Sandy's Murder
707 Words
Sector 2, Present time
The pitter-patter of blood dripping on the floor echoes inside the small flower shop on the corner of the street.
Outside, the street is quiet except for the sound of cars rushing by now and then. A drunk man is walking aimlessly, singing a song only he understands, stumbling and then standing up again.
Inside, it's dark. The shop is filled with the sweet scent of flowers blooming, mixed with the heavy stench of blood drying up.
Through the blinds, you can see the traffic lights blinking and changing their colors from green to orange to red.
The man on the chair is slowly waking up under the watchful eye of another man in the room. A hit-man, one who specializes in torture.
He gasped for air the moment he woke up, struggling to breathe. His shirt was ripped and soaked with blood and sweat. The wound on the side of his stomach is still bleeding, his face is bloodied and bruised, barely recognizable in this dark room.
Hit-man: Ah, you're awake. Good. So, Sandy Lee, is it? You are not an easy man to find.
He spoke slowly, inspecting the tools he brought with him.
Sandy: Who sent you?
Hit-man: That's not important.
He takes out a pair of brass knuckles and slips them on over his gloved hands.
Sandy: Are you going to kill me?
Hit-man: That's the plan.
Sandy: Then just kill me now.
A sinister laugh rings out in the darkness as the hit-man walks to stand in front of his victim.
Hit-man: But where's the fun in that?
The evil man takes a rag and stuffs Sandy's mouth with it, muffling the screams that follow every blow that lands on his face.
Sandy's blood is spilling and flying everywhere, staining the flowers that are lined up around him.
The punches suddenly came to an abrupt stop when a loud ringing sound came from somewhere.
The hit-man walks over to the table and takes off his brass knuckles and picks up his phone to answer it.
Hit-man: Yeah?... He's still alive... Are you sure?... Yeah, okay.
He ends the call and starts cleaning up the table where his tools are laid out.
Hit-man: Well, it looks like our time together has to come to an end. And I'm having so much fun, too.
Sandy is trying to say something through his gag, and the hit-man pulls it out of his mouth, wanting to hear the man's final words. Once his mouth is free, he spits out some blood on the floor and then looks at the hit-man and laughs.
Hit-man: A dead man laughing, that's new. Any final words?
The hit-man goes to stand behind him, holding a thin wire between his hands.
Sandy: Yeah. Tell whoever sent you, I'll wait for them in hell.
He kept his eyes glued to the white roses in front of him, Aster's favorite flower, now smeared crimson by his blood, as he felt the wire connect to his neck, strangling him and cutting off his oxygen.
They say that when you are touched by death, your whole life flashes before your eyes, and Sandy can confirm that this is true.
In the next few seconds, visions of him and Aster as they laid on the ground played before him.
Like a movie, the scene changed to a little girl, Gale, running up to him and giving him a hug. Then, as if someone was fast forwarding everything, he finds himself in a garden, running around the table and being chased by Jake, Aster's older brother.
Aster was sitting down with her book closed on her lap as she watched him running around and away from her brother and Gale, who was a bit bigger now, was laughing at them as she held up her little recording camera.
Tears slid down his eyes and, right at that moment, he knew he didn't want to die.
But he was running out of air and it didn't take long for his body to start bucking violently as the wire tightened, even more, around his neck. His eyesight grew darker and darker until he couldn't see his girls anymore. He couldn't see a thing.
Only darkness.
- Writer
