could save Margo and Lake. Back when I was willing to let hordes of enemy's butcher me to save them... Buy them enough time to escape.

I guess the stakes were lower back then. Back then a trouble shared was a trouble halved now your troubles are burdens breaking the backs of the people you love the most.

Margo and Lake faded from my backyard crumbling into dust. The backyard disappeared from my mind and I was standing in just black, pure darkness...alone.

The pain rushed in, the fury. My vision focused and once again I was sitting on the floor of a barn with a lethal dog bite wound bleeding out. I grasped the dangling needle and shoved it back through my wound, I pretended the needle was a stick. Not a needle which causes pain but just a stick, I imagined childhood marog and lake standing around me helping me recover from my wound hastily so we could narrowly escape the clutches of which ever villain we were faced with.

This is just another adventure Chris, I thought to myself imagining how... In trouble the killer would still be if they were alive. The three of us could conquer any task even...stitching a fallen soldier up. Margo and Lake knelt down by me holding the flashlight and alcohol we used to clean the needle.

"Together?" Margo asked reaching her hand out.

"Together" I said out load thrusting the needle thought the end of my wound and tying it up.