A gun went off, disturbing the quiet peace of the night. Jim stood up on his porch and peered into the impenetrable darkness; there was no moon, he couldn't see a thing. He wondered who was doing the shooting. There weren't supposed to be hunters in this part of the woods, but occasionally, one or two would show up, searching for the deer that were so abundant in the area; but never before had one come in the middle of the night.
All sounds seemed to have ceased, and the silence was almost like a living thing, pressing in, surrounding, and suffocating. Fear choked him; he had an uneasy feeling that someone was watching him, just out of sight. He took a half step toward the door, one hand reaching to pull it open when the gun went off again; a half-second later, Jim felt something pierce his chest. It was a horribly invasive feeling, the sense of being touched from the inside of his body caused a shuddering wave a disgust to roll up through him, and then the pain came.
Jim had never been shot before, but he could not possibly have imagined how much it hurt. It felt like his chest had been hammered in and lined with broken glass. He collapsed on the wooden porch, his hands scrabbling at his blood-soaked t-shirt, struggling to breathe. The feel of his heart beating was heightened tenfold; each pulse send a fresh wave of agony racking through his body, and another stream of blood rolling onto the ground beneath him. He could feel the pool of blood spreading around him, and he wildly thought that the stain would never come out of the wood, but then it occurred to him that he wouldn't live to see it.
The nighttime woods had resumed their normal volume; Jim heard the crickets and cicadas chirping, heard an owl softly call through the trees; He knew he was dying, could feel it in the numbness capturing his fingers, and in the fuzziness filling his mind. Now, that in and of itself that wasn't particularly frightening, but cold rushed through him when he heard the light patter of footsteps from inside the house
"Daddy?"
There was a moment of silence when all he could hear was his own choking breaths, then the air was filled with Clara's screams, broken with ragged sobs. Suddenly, she was on her knees next to him; Jim reached out and brushed her hand with his numb fingers, and she grabbed it, clutching it in her two small hands.
She was sobbing, and for a moment he could see her, her dark hair still wet from her shower tangled about her face,her eyes scrunched and tear-filled, but the blue seeming all the more vivid because of the tears. Clara was crystal clear for a moment, but then the world went slightly blurry, everything shifting out of focus.
Jim had been hoping against hope that somehow he could survive this, but the feel of the blood around him, and the sheer note of panic in Clara's shrieks dashed his hopes. Only, it seemed her screams were growing more distant; a rushing in his ears was drowning them out.
"I love you Clara," he whispered, but he wasn't sure if she heard, or if he had even said anything at all.
The rushing was intensifying, but the pain was receding; black spots danced at the corner of his vision, closing in until all he could see was a pinpoint of light, and then that was gone as well.
