On that evening occurred the final act in this great
betrayal. The evening was young but because of a fierce snow blizzard it was as
dark as the depths of the ocean. Due to the snow Alex had no choice but to walk
home, he was wrapped up in his make-shift artic gear and steel capped walking
boots. As he walked through the blizzard he could barely see 2 feet in front of
him and all he could hear was the crunch of the snow beneath his feet. The only
illumination that he had was the dimly lit street lights; these provided barely
enough light to help his visibility.
As he carried on walking on his long trek home, the crunch
of the snow became louder; he presumed that the snow was simply getting deeper.
As he carried on walking he felt that one of his boots had become lose; he bent
down to re-tie the lace on it but whilst he did that he fell upon something
that was a mystery to him. He was standing still but the crunching of the snow
continued, he turned around to see if someone was behind him but there wasn’t.
As he turned back around to continue on his way home he could see a black
silhouette heading towards him from the corner of his eye, this stopped him in
his tracks.
As the dark figure
carried on coming towards him Alex could start to see more of his features, but
still couldn’t make out who the figure was until he was right in front of him. Stood
inches in front of him was the last person Alex wanted to see, James. As they
faced each other mere minutes passed but for them it was an eternity, during
this time they said nothing to each other only gazed into each other’s eyes.
Alex was the first to break the deadlock stare they kept at
each other. Yet he only looked at his watch, knowing it was a futile effort to
read the time from it as it was covered in a thin layer of snow. But as he
looked back up he did not meet with an unrelenting glare, that he had expected
to see, but a right hook from James. Even with the sub-zero temperatures and
the small covering of ice on James’s hand, it still felt as hot as the depths
of hell to Alex’s cheeks.
James had swung his fist with all of the force he could
gather, yet Alex still felt no pain once it had connected with his cheek.
Although he had felt no pain, the punch had still caused him considerable
damage. He had bitten the side of his cheek open, and it was now a reservoir of
blood that was flooding into his mouth. As well as this one tooth had been
knocked out of the gum, with several others severely chipped. As rivers of
blood began to fill Alex’s mouth, he found it considerably harder to breathe
without choking. So as he looked back into the face of a hysterical James, he
spat out the blood into James’s face followed by a stare of anguish.
James wiped the blood front his face and broke the silence
that had separated them. “Six months ago, you gutted my career; and destroyed
everything I stood for. After that I had nothing left, my job, gone! My wife,
my fucking wife, left me because of that. And to add insult to injury she
aborted our baby. For that Alex I can never forgive you, and even revenge would
be bitter sweet knowing that I lost a child over this. So as you stabbed my
back, I’ll stab yours, literally!” James plunged his hand into his pocket and
almost immediately reproduced a 7inch long knife.
Before Alex could even react James had plunged the knife
into his back, and as it entered James twisted it to cause maximum damage. But
it had gone in-between 2 of the discs in Alex’s back, so as he twisted the
discs started to separate, and one by one the nerve cords broke like strings on
an over-tuned guitar. After he had twisted the knife 180 degrees James removed
the knife and let Alex collapse to the floor. For James this all happened
within a minute, but for Alex time stood still as daggers of pain assaulted his
body with no resentment. As he fell to the snow laden ground, the cold winter
air flowed into the wound, as it did waves of agony and torture resounded up
and down Alex’s body until finally he fell into a void of darkness as his body
finally fell unconscious to the pain.
As Alex’s body lay in the snow, the blood slowly gushing out
of his wound and dying he nearby snow red; James knelt down beside him and
whispered in his ear. “I forgive you now”. And with that he disappeared into
the blizzard. But he was barely fifty meters away when his phone started to
ring, as he stared down to see the caller id, a moment of satisfaction washed
over him.
The caller id identified the caller as Ben; even though he
thought it a bad choice James answered the call. “Look Ben, I don’t want to
talk right now and there is nothing you can say to change my mind.”
“If you don’t want to talk, you can listen then. I’ve spoken
to Amber, and she has reconsidered her actions and realised the harm she has
caused you. But said she could never abort little Hannah. But most importantly
she said that Alex showed her how much she over-reacted, and managed her to
agree to talk to you again; she should be phoning you later this week.”
“Ben, are you sure she said Alex?” asked James, with a
regretful tone appearing in his voice.
“Yep, as sure as the sky is blue.”
“I’ve got to go. I’ve made a terrible mistake!” James remarked,
immediately hanging up on Ben. “My god, what have I done?”
James turned round and began to run back to where he had
left Alex. He was only mere meters away and covered it with seconds, yet it
would have made no difference to him had it been a mile as it still took an
eternity to get there. In the blizzard flakes of snow struck his eye’s like
needle’s, as the inches of snow on the ground felt like quicksand which he was
constantly sinking and falling into, with extreme difficulty to get back up.
Once he reached Alex he knelt beside him, and looked him straight in the eye’s;
he was so fixated in them he didn’t even notice a small smirk that appeared on
Alex’s face.
“Alex, look at me, stay with me! I’m not going to let this
happen again.” He said with panic in his voice, whilst slapping Alex’s cheek to
keep him conscious. James reached for his mobile and hastily dialled 999, “come
on answer, come on.”
Finally, to his satisfaction there was an answer to his
call, and before the operator even had a chance to speak he started to shout
for an ambulance. “I need an ambulance now; a man has been stabbed and has lost
a lot of blood.”
“Where are you and do you know the name of the man who has
been stabbed” asked the operator.
“I’m on Taylor Lane and he has no id on him.”
“Thank you sir, an ambulance has been diverted to your
location and will be there in a couple of minutes. May I take your name?”
“Yes, tell him Ben Jones saved his life.” And with that James
hung up the phone and gave Alex a reassuring nod and walked off into the
blizzard.
