Short Stories

What's Done, is Done

{This is a short story I wrote for a competition, it is violent and deadly, but the story didn't meet all the requirements for the competition. It went over them actually. But one of the requirements was to put in 25 Shakespeare quotes. So enjoy!!}
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"Off with his head!"

With a snick, the blade drops.

A head rolls across the floor. And stops at my feet. I pick it up and throw it in the corner with the rest of the body parts.

"Should we sharpen the blade?" I question.

"It's sharp enough I think. But we can always sharpen it up at school when we get there," Ben replies.

A screech rises up the stairs and invades our ears: "We're home, Jared!"

"Well, Mum and the Devil incarnate are home. We'll pick this up tomorrow, same time, eh?"

"I better get going then,"

We head down the stairs, make a wide birth around my sister and head to the door.

"Something wicked this way comes,"

"Be nice, Melissa,"

"Bye Mrs Faulkner,"He calls to mum before nodding to my sister. "Melissa,"

"Ben," Melissa turns and goes to her room, while I go out to the kitchen, as mum calls out to ben.

"Goodbye Ben," She pulls out a chopping board and a knife from the chopping block. "Jared, can you be a dear and help me with dinner, please? Thank you." She pulls out a chopping board and a knife from the chopping block.

"Thank me no thankings, nor proud me no prouds"

"Melissa, can you pass the carrots please?" She takes the Carrots from Melissa. "How is the Project for Mrs Riley getting on?"

"Really well mum, we finished it today, been testing it,"

"You'll have to show me your project after we have eaten,"

"Sure thing Mum,"

I head back towards the office where the Guillotine sits. I Pick up a discarded plastic bag, pick up the remainder parts of my sister's dolls, before making sure the coast was clear, to discard the bag into her room.

A screech floats up to my ears. "Dinners ready!"

I head downstairs.

After tea, mum, Melissa and I head up the stairs. Melissa goes to her room, while mum checks out Ben's and my project.

"You Built a Guillotine?!" Mum sounds hysterical about it.

"We had to do something to do with history either a speech- which everyone was doing- or a visual project like our guillotine-"

"This cannot be allowed,"

"What's done cannot be undone,"

"It still Cannot be allowed,"

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

All of a sudden Melissa comes screeching into the room "He's been using my Dolls to test his stupid guillotine! O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain! I will murder thee!"she runs at me, I back up, Melissa trips and lands face down in the Guillotine, with a smack, I bump into the rope holding the blade in place, with a zip and a snick the blade comes crashing down. Melissa's head rolls across the floor leaving a bloody trail in its wake.

"Death, death; O, amiable, lovely death! Come, grin on me, and I will think thou smilest." Mum attacks me more in sorrow than in anger "O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain! I will murder thee!" Mum flies at me. "You devil incarnate!" She runs at me, I duck, and with a screech, Mum falls out the open window. I look out the window and see mums body hit the ground, her neck is bent at an unnatural angle.

A slam of a door comes from downstairs. I rush out of the room and shut the door so the intruder cannot see the chaos, before trotting down the stairs.

"Jared?"

"Ben? Is that you?"

"Yea, it's me. What's been happening? I heard screaming coming from here, then saw your mum fall out the window. Her last words were 'All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts. And my part is over.' Tragic. What was the cause of that?"

I walk up the stairs and open the door to the study where the carnage is spread. A gasp escapes him.

"Our guillotine killed Melissa?"

"Yea, then Mum attacked me out of grief and anger, I ducked her at the last minute and she fell out the window. I'll be back, I need to wash the blood off my hands,"

I watch Jared leave the room. I pick up a discarded cloth that we used to clean the blade after each item chopped. I move Melissa's body off the guillotine and place it in the corner. I move her head next to her. I hear Jared's yell

"Come out, damned spot! Out, I command you!" Then the shatter of glass. I race into the bathroom. I find Jared on the floor, in tears, clutching his hands.

A red liquid drips out, from between his hands, and glistens like liquid gold. But in this case, All that glisters is not gold.

"Oh, woe is me," He whispers. " Oh, woe is me, T' have seen what I have seen, see what I see!" his voice grows louder. He stands, swings around to me and grips me with his bloody hands. "Look at me dear friend, am I not a sorry sight?"

"A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight. My dear friend, What's done cannot be undone, You must accept that."

"The room, it smells to heaven, do you not see the death that coats the room in a thick layer? Do you smell it? It has followed you!" Jared falls to the floor a whisper escapes his lips. "Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand?" His eyes look up to mine, holding my gaze as he stands "my dear friend, I have loose ends to tie up, and I am sorry to say you are one of them," he drives a sharp object into my body, shoving it up, into my heart. "Please forgive me, but you have seen too much."

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The life leaves Ben's body, just as the ghosts of the recently deceased appear. Mellissa.

Mum.

Ben.
They speak to me, a haunting version of their voices when they lived.

"Mellissa? Mum? Ben?" my eyes fill with tears. "I am sorry for the carnage I have wrecked. But why? Why are you here?"
They speak as one

"If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?"
They float apart. A Ghostly figure floats towards me. Tears run down my face.
"Dad."

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Once the deceased parted from my world, I felt a tugging, so strong and so painful it was like all the pain from Melissa's, Mum's, Ben's and Dad's death combined. The pain of the ones I killed combined. But I deserve this. I deserve to part from my world for killing all those people.

But then again, I don't.

I should carry on living, living with the guilt of those murders.

But fate has other ideas.

A darkness drags my soul from my body slow enough I can see my body slowly slump to the floor, the colour leaves my face. I see that one of the glass shards has slit my own throat.
The heat from the darkness is too much.

Death swamps my mind, but there is no light, just swarming darkness.
My thoughts start to break up, for the pain is too much.

What's done, is done.