Open Your Heart

Open Your Heart

A Short Story

I shot him a dark smile, the light glinting off my teeth. The night was mostly dark, with a couple street lights shining from above. No one was around at midnight, except for a couple people wandering around, aimlessly. Being one of the few out, I should’ve been wandering aimlessly also, except I had a purpose.

An utter motive.

A sinister purpose.

Shooting a glare at the stars that kept twinkling and ruining the dark, dreary mood, I stepped forward, raising a fist. He stepped backward and whimpered in fear.

“H-Hartley! I’m sorry!” he yelled. I stepped forward.

“Now, now, Willy,” I cooed. “What, now what exactly are you sorry for?”

“Ch-ch-ch-challenging you, Ma’am!” he squeaked. I stepped forward with my hand still raised.

“And, now, exactly how sorry are you, William?”

“Very sorry! Very, very, sorry Miss Hartley!”

I stepped back with a smile on my face. A happy, joyous smile. “That’s better. Don’t forget next time,” I said to him over my shoulder. I sighed and strode my way, down the street, away from the people. What a waste of my time. I had better things to do than educate idiots. My cold, dark heart only had time for things like revenge.

Glancing from side to side, I drew my small, ancient, knife I’d been given from my grandfather. Slowly sliding through dark alleys, I made my way to the lot. Spinning the knife in the air, I waited.

“Ello, Hartley,” a voice joined me from the side.

“Ello, Slade,” I responded, without looking up.

When I turned, he had a big smile plastered across his face. My expression mirrored his, like every single night. Every single night we fought, fighting for the top spot in the city, fighting for the top spot in our lives. Slivers of light, radiating off the moon made his messy, dark hair glitter, and his grey eyes gleam.

Under the moonlight, we both could be compared to those heroes in movies, when they slay the bad guy, but our reason for fighting was simple. (Well, maybe it wasn’t that simple, but you’ll see. Whatever.) We’d resented each other, and since we were kids, were always compared. There was no bad guy. If we were still in second grade, I’d say we ‘shared’ the position of the ‘bad guy’. Soon enough, we grew to hate each other. When we just happened to join the same martial arts classes, the hatred blew up in our faces.

It turned into rivalry.

Some guys don’t hit girls. Okay, those are the good guys. The ones that are respectful and all that. It would be nice if Cole Slade was a gentlemanly figure. That would save both of us a lot of time and give us a lot more sleep so we would be a lot less cranky. Unfortunately for both of us, he doesn’t care about hitting girls. So we fight, night and night, every night.

Suddenly, he pounced. Like a cat, a bird, however you might describe someone flying through the night. An owl. His knife gleamed as I whirled to intercept him, our knives clashing and clanging in the darkness.

Slicing against my face, leaving blood droplets and punching and kicking me until I knew I would bruise, he flashed me a grin. Returning the grin, I threw him a present. A present that contained some slashing, punching, and kicking too.

Soon enough, we were battered, torn, ragged breathed on the sidewalk. I climbed to my feet.

“No winner?”