"Falling" (Excerpt)

          His eyes were both empty and cold as he stared at me. My jacket was rumpled from his clutching hand as he held me pressed against the tree. He was adamant that he knew me, though I’d never even seen him before this night.

         I gave up trying to convince him that he was mistaken. I couldn’t be the person he thought I was. We’d never even met. There was a heavy silence as something changed in his eyes. There was certainty coupled with a steely resolve.

        As the leaves in the surrounding trees broke the silence with their whispers of secrets long passed, an icy fear spread through me. It was then that I realized I wouldn’t be able to change his mind. I only saw the knife as the moonlight glinted off its blade. He’d brought it up so fast.

       As he held onto my jacket, pressing my back even harder against the tree, I barely registered the pain from the rough edges of bark. My entire world had become the knife he held in his other hand. And as he pressed the tip lightly against my throat, my last thought before I closed my eyes was that I was going to die and I didn’t even know why.

Jessica S.

May 2019