Linked

28: broken glass on the floor.

There were a total of 8 men, actually I can't tell their gender. But, all I know is that there are eight of them. The first thing I noticed was that they were all wearing black. Then, I noticed that their outfits were the exact same.

Black suit jackets. Black face masks. Black etcetera, etcetera.

Then the fact that their guns were still pointed at me snapped me out of analyzing their outfits.

This makes it the second time a gun has been pointed at me. In this case, 8 guns are pointed at me. Their fingers were on the trigger. All they had to do was press down...then I'd be dead.

I looked around the room, hoping to find something that could prevent or at least delay my inevitable death. As I scanned, I remembered what Sol and Benjie were talking about right before Ariel showed up.

Taking a deep breath and calming my rapidly beating heart, I locked eyes with one of the gunmen. "So...you guys are going to kill me...right?"

None of them said anything.

"Before you kill me, can I do my makeup?" I asked.

I still did not get an answer.

"I don't have my makeup with me, so do you guys have any makeup products I can borrow? Once I look presentable, you guys can kill me. I promise this is not some trick," I said.

Simultaneously, all 8 of them took the safety off of their guns and took a step closer.

My hands clutched onto the cuts on my leg and my abdomen as I felt panic rise inside of me. What's going on? What happened to Sol? Why was he stabbed? Who are these people? Are they with Ariel? Was Ariel planning on killing me inside of this house like he killed Benjie and Jasai once they were of no use to him? Why's this happening? How can I wake up from this nightmare?

I guess I finally lose my cool and start to panic when they're absolutely no way for me to escape from this situation. I can't just get up and run. My leg's bleeding out and I know that if I made any sudden movements, they'd gun me down

"...please...don't kill me..." I said as I panted. "What can I do to make y'all change your minds? Please, I'll do anything!"

I was vigorously shaking at this point and I was no longer to hold back my tears; I was balling my eyes out like a baby. The whole room was spinning and it was hard to breathe.

The gunmen nodded at each other. Then, they pulled the trigger. I squeezed my eyes shut and screamed, bracing myself for the bullets.

Then, almost a whole minute later, I found that I was still alive. Very slowly, I cracked my eyes open and looked around.

The gunmen were holding guns that looked like a bomb inside of them had exploded. They themselves were laying on the floor, dealing with their bleeding hands and other body parts that were caught in the explosion.

I used this opportunity to get the fuck out of here.

At first, I scooted away from them, leaving a trail of blood from my leg on the floor. Then, I used the wall to help myself up.

"She's getting away!" One of them yelled.

Holding onto the wall for dear life, I began to limp away from them as fast as I could. "Nonononononono," I kept on whispering.

One of them got behind me and put their hand over my mouth. I thrashed around, hoping that they could let go. However, I was feeling lightheaded from the blood loss, the near-death experience I had just gone through, and the fact that their hand was also covering my nose which made it hard to breathe. My thrashing became weaker and weaker.

Another one of them pulled out a bowie knife from the inner pockets of their suit jacket and twirled the knife around as they approached me. "Looks like thing will get messy."

I screamed through the man's hand as the other guy came closer to me with his knife. My heartbeat was the only thing I could hear and it was like it was counting down the seconds until my death. I stared at the knife guy and shook my head, begging him not to do this.

Suddenly, the glass windows shattered and the lightbulbs around us also shattered. The glass flew all over the place, and all of us had to dodge the shards.

"What now!?" The man with the bowie knife yelled.

The man who was holding me threw me onto the ground and I landed in the glass. The glass went into my skin and I flinched. Very carefully, I worked on getting the shards out.

"Is this place haunted or something!? Let's get the fuck out of here!" One of the gunmen cried.

"We have orders, and that is to kill Solei Keita if we see her leaving that secret vault without the boss, Ariel," another one said.

Wow, so these guys really were sent by Ariel.

All 9 of us jumped when we heard someone screaming form down the hall. The screaming was getting louder, letting us know that the owner of the screams was coming towards us.

Turns out, the owner was Ariel.

I don't know what had happened to him while in the safe but I could guess from the missing left eye, the blood running down his forehead, his ripped up and bloody clothes, the cuts that I noticed on his exposed arms, and the fact that he was crawling on the floor. Ariel was tortured.

"Get me out of here! Then burn this place down with the demon in it! Hurry, hurry!" Ariel ordered.

"Are you seriously leaving?" I heard Sol's voice ask from down the hall. "You can't leave though. You have to pay for what you did. You killed me, then you even had the audacity to stab me a few times. You should know how death and betrayal feels like without dying yourself."

I watched Ariel struggled to turn around and kneel down on his feet. "I'm sorry for killing you and betraying you! I was really jealous that you were way more successful than me! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

Sol finally arrived. He crouched down in front of Ariel and stared at him lifelessly. "It's too late for that."

"What can I do to get you to change your mind!?" Ariel begged.

Sol thought about it. As he did, he scanned the area. His eyes then fell on me. The lifeless look in them went away and it was replaced with concern. "Soleil!? What happened to you!?"

"Did you seriously forget that we share pain!?" I asked, wiping my tears away.

He noticed all of the glass shards and the remaining parts of the guns the gunmen had that are scattered all over the floor. "What happened?"

I was about to answer when I realized that I didn't know what had exactly happened. I obviously couldn't have done all of this. So why are things like this?

Sol harshly grabbed Ariel by the hair and whispered something to him. Ariel began shaking as Sol whispered to him. Then, Sol pushed Ariel to the ground like a toy.

"You ready to go?" Sol asked me softly.

"I-I-I can get-t-t-t my me-e-e-e-n to ta-a-a-ake you guys h-h-h-h-h-home," Ariel stuttered.

Home? So I get to live? Good.

I finally stopped holding onto my conscious that has been trying to slip and welcomed the darkness that had settled in.

...

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