100 SHORT STORIES

Blackouts

I couldn't remember anything but the headline. 'Five Murders in One Week. Could This Be the End of Dupont Circle as We Know It?'. What did it mean five murders? Surely this was a mistake or a joke of some sort. There was no way they didn't catch the killer yet. This had been going on for some time now, but we had the best police in the state! They couldn't find any clues as to what was going on, or where the killer was located?

'Surely this is going to come to an end soon.' I told myself as I unlocked the front door to my house, stepped inside. I was suddenly hit by a wave of nausea. I stumbled over to the sink and filled a cup with water. This happened too often. I would forget to take my medicine and I would have blackouts frequently. Annika was good at helping me stay up on my medicine routine. She was my late wife. I had met her on a beautiful summer's evening in Russia. We decided to settle down in Washington, D.C. with our two beautiful children, Mila and Thomas.

I remembered everything as I sat at the kitchen table, slowly drinking my water. I was a normal woman with a normal family. I spent my time doing normal things. That was... Up until my wife had been too distracted dealing with the kids to watch the road and everything went too fast for her to comprehend.

I had suffered traumatic brain injury and it made me regularly hallucinate and blackout. I was prescribed some medicine to help with the hallucinations, but I still blacked out. I usually had my wife there to help me calm down and make sure I didn't do anything stupid, but she wasn't with me anymore. She, along with my children, had been fatally stabbed multiple times while I was away for some time. I couldn't recall anyone who might've wanted to hurt me or my family. I was devastated. I just wanted to sell my house and leave forever. I decided against it. My wife would've wanted me to carry on with my life and work hard to protect myself and all that we've worked for.

I heard a knock at my door one day. I opened it only to find two officers on my step. They wanted to bring me in for questioning. They wanted to know if I had any information on all of these mysterious murders. It wasn't until after the interview when I was in cuffs, did I realize just how detrimental my blackouts had been.