Aekhem

Earth

IV

That night Jimmy woke up with a sharp pain on his face, sweating, he had a nightmare and had just woken up from it. He tried to reach his glasses from the night stand next to his bed but his hand fell in an empty space. A white intense light from the ceiling blinded him. Two men with black ski masks, dressed in black walked in. Jimmy tried to say something but he couldn't. His face was hurting him a lot.

The men set a steel table in the middle of the room and a chair in front of it. Between the two, grabbed him by his arm pits and sat him down on the cold chair. Jimmy couldn't feel his legs.

One of the men pulled out a letter size envelope from his clothes and a little metallic box and set them on the table. Jimmy had all of his attention on what was being set on the table.

He told Jimmy:

"Three minutes" and showed him three fingers from his hand.

The one that spoke to him looked at the other one, the other one nodded and they both walked out of the room locking the door behind them.

Jimmy thought maybe the nightmare was not over yet but it felt so real. He took the white envelope, opened it and pulled out a picture. Doris back. Her face to the side with a big hole in her head. The picture was in black and white but the different tones of it showed how blood was all over her face and her lower body. The same dress as this morning. Jimmy wanted to scream but couldn't. His face was hurting. This was not a nightmare, what's happening?

He was still shaking from the picture and grabbed the little metallic box from the table. He saw a reddish and bloody piece of meat in it. A piece of something or and extremity. He looked at it closer and his eyes opened up as wide as they could. The box fell on the floor. He heard some laughs behind the door when the box hit the floor.

Jimmy took his shaking hand to his mouth, he put hisfingers from his right hand in his mouth. Pulled out his fingers from his mouthand did the same with his left hand. His eyes started filling up with tears andhis mind with questions and incomprehension. He did not understand what hecould have done for his tongue to be laying on the floor. The laughterincreased outside.L3�K�qe�=