Garen

Garen sat upright, the pitter-patter of rain on his tent was a constant hum in his head. He felt lightheaded; the drink making him feel as if he were falling when he closed his eyes. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt like this. He was a sensible man, and in the past had always avoided going too far, he derided such behavior as ignorance as a man without his faculties was like to do stupid things and Garen was anything but stupid. In fact, it was very much unlike him, which made him wonder how he had managed to find himself alone, intoxicated, and in a tent which was becoming more unfamiliar to him by the second. Was the tent even his?

“I didn’t have that much to drink” he whispered, his voice hardly coming from him at all.

The flap on the tent opened revealing the silhouette of a woman outlining the opening in the dark. A sense of dread washed over him. He recognized that figure, he had more than once familiarized himself with it, but it couldn’t be. She was dead, he had seen to it himself. He had thrown her from the bridge, seen her fall on the rocks below.

He moved to get up, his heart pounding in his ears, but in a flash, she was on top of him. She pushed him back with surprising force. He made to cry out, but the words only seemed to echo in his own head. Had she drugged him?

“Remember me?” she said darkness covering her face. Garen imagined her smiling, that little b***h would be smiling. It made his blood boil; she had no right to make him feel this helpless. Yet, here she was.

“Don’t bother trying to talk sweetheart; I wouldn’t be able to hear you anyway.” Her words coming out as if they were meant for a child. Making it clear to him that he didn’t quite understand the situation in which he found himself.

She was silent for a moment but then he heard her reaching around in the dark. Her silhouette seemingly growing larger above him. That’s when she began to hammer.

Pinning his arm, she began to nail the palm of his hand into the ground, the pain reverberating throughout his body, tears and snot streaming from his eyes and nose as he tried to fight her. But It was no use. He tried lifting his hand, finding only the pain of tearing skin and then resistance as his hand reached the head of the nail. He cupped it and could feel the blood welling up in his hand as she started on the other.

“I’ve had a lot of time to think about you Garen, I’ve thought about you every day for the past year… and I still struggle with getting you out of my head.” She sat on his chest now turned away not even looking at him in the dark; like she didn’t want to see what she was about to do.

“I don’t take as much pleasure in this as you might think. I mean we have a history, you and I…. but believe it or not this is a job.” She paused for a moment, the quiet seeping into the room, the hum of the rain eerily absent from his mind.

“No-one had to bend my arm you understand, but I thought I could do you a favor, seeing as I’m not able to get you out of my head.” She turned and placed a nail centering it on his forehead.

“Maybe I can finally get out of yours.” and with one solid blow, she struck the nail, her blackened figure above him fading into the complete darkness as the blood rolled from his forehead onto the dirt floor of the tent.