Lovely Bones

coward

coward.

There were screams.

Loud, painful, ear piercing, excruciating screams. As if someone had been torn apart and turned into another.

Screams that he has heard many, many times before.

Ones that were escaping his own lips.

It had taken Jude a long moment of complete and utter pain before he realized that the cries muffling in his ears had belonged to him and not the girl twenty feet away.

There was a thought within that moment in which he believed he was too late. That he wasn't able to protect her from what hid behind the glass. It had been on its last string with pieces crumpling to the floor each time a simple graze of a dead one's hand had made contact with the lifeless surface. One strong enough push would send them to freedom.

But when Jude had realized that the yells were erupting from the back of his own throat, his thoughts switched back and forth through rigorous visions and images that flashed through his mind so quickly he couldn't comprehend what had happened.

His side was scorching in pain. He felt his insides being sliced open with every cry he let out. The knife that dug into him twisted and turned by the hands of ghosts and he felt every single inch of it.

The cannibalistic assholes cut him loose yet left him so much more to worry about.

Questions raced through his thoughts. Where was Bob. Where was Gareth. Did he put Bob out of his misery?

And Teddy. Was she still breathing. He couldn't tell as his vision was blurred by his tears. It was dead silent for a moment once he was brought back to the reality that he had less than minutes to get to her. The birds chirped a small rhythm, singing to the beat of the wind floating through the trees but the crows circled in a torturing ring above the trees, almost waiting for one of them to slowly give way to their predicted death.

Jude's hand was attached to his side. Warm liquid seeped through his calloused fingers, coating his skin and clothes a dark, metallic crimson. Using his other hand, he pushed beneath him in attempt to sit himself back up against the pole he was once tied to. It pressed against his shoulder blades uncomfortably.

Short and heavy breaths fell through his parted lips as he took large gasps of air in order to ease the pain. Each movement he made sent the knife digging deeper into his organs. He found the courage to glance down at the damage but the only part of the weapon that was visible had been the handle, the rest completely imbedded into him. A small cry left his lips, causing anger and agony to swell in his chest.

With a sigh, Jude looked up towards the sky. Silhouettes of the trees rocked back and forth from the night breeze. The back of his hair laid against the post while his dark eyelashes fluttered to a desperating close. Sweat dripped from his pounding hairline, running down the side of his face and dripping from his chin. He wrapped his hand securely around the handle and with a single deep breath, Jude began to pull it outwards intensely slow.

"Agh . . . fuck." He groaned a yell as an unimaginable pain flared within him. Jude's hand dropped from the handle and to the pavement below as he sighed in defeat, pebbles sticking to the blood layering his palms. His eyebrows were permanently furrowed in discomfort. The knife still stuck out on display as he had only pulled it out a mere centimeter before he could feel the slicing of his insides cut through him so harshly that it was enough to get him to give up.