Jeff the Killer X blind reader

Chapter 11

      "You're not very good at this, are you?" Jeff muttered as we attempted to spar again. The morning breeze still whistled through the trees and bird song emanated from the depths of the woods, but I felt anything but tranquil.
      "If I had to bet," He said, clearly amused. "I'd say you've never had a knife fight in your life!" Jeff went on to say, not even breaking a sweat as he twisted out of my range. I was met with empty air once again.
      I was currently wielding a large dull knife, donated from Jeff's older collection, and trying to somehow hit Jeff with it. We had been trying this game the last few mornings, always taking it a step further. However, now I was truly stuck. I could not seem to hit Jeff – no matter how hard I tried. And for the last couple mornings (ever since I overheard BEN and Jeff talking) Jeff had become increasingly... aggressive. It was not the Jeff I had tussled with the first nigh, it was someone untrusting and violent.
      I let out a growl and swiped towards where I deemed Jeff's presence to be, using every sense I had available. As I extended my reach, Jeff again bent out of harm's way and stuck out his foot, catching my leg. I tumbled to the ground, hissing curses. Great. Now my clothes were dashed with soil and grass bits. I snarled and scrambled back into a fighting position.
      "You lose your balance so easily. You trip over obvious things. You have not landed a single hit." Jeff explained critically, dancing out of my next attack. I huffed and leaped at his voice again, trying to sense where he would move next. But to no avail, he expertly dodged the knife and sent me sprawling on the ground with a decent push to my back. I quickly jumped back up, breathing hard and shaking from the exertion.
      "Are you blind?" He asked harshly, elongating the words in humor. I started at the mention of blindness, tensing despite my fatigue. "At this rate, you won't be going on missions for a long time." Jeff accused, laying the disapproval on thicker and thicker. I stilled, breathing heavily and clutching my side. His mood was now dark, not joking. There was a sick humor in his mind, a condescending and increasingly vicious attitude. He wasn't his normal, happy self. He was looking at me and thinking about all the weaknesses he saw, all the vulnerable parts.
      Jeff had gotten like this a few times now. It was never pleasant, but today was particularly nasty. His mind felt twitchy and... loose. He felt like he was swinging dangerously close to something – something I didn't want to witness.
      "You are not killer material." Jeff told me with a strange blandness. His mood was spiraling downwards into a mess I couldn't decipher. "You're slow to strike and slow to defend, you're unbalanced, you're weak." He seethed. He spit to the side, approaching my panting form. He stopped in front of me, his presence seeming to tower over my hunched form.
      I wiped my hands across my pants and slid the knife into my back pocket. A spike of fear went through me as I realized how close Jeff was and how... unstable.
      "I think we're done for today." I responded neutrally, turning away towards the relative safety of the house.
      "No." Jeff muttered with conviction, his mood finally snapping.
      I didn't feel it coming, didn't even have time to react. He lunged forward, a blur to my perception. His hand pulled the knife from my pocket and, in one swift movement, swung upward. I had just enough time to leap forward. We both heard a tearing sound as the back of my sweatshirt was sliced open by Jeff's swing, barely missing the flesh underneath. I yelped and broke into a sprint towards the woods.
      His mechanical laughter echoed from behind me, seeming to get closer. What the hell!? Did he just try to slice open my back? I panted and swung my run to the left, hooking into the thickness of the woods. Adrenaline pumped through my veins as my heart did overtime to keep my pace. Crap! Crap! Crap! Jeff was a better fighter than I'll ever be and he has freaking targeted me! Real fear coursed through my body, shaking it even as I raced from Jeff. Doesn't he remember who I am?
      "Jeff! It's me, ________! Stop!" I called over my shoulder, still maintaining my breakneck speed into the forest. I hoped I didn't collide with a tree. I absentmindedly noticed the birds had stopped chirping. All I heard was the sharp and... deranged laughter of the killer behind me. I could tell from his powerful footfalls that he was gaining on me – catching up to his prey.
      My straight spring was not enough; he would catch up to me... and then what? Kill me? It was strange just thinking about it. We were on the same side! Would he really do that – would he really attempt to kill me? The spine-chilling laughter behind me seemed to say 'yes.'
      I made a snap decision and curved my sprint around a tree, turning on a dime. I hoped the trick would buy me some more time to think of what to do, but no such luck.
His presence did not follow me around the tree but turned early so he was on the other side of it, getting directly in my path. His voice came out, harsh and raspy from the run.
