Never Leaving Here

Prologue

His room is too still. Too silent, too dark, too full of expectation. Because something is going to happen, and it's going to happen soon. He doesn't know what yet, but looking back, he's going to wish he did. He's going to die tonight, and he doesn't even know it. The one thing he does know is this: there's someone in the room with him.

Silence. Breathing, two sets of lungs working, inhaling, one with the erratic tempo of fear, the other the excited patter of anticipation. Two hearts beating, blood pumping - hands shaking, panic rising in one man's throat - footsteps-

Then pain - agony - erupts in him, and all he can think is that he never thought dying would hurt this much.

Now he knows.

Life has a way of filling your last moments with the sadness of sweet memories you can no longer appreciate. Lost to the monotonous hell of his own misery, he remembers his last birthday, that final Christmas, Amy, but all it does is make him feel the pain tenfold. Pain and anger; anger that she left, anger about the things he hadn't said, anger about the things she had said. He wishes he could turn down the volume of his thoughts, forget them all, but he's powerless to stop them as they skip on their merry way. He wishes he could close his eyes, to shut out the blood, the wound, the knife, but he must continue to link, every feeble flicker of his eyelids like another number in a countdown. He wishes he could relax, but even as the tension drains from his shoulders,  he is scared.

He wishes he could live, even as he dies.

Even as he dies, one final memory cuts into the fabric of his mind: Amy left. She left him. He wants her dead more than he wants his own life to continue.

****************************************

I'm about to submit to my responsible side and do the cleaning I'd intended to do hours ago when the story comes on. My hands still, and my breath catches in my throat. A house is painted in pixels on my TV screen, its outer walls wild with the lights of a multitude of police cars and ambulances. Beside the image, the newsreader's face is passive and indifferent, seemingly oblivious to the weight of the words escaping her lips. 'A man has been found dead in his room early this morning with acute knife wounds to the abdomen. Police are conducting investigations into the death, but the current theory is that the incident was a murder, meaning there is a killer at large in the area. We remind you to keep your homes secure, as there is no telling the whereabouts or identity of the murderer as yet. Investigations are ongoing. The body has been identified as-'

My fingers fumble on the remote as I power the TV off, and a sigh escapes my lips. The phrase 'what is the world coming to' comes to mind, but I suppress the negativity before it can flourish into anything more. I grimace, steeling myself.

'Come on, Clare. Time to clean.'

A/N: Hello, and welcome to this novella! I hope you enjoy it. A few short sections of this are already written, and I'm happy with how they're written, so we'll see how the overall novella turns out! I'd love feedback on this, so let me know what you think.

Thanks for reading!

orcapod