Two - Fight

The man with two voices took another step inside. The sound echoed off the other side of the street. With one more step, he carried himself out of the blinding sunlight, and the shadows fell from his face.

He moved the long wild hair out of his face. Blood dripped from the ends of his hair, onto his big, beefy fingers, each of which wore at least two rings. The rings were of all different styles and colors. Many of them looked to be wedding rings.

I squeezed my left hand tight, and felt mine still firmly snug on my ring finger.

“Girl?” he grunted. His clean-shaven face seemed to clash with his other wild features and voice. His mouth remained hanging open after he spoke. His eyes were hopeful.

I shook my head and stood up straighter, attempting to hide my weakened state. “No girl.”

His teeth clenched together and grated from side to side. His fists balled up. I tensed, ready for him to charge. But he didn’t. His arms relaxed, and he tilted his head to the side ever so slightly.

“We heard her.” His voice was calm now, the calmness that made my hair stand on end.

I suppressed a shiver and said “You heard wrong; there’s no girl.”

He bowed his head and turned it from side to side, as if expecting to see a little girl crawling between his feet. His head suddenly stopped moving, and his eyes locked on something on the floor, just a few feet to his right, under the glass-less window. The giant man bent over and straightened up holding a small sneaker. Zoey’s sneaker. My hand shot to my pocket; it was empty.

He held the shoe in both hands as delicately as if it were a baby bird. His eyes rose to meet mine; they were burning with greed.

“Where?”

I swallowed hard. My right hand tightened its grip on the scissors I held, still at the ready. I tried to talk again, but my voice failed.

“WHERE!” He kicked a barber chair. The back rest tore at its seams, and it flopped onto the ground. He grabbed two handfuls of his hair, pulled his head back, and bellowed. It made my insides squirm, and the mirrors rattle.

His roar ended, and his head snapped back into place. He gently placed Zoey’s shoe on the counter next to him. We locked eyes. “Show me where she is,” his eyes pleaded. “No,” mine answered. “I will kill you”, his warned. “Come and try it.” And then he charged.

I raised my right arm in the air, winding back to strike with my scissors. He kept barreling at me, seemingly unaware that I even had a weapon. My arm struck down, and my vision was cut off as his giant, open hand covered my face. The hard, dry cuts and scabs covering his fingers scraped my left cheek and ear.

His hand tightened around my face and I could feel my eyes begin to pop out. He charged right through me, lifting my whole body up by my head. A second later, and I was slammed against the back wall of the barber shop. My face was still engulfed by his hand; all I could see were stars.

I kicked my feet wildly. My right leg could barely swing back and forth. My left foot made contact many times, but I felt no difference in his death grip. My head was being squeezed tighter and tighter. Splotches of red and green popped in front of my eyes.

I grabbed at his arms blindly. My jaw popped painfully, and I realized I couldn’t breathe underneath his grip. Suddenly, my right hand caught something. It was long, metal, and sticking out of his forearm. The finger-sized loops on the end felt familiar. Through my disoriented state, I realized that only one of the scissors’ blades was sticking into his arm.

With the last strength I had before I suffocated, I slipped my fingers through the holes again. With my free arm, I pushed down to gain leverage, and then I sank the blade in as deep as it would go. I felt it stop suddenly as it hit bone. The man’s howl of pain filled the barber shop. And then I did what scissors were made for: I closed the blades. I felt flesh and muscle tear under the pinching edges.

My feet hit the ground and light filled my vision. My knees buckled and I fell to the floor in a heap. Although my eyes were no longer being covered, my vision was still contorted; only small patches of the real world revealed themselves, the rest hidden behind flashes of colors.

My ears worked perfectly, though. Under the sound of panting and screaming, I could hear blood splashing onto the floor, and the slapping sound of boots stepping through puddles of blood.

I tried to stand up, but now even my left leg had had enough. All I could do was sit against the back wall, blind and helpless. His screams of agony carried on for another minute. My vision was starting to return. The first thing I noticed was the puddle of blood had spread from mirrored wall to mirrored wall.

I focused on my attacker. He was still screaming, clutching his right arm. The back side of his forearm hung loosely, like the face of a Bloodhound. I could see severed tendons hanging limply from the wound I had made. Blood covered his shirt and denim jeans.

I adjusted my weight, preparing to turn myself over and crawl to the back of the store while he was distracted. As I stirred, his attention immediately came back to me. His screams turned into growls and he stopped his tortured pacing. I sat, frozen in place, helpless before my attacker.

We locked eyes again. His desire to kill me was palpable. As he stood in place, his upper body bobbed from side to side. The steady trickle of blood continued to add to its new home on the floor. The puddle had become deep; almost deep enough to completely hide the scissors lying on the floor several feet in front of me.

I could see no other way: I rolled myself over and felt myself become drenched in warm blood. The scissors were already a foot closer. He moved toward me, but he was too anxious, too clumsy; he moved too quickly, and slipped on his own blood. He fell backwards, and landed with a crash. The store shook. Blood splashed my face, blinding me once more.

I heard the piercing sound of glass breaking as several mirrors fell from their frames and crashed on the floor. Shards of glass flew through the air, covering my exposed skin in tiny cuts. I shook my head and wiped the blood from my face. I could see, but my vision was