      "You're like an open book!" He called menacingly. I put on the brakes and began skidding to a stop in front of my chaser, scrambling to avoid the next swipe of his blade. Immediately, I felt the sharp blooming of pain on my shoulder. He had cut through the fabric and added to the many scars across my skin, letting blood spill out freely.
      I did not falter at the pain or feeling of my own blood leaving my body. I knew better than that. In fact, I could tell this wasn't a particularly deep slash and that it had not caused significant muscular damage by the feel of the pain and amount of blood. My experience with injuries paid off, I choose a new direction and built up another sprint instead of falling to the leaves in pain or shock. I didn't take the time to check the wound, but bounded off again.
      "We got ourselves a runner!" Jeff called from behind me. Actually, it didn't even sound like Jeff. It sounded like a stranger, a menace.
      "Jeff! Snap out of it!" I called behind me, my voice ripped from me by the wind. The only response was crazed laughter. I was so focused on his location and unhinged mind that I didn't pay attention to the masses before me. My blindness reared its ugly head as the tip of my right shoe snagged an outstanding root. I had just enough time to twist onto my back and put my hands up before Jeff's form came crashing down onto me. His weight pinned my torso down, keeping me belly-up in the dirt.
      "You're too easy!" He chuckled out, hurling the blade down towards my chest. I caught his wrist with both of my hands and held it back, using all my might to keep the metal from slicing into my body. He put his weight into the battle, inching the knife closer to my heart. In that instant, I realized likely death and caught my breath, stunned. I would die over what? Over my inability to be a good proxy, a good knife-wielder? Over keeping my secrets from the people I felt I had just met? I couldn't accept this, couldn't accept death from the one person I had come to care about.
      Yes. In that moment, I realized I sort of cared for this person named Jeff. But this wasn't the Jeff I remembered, not at all.
      The well-known feeling of heat built in my gut as the knife's tip cut under my skin and continued towards my ribs. The instant pain and fresh spill of blood filled me with anger – and power. Lines of dark energy surged up through my muscles and I twisted the blade so it was not aimed for my heart but to the side. I freed one of my hands, clenched it into a fist, and sucker punched my attacker in his face with all the channeled power I could command.
      He yelped and was thrown back a fair distance by the strength of the blow, skidding into the leaves. And there he lay, rendered unconscious by the hit.
      I was glad he wasn't awake for what followed.
      The darkness I had carefully held back since I had arrived burst forth like a flood. My hands flew up to my temples, gripping my head as I managed to pull myself into an unsteady kneeling position. I could feel every shadow around me, coming to life with the energy that burst out of my center. They wriggled and swirled, getting larger and more dangerous with their power surge. My breath came in short gasps as I felt my control slipping.
      The shadows swirled closer and responded to my confusion, my depression, and my fear. The darkness sharpened into thin blades in response to my inward agony, swirling closer to my kneeling form. The dark masses sliced tiny gaps through my clothing and then my skin. I shuddered at the all to familiar feeling. I had suffered through this many times, this horrible self-induced torture. It's how I managed to acquire so many scars. I let my head fall down as another shiver ran through my spine. The sharp bits in the darkness sliced through the outer layers of my skin, coming in too close. I kept my unseeing eyes downcast and head bowed as the darkness rode itself out, using up the collective energy and emotional turmoil of the past few weeks.
      I'm not sure when, but the energy eventually ran out and the shadows retreated to their natural placements. When everything cleared and my body stopped shaking, I stumbled to my feet. My breathing leveled out and heart slowed as my troubled emotions were leached from my body along with my remaining energy.
      I emotionlessly turned towards the fallen form of Jeff, still lying on the ground. He was unharmed from the darkness as far as I could tell, but still out cold. I can't believe he had been that close. His knife had been so close to ending my existence – it scared me into shock. Why did he do that? Was it something I did, something I said? Was it something to do with what BEN said? Was it about only about being a bad killer or about... trust?
      These questions bounced around in my head, unsuccessful at finding answers. I didn't understand Jeff, that's the only thing that I was certain about. And I didn't want us to be enemies. But, how do you deal with someone who tried to kill you?

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Lil-magpie
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