It started out like any other day, at least like any other day in a town where murder seemed as regular of an occurance as recieving your morning paper, with me dreading the ever increasing likelihood of the moment where I and my end would meet. I was just thankful that I had actually been getting some decent sleep the past few days. My first nights in this town were filled with horrid dreams of burning alive, being slaughtered in my own room, sacrificial rituals - wierdest dreams I've had in a long while. The worst part about them was the fact that they were so vivid, as if I hadn't woken up from a nightmare but rather like someone just hit the reset button on the whole day.
Lately, my sleep habits seem to have been improving, though I've also come to realize my growing paranoia is keeping me indoors. The seclusion, I thought, would keep me alive but at the expense of alienating myself from the rest of the citizens. I began to worry that perhaps my absence would begin to rouse unwanted suspicion, so I took it upon myself to make a trip into town, maybe start building bridges rather than just letting them rot. Little did I know, the maniac of the week decided to rig my car to explode the moment I would make the turn off the highway and likely send myself and my flaming, mangled steel coffin into the quarry at the edge of town. Fortunately the best laid plans of my would-be murder were thwarted and merely became my worst experience dancing with Death.
Somebody's bad end to a morning commute aided in my survival. There were pieces to somebody's steel fender, all chromed out, something for the kind of car you let sit in your garage, covered with a tarp until that one good day where the sun would shine and you could take that Tucker Torpedo out for a Sunday drive. Luckily, the trashed treasure somehow slipped from my view and I drove right over it. The hunk of metal was shot up under my car by my driver's-side wheel, piercing the incendiary explosive's casing and detonating it about a mile from the turnpike. Soon, the inside of my car was filled with searing heat as flames crept through the frame, slowly working on engulfing my prized POS Civic. I veered out of control as I panicked and sent my car into an oak at 55 miles an hour. My airbag deployed, though it became yet another double-sided stroke of luck. It saved me from my singed seatbelt's failure to secure me to the seat and prevented me from flying through my windshield just to see if tree bark tasted any different when I was being thrown into it, but also knocked me unconscious, leaving me defenseless against the fires that were consuming my vehicle.
After what was a brief moment and what may as well have been an eternity, I awoke twenty feet from my smouldering car, lying in the grass on the side of the freeway. I should've been dead, I knew I should've been a well-rested and crispy commuter in the driver's seat, yet there I was. Breathing relatively fresh air at the fringes of the smell of smoke and burnt seat cushions, I still lived. Looking around, I failed to find any sign of my rescuer. You know you must have gone right somewhere in you life when the only reasonable explanation you're still alive may as well have been divine intervention. Unfortunately, as I would later find out, my short winning streak over the fourth horseman would come to an unhappy, bloody end.
I trekked home after that encounter, not having the desire to deal with people and just wanting to rest my eyes, but was greeted by the sound of my phone ringing once I stepped through the door. As exhausted as I was and as much as I just wanted to ignore it and go to sleep, it would've been a shame to not answer a call, certainly not one as perfectly timed as this.
"Yel-" before I even had time to say a greeting, I was cut off by an urgent voice.
"Anthony," said the voice. "They're coming for you."
"Who's com-"
"They, the whole town. They're after you."
"How could they think it was me? I was almost killed. By the killer!!"
"Yeah, well, they're having none of that. There's no stopping them now, they want blood. You just happened to be unlucky enough to be next on their list."
"Shit...how much time do I have?"
"Let's see, today's Monday, evening traffic is usually...none."
Right on cue, my front door was kicked open and people began flooding into my home. I dropped the phone and bolted for the back, but my attempts at escaping were cut short by a rope wrapping around my throat and being pulled taut. Another pull from the other end of the line and I was flat on my back, winded and choking from the coarse thread tightening around my windpipe. Immediately I heard the revving of a powerful engine and the screeching of tires burning out on the asphalt. It dawned on me that the line was anchored to the hitch of someone's truck, though that revelation would prove to be my last clear thought as the truck began driving down the road, dragging me along behind it. I would soon be wishing that my neck was snapped that instant because not long after I was dragged out of my home, I hit the asphalt hard and was sliding across the road's surface on my back. I instinctively clutched the rope with my hands to prevent the rope from shutting off my air supply completely even though I should have just let myself choke to death. Without my arms keeping me relatively stable on the ground, I violently tumbled and rolled onto my front, leaving my forearms to be exposed and become shredded by the road. Before my arms could be ground down to the bones, the truck veered right and was sent careening to the side, rolling uncontrollably. I tried to use my legs to stabilize myself but my efforts only resulted in a twisted ankle and a broken knee.
However, the agony from these injuries were incomparable to the one I received from colliding, ribs first, into a light pole. The crunch was sickening enough without having several of my vitals ruptured by my broken ribs, including a punctured lung. The pain was unbearable and I could not do a thing to end it, but my salvation soon came in the form of a large boulder - some hunk of rock lying "decoratively" in someone's lawn, one that was about to finally get some color other than its natural dull grey. When it came into view, I was not struck by fear, nor struck by anguish or sorrow, not even relief that my nightmarish ride would be making its stop there. In fact, it was pretty safe to say the only thing I was struck by was the boulder, or rather the boulder by myself. I didn't close my eyes as I and the boulder met and as much as I would like to say it was because I had the boldness to face my death fearlessly, it was more likely because of the fact that I wasn't all there at the time (after all, there was a trail made of me leading to my doorstep, hardy-har har). My skull caved in with a crunch, dampened by skin and grey matter, the rope had snapped, leaving me dead as an unfortunate addition to someone's already terrible outdoor decor, and I was violently thrown into the black.
Then, as if wrenched from the abyss by the very hands of fate, I awoke...
