Last Seconds

Chapter 2

My head is spinning, and it makes me feel a bit nauseous. I walk like a freaking zombie, swaying and tumbling as I walk. But even if I’m like this, I’m still fully aware that there’s a strange man behind me, still talking to himself about why I can see him.

Of course, I can. I am just drunk, not blind. It’s what I want to tell him but decide against it. He isn’t worthy of my time and attention. He’s crazy. He’s even using a freaking umbrella even if there’s no rain. And he also keeps on asking me why I can see him when I’m not yet dead.

“You’re a human,” he says in a matter of fact. He’s now beside me. This time, his umbrella is nowhere to be found. Maybe I haven’t seen it when he’s left it or thrown it on the bridge. But why do I care anyway?

I continue walking. I act as if I can’t see him because the reason why he’s following me is that I’ve seen him. So, if he realizes that he’s made a mistake for saying that I can see him, maybe he’ll get tired and then leave me alone.

“Hey!” he shouts to get my attention. I ignore him again. But my patience is wearing thin that when he blocks my way, I explode.

“What the f*ck! Stop messing with me, b*stard!” I bark at him. Some droplets of my saliva fly at him.

He blinks a few times. Then he wipes his face, a look of disgust is shown on his face.

“You can even hear me,” he says after he’s done.

I sigh. “My ears work well. Of course, I can hear your bullsh*ts!”

He doesn’t answer. I roll my eyes and walk past him, and I can now see the familiar blue gate in my apartment. I’m almost there. I don’t mind if Mr. Welly is waiting for me there. All I want is to reach my apartment as quickly as possible to take a rest.

But then I hear a shout on the left side of the street. I immediately make a panoramic view of my surrounding, squinting through the darkness.

“Help!” shouts again.

I narrow my eyes into slits. And there, I see an older woman struggling to free herself from the thief. An old lamp post, flickering behind them. She will get robbed if I don’t act right now.

So, I went to her rescue, pushing aside the haze of alcohol.

“Don’t interrupt!” shouts the strange man who, for Pete’s sake, is still tailing me.

I ignored him. When I get closer, I lunge into the thief’s back, and we both roll on the ground. My body hurts on the impact, but I have this feeling of grim satisfaction that I’m able to bring the thief down with me. But it doesn’t last long because the thief gets on his feet again. Lucky for me that he ignored me and went straight to the older woman, and he’s an i***t for a thief to give me time to stand up.

I come to realize that he’s a rogue thief. I’ve watched a lot of robbery documentaries that I’m somehow familiar with how thief’s mind tics. They include those who come on their way. But this one right here has ignored the fact that I’m here, a witness, and just focused on his mission to get the bag from the older woman.

But new from this field or not, he’s not immune to any punishment for his actions.

I clench my fists and look anywhere for a weapon, but I can’t see anything. I quickly gave up and went back again to the thief.

“Stop!” I shout. I pull the thief’s hoodie, and it falls. For a moment, I look at him, stunned. His familiar dark brown eyes meet my eyes. His face dawns with recognition, but he immediately replaces it with his cold expression.

He uses the split seconds of my confusion to hit me in the face with his strong elbow.

“Ouch!” a harsh half-stifled yell escapes my mouth. I stumble back away, clutching my nose. A terrible pain settled on my nose down to my jaw. And then slowly, it works its way up to my head, adding more to my dizziness.

My ears start to ring. My vision went in and out of focus. I can feel the bones on my nose dislocating. It hurts so bad that I can hardly think of my next moves.

I can’t give up yet. The thief is still out there. He still can’t get the bag from his victim. For an older woman to survive this long, she sure is healthy and strong.

It takes me a minute to convince my mind to ignore the searing pain on my face. But I can’t just ignore it completely. It hurts like hell.

I tug the thief’s jacket again so he will leave the older woman alone but to no avail.

“Let go!” the elderly woman shouts to the thief, still struggling to keep her bag.

After tugging the thief away from the older woman after a long moment, a metal falls on the ground. It’s a knife! When I take a risk to peek at it. I see in my periphery that the thief’s attention is also there.

I don’t wait or hesitate. I immediately let go of his jacket and reached for the knife. I am the first one to take hold of it. But then he slaps my hand, so it falls again.

Since the thief’s attention is on the knife now, the older woman is free, but she still doesn’t leave. She slaps the thief’s head with her bag. Because of it, the thief struggles to compete with me.

“Ma’am!” I call to the older woman while still struggling to get the knife from the thief. “Run! Call for help!”

The thief growls. His free hand takes a handful of my hair and pulls it hard. My head hopelessly tilts from the thief’s side.

I grit my teeth, paying less attention to the pain. I swing my fist, and it directly connects to his jaw. He stumbles back, and I use that advantage to grab the knife.

Now that I’m holding it, the thief hesitates at first to approach me. But I also mirror his hesitation. It shows in my expression that I don’t want to use this knife on any of us. Maybe my instincts just tell me to get this before the thief could. It will be a disaster if the one’s holding this weapon is a dangerous man.

But my hesitation is what brings me down. He closes our distance and aims for the knife in a swift movement. It takes me a few seconds to react.

The older woman is still shouting in the background. And I almost curse her also because she doesn’t do what I’ve told her. Her shouts won’t be much of a help. She needs to call the freaking police, or we’ll both die right here!

The thief grips my wrist, and my tight hold on the knife wavers for a second. Just before I decide to throw the knife away from the both of us, the thief gets it to me.

Then he grabs my wrist. I shake my hands wildly in an attempt to free myself from him. He struggles for a little while, and I see his hold on the knife loosen for a bit.

With my free hand, I reach for it. Now we’re both holding the knife. I hold it tightly like my life depends on it.

He let go of my wrist to use both his hands from pulling the knife. I do the same. But my eyes widen when he turns the knife’s edge toward me, up, and then right to my neck. I can feel its sharp and cold edge threatening me.

I move my neck away from the knife and, at the same time, twist it towards the thief. Clearly, he’s much stronger than I am.

It’s such a shame that I bravely jumped in to help the older woman, and now I am the one that needs help.

One last push and the knife connect to my neck—pain sheets through my neck with a terrible intensity.

I stare at the thief, unable to form words. My eyes well up, and I cough, and to my horror, it comes with blood.

I don’t know if I’m hallucinating or not, but I see the thief’s eyes soften for a bit. He even pulls the knife away from my neck. But it’s too late. My vision becomes blurred. And in an instant, I fall to the ground while clutching the wound on my neck in the hopes that I can be able to stop the oozing blood. There’s not much pressure I can give, though. My hands tremble at the sight of blood.

Despite the blurriness of my vision, I can still see the hazy shape of the thief approaching the older woman, his next victim. But before he can succeed, I hold his feet and use what remains of my energy to pull him. It’s a move that he doesn’t anticipate because he immediately loses balance and falls to the ground. The knife luckily flies in my direction. Still in terrible pain, I stretch my hand as much as possible to reach for it.

I don’t know what I’m doing. All I know is I need to do something.

If I die tonight, he’ll come with me.

So, I stab it to the thief’s leg without a second thought. He lets out a yell.

It’s the only last memory I remember when everything turns black.

But after a few seconds, I find myself standing or floating, which is maybe the right word for it because everything’s dark. Unintelligible voices are shouting, but I can’t see or tell who’s who.

Then there’s a faint glow appears on my line of sight. It’s like a lone firefly amid vast darkness, but this one is as big as my fist.

I take a few steps with my outstretched hand, attempting to reach the mysterious glow.

I suck my breath when it moves a bit. I try again and again, but it always rolls away. Running out of patience, I leap at the faint glow. And there, just a slight brush of my hands on it when it moves again and magically changes the surrounding.

I am back on the dark streets of Vancouver again. I am lying on the ground, and there are tiny stars above me, glinting. I can’t help but smile.

I remember I was wounded on the neck. I’ve thought I’m going to die, but I’m here. I can still see the stars, and I can now comprehend the voices. They are barking orders from one another.

I get myself off the ground quickly and am surprised about it. My hand instinctively reaches for my wounded neck, but it isn’t there anymore, to my surprise. There’s no wound. No blood. I can’t even feel pain.

But I’m almost dying earlier. How can this happen?

I look around and see polices, paramedics, and curious onlookers. Polices are interviewing the older woman. As careful as they can, Paramedics lift the thief’s body to the ground and put him on the stretcher. He is carried out on a stretcher, with many eyes staring at him stupidly.

Then I take notice of something and I stop. My eyes widened at the sight of my bloodied form on a stretcher.

What the hell am I doing there? I’m right here!

Then those two ambulance attendants who carry me towards the ambulance walk straight through my body. I don’t feel anything. They don’t see me.

My hands fly to my mouth. I watch the scene before me in terror.

I can’t believe it.

Then I catch sight of that familiar print of skull on a hoodie.

Realization hits me.

Our souls have left our bodies.