Excerpt: Tripped

I was outnumbered.
Nevertheless, I screamed out my irrepressible pain, firing the gun in their direction and squinting my eyes in the light, trying to kill.
Must kill.
They must suffer.
And they will.
Time went even slower, as if I was in some sort of movie, and I knew I was in trouble.
Huge, blue lights came at me.
It was the most painful thing I’d ever felt.
They fired at me continuously as I fell to my knees, their shots burning through my skin and bones.
White hot, searing cuts all over my abdomen.
And one across my face, as if I had been struck with fire.
And as the shots ceased, I looked up towards the bright lights on the ceiling, no fight left in me.
My skin singed to the bone.
My soul slipping away.
I dropped my weapon, arms open towards the sky, and let tears fall freely down my burning face.
At that moment my mind went blank. I had nothing to live for. She was the only thing that made sense in the world and I couldn’t keep her safe.
I failed her.
And because of this, I deserved to die.
The whole room got significantly quieter and the sounds of my attackers moving and yelling were muffled, as if my ears were filled with water.
And that’s when I heard it.
The sweetest, saddest melody. A haunting violin and weeping strings.
I must have heard it before.
It brought back such nostalgia.
And within the first few notes, I knew it was her song.
Then, as I had expected, as if I knew the song frontwards and backwards, a voice so pure and sweet filled my head and echoed through the room. It was so ghostly and beautiful, so sad.
And with one more sharp, fiery blow to my chest from my attackers, my body went limp and fell forward onto the cool cement, my breath shallow and weak.
And I was gone.