The Sinners

Sin: part 4 (prequel) 3rd POV

Last Wednesday, after 3 am.

His sleep apnea chose to wake him up. Gasping for air, he took some long deep breaths and got up from his bed, unaware of what the next half hour of his life would gonna be like. He opened the window, a cool breeze swayed back his hair.

At that moment, his eyes caught something unexpected that shouldn't have been seen. A woman was running away from someone, screaming for help, crying to save her from the man chasing her like a devil. Wearing a jester mask, a knife in his hand. No one was outside at the time, and the houses were quite far from the concrete road that a sleeping person would not be able to hear even a dog barking. 

All of a sudden, the woman slipped on the middle of the road, in front of his house. 

Joshua was witnessing everything, standing on a side of the window. After all, what could he have done besides watching? He couldn't yell at him. Call the police? How would he tell them about what's the emergency? Going outside unarmed was out of the question.

The time between panicking and thinking of what could possibly be done to save her, the man soaked a cloth in some liquid and held it over her mouth forcibly for almost a minute. After making her faint, he took the knife in his black-gloved hands, carved something on her arm, then precisely slashed her throat in one go. 

A murder!

Joshua was frozen in his place, eyes wide-opened, not being able to comprehend what he just witnessed. Totally paralyzed and appalled at this vicious, unprovoked killing.

After finishing the task, the man lifted his head and scanned around to see if anyone watched him. There, his gaze locked with Joshua's, standing at the window. Frightened, Joshua immediately shut the window and hid behind the wall holding his breath as if the killer might hear him breathing. 

For the next five minutes, the world stopped around him, not a single leaf moved. Until his doorbell rang, raising his heartbeats above a hundred. He chose not to go anywhere near the door, needless to say, it couldn't be someone he knew. Bells turned into slow and loud knocks, similarly in the movies when a murderer is waiting outside your door. 

Whom to call for help at this time of the night?

In name of any safety, he locked the bedroom door very quietly and grabbed the lamp in his hands. He had no choice but to wait patiently for the person on the other side to leave. For almost ten minutes, there was no knock. Thinking the crisis was over, he let his guard down. But was met with another shock. 

The window broke violently, scaring the wits out of him. 

Before he could even make out what happened, the man with the jester mask barged inside, aiming for his neck. Though Joshua was horrified and confident in his mind that he was gonna die at this very moment, he faced the intruder with all his potency. 

In an attempt of one attacking and the other one defending, the entire room was ruined. To save himself, Joshua hit his face and the jester mask fell off, revealing the murderer's true identity. It was not someone he knew any far and wide. 

Out of anger, the man tackled him down to the ground and strangled his throat with both his hands, leaving no air to breathe. Joshua grabbed his hands in an effort to get out of the tight grip. 

But shortly as if recalled an important thing, the man himself took his hands off Joshua's neck, leaving him coughing and breathing heavily. Though his head was dizzy at that time, he clearly remembered the words said by the murderer.

"Fuck! I can't even kill you without permission!" He said in frustration pointing his knife at Joshua's face. "You saw nothing! If anyone else got even a hint about this, I'll not hesitate to make their and your condition worse than that woman lying outside spurting blood. And any involvement of police, I will lay heaps of corpses in this city. Get this in your damn mind boy!"

"Remember the pain will be more enormous than this," The man said penetrating the knife into Joshua's chest, tearing some layers of his skin. He tried to scream but no voice came out.

Before going from his house, the murderer made him unconscious by putting the same liquid-soaked cloth over his mouth, so that no action happens in the next few hours, hence no doubts. 

Thankfully, he didn't bleed to death.

The chemical wore off almost after three hours. Warm sunlight had made its way from the broken window into his bedroom. Joshua woke up to stinging and unbearable pain in his chest, not to mention the headache and nausea because of the sedative. It took him some good fifteen minutes to get a hold of himself, of what had happened with him, and what he was supposed to do next. 

He glanced outside, a huddle of people had gathered around the cold dead body of that woman. It was certain that someone had called the police already. 

Before they arrive at his house, get suspicious of him, and start asking him questions, he had to hurry. Though he wanted to tell them everything about the night and the murderer, he couldn't take the risk to be responsible for many other deaths. So, he decided to hide it, go against his values, and lie.

He somehow managed to stand up from the ground, unlock the door, and went into the bathroom straightly as his blood was messing up the floor. He threw his blood-stained shirt off from his body into the basket, cleaned the wound, and patched it as much as he could with his giddy head, though this needed to be seen by a doctor immediately. 

He put on new clothes and started to clean the blood drops from everywhere. He wiped the hallway clean but when he was going for the bedroom, the doorbell rang once again. His brain stopped working right there for a few seconds, his heartbeat getting faster than usual. Who could be out there? Should he open it or not?

He was sure it wouldn't be the same guy from the last night, could be any neighbor, or worse, the police. The person outside started knocking hard. Joshua quickly prepared a lie to tell if anyone suspected anything about the situation in the bedroom. He sneaked a glass piece in his right hand, closed the bedroom door, and went toward the exit. 

He gulped and opened the door slowly. Four people were standing outside in uniform.

"Police," A tall guy said showing his ID. "Here for the murder inquiry, may we come in?"

Only three of them entered inside. They started asking him basic questions about him. But how could he tell them about his muteness? They were getting outraged with every question, not giving him a chance to explain. If he would go to find a notebook and pen in his room, then undeniably they would get dubious and accuse him of the murder instead.

Joshua thought it would be better if he reveal to them everything that happened last night. But he didn't know that any chance of him telling the truth was gonna crushed in the next few moments. He was thinking of a way to communicate with them when for his support, the fourth guy who was with them barged inside. Joshua's mouth fell open seeing the face in front of him, a shock wave rushed down his body. 

Hanie?

He was the last person whom he wanted to tell the truth.

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