The Hooded Hijabi

Motive

"It pisses me off when I see you smile, when I see you strolling around with your friends happily!", he speaks through his gritted teeth while jabbing the knife deeper into my thigh.

I cry with pain and shut my eyes, trying to remember Allah. "Ya Rabbi, madad! (Oh Allah, help!) Ya Rabbi, madad!", I yell as the excruciating pain rises to my pierced skin.

Raymond laughs as he sees me in pain, his eyes popping like that of the insane killers I had seen in anime. His laugh comes to an abrupt stop as he looks at his cheap, silver wrist watch and mutters,"Oh, it's about time."

He pulls out the knife and I scream yet again as I feel my skin burn with razor-sharp pain. "Yes, yes, it's almost time for the next act of the play.", he says to himself as he moves to the table putting the bloody knife on a white cloth and cleaning his hands with a sanitizer.

I lower my head and shut my eyes tight trying to hold back the scream in my throat. He walks to the two stretchers I had completely forgotten about and calls out my name,"Amina!"

It's the first time he said my name and I feel my body cringe at the sound of it coming from his lips. "Amina, darling. C'mon, look up now, sweety. Time for Act Two. You're going to LOVE this! I went through so much trouble to make sure everything turns out to be perfect!", he says with great enthusiasm.

I hear the wheels of a stretcher move and hear him speak,"C'mon now, look up. Don't you wanna know what's the surprise all about, eh?"

I feel like ripping the ropes apart and clench my fingers around his neck but no matter how hard I try I can't find enough physical strength to carry out my wish. Instead, I slowly lift my head and thunder strikes me as I find myself face to face with the woman tied to the stretcher.

Her face is covered by her straight, blond hair but I don't need to see it in order to recognise her. "Rachel? Rachel!", I shout, struggling to get out my stretcher.

"Rachel! Rachel!", I keep screaming her name at the top of my lungs, tears running down my face. Raymond looks amused by the torture I'm suffering and waits a few seconds before saying,"I told you I'd take everything away from you. Let's start with friends. She's the one you're the closest to. Jesus! It would get me so enraged every time I saw you happy with her!"

"No more happiness now.", he says, his lips curving to form a sick, disgusting smirk. He extends his right arm backwards and forces it right into Rachel's stomach with a great blow. The stretcher falls back onto the ground and I hear Rachel's groan.

Raymond picks the stretcher and raises it back up. Rachel's eyes are tightly closed as tears leak through the corner of her eyes, her lips sealed to suppress any more sound indicating pain.

I feel the taste of my salty tears that slip into my lips and I close my eyes, almost whispering,"She has nothing to do with this. She doesn't need to to be here." I open my eyes and shout at the man in scrubs, my eyes indicating of the rage within me,"She had nothing to do with this!"

"She does.", he replies calmly. "She makes you happy. She gives you hope. She is the light in your darkness. She helped you cope with your father's death. I had no one. I had no one when you reported my father to the police! I had no one when he committed suicide because you put him in there! He told you it was his last kill. He tried to convince you. Because of you I had no one when my daddy left me!", he shouts at me.

"My sister, pcch! She was too feeble and faint-hearted to deal with daddy's death, let alone help me with anything. But as time passed, I made sure to make her realise that I'm the only one she has and that we must avenge our father to let his soul rest in peace. He haunts me, you know. Every night he comes and tells me how I need to avenge him, how I need to be the one to take your life.", he says, sometimes speaking to himself in between.

I look at him in confusion, my face still wet with tears. I close my eyes and grit my teeth, saying,"What kind of a SICK, twisted mind do you have! I did not do anything to your father! HE took my father's life right in front of my eyes! He tormented and murdered a father in front of his fifteen year old daughter, you sick bastard!"

I hear Rachel sob and all the anger within me fades away as I look at her with a vexed expression and immensely sad eyes. "Please, just let her go. You can torture me, kill me, watch me die but please...just..let her go.", I beg.

"We haven't even gone on to Act Three and you're already giving up. Straighten up, little soldier. The play has just begun!", he says, halfway between delight and disapproval, and moves on to the next stretcher, sliding it around until I see a man tied to it, his lips shut with a duct tape.

The doleful eyes look up at me as the ground beneath my feet slips away and the roof falls upon me, crushing me underneath its heavy weight. "Ali.", I whisper.

"Yes, Ali! The man you love the most! Your family. The one who held you together when you fell apart after watching your poor daddy bleed to death. The one who will leave you behind tonight. But don't worry I'll send you off after him after a little suffering. You both can rest in hell with your father.", says Raymond.

"Handling Ali was the easiest. I made sure to gain his trust and it got even easier when he was having trouble with finding God because he got so emotionally weak and easy to manipulate", he continues, air quoting and rolling his eyes at 'finding God'.

"Unfortunately, Azan came in the picture and Ali drifted away from me. He'd spend more time with that ridiculous, self-proclaimed pious lover boy of yours, learning their religion together to get closer to God.", he rolls his eyes.

My eyes never leave Ali as my lips quiver and I struggle to speak but no words come out. "Now, let's get started.", he walks to the table but stops and turns to face me, saying,"Oh, I'm not like my father. I'm not going on a killing spree because of daddy issues. I do admire his style, though. His techniques. I was just always inspired by serial killers; their simple and clean motives. Killing for fame, money, power was never my father's style. And a good serial killer never opts for such pathetic reasons to take a life. You see, this process..taking life..it's beautiful. One must do it right with just the right kind of motive."

"You son of a gun! You twisted piece of rotten shit! You're mentally retarded, you psychopath! No wonder your sister didn't want to be with you! You-...", I shout but a voice of a young girl interrupts me.

"Who says I didn't want to be with my big brother?", says the woman in black leather jeans and jacket, her long leather boots zipped upto her knees and strawberry blonde hair tied in a messy bun.

The sudden pain I felt in my heart comes up in form of a lump in my throat and gets stuck there as I glare into a recognizable face.

<End of Chapter 34>

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Author's Note: My apologies if it is or gets a little too dark or disturbing but I gotta do this right. Vote and comment, if it isn't much of a bother please? Peace out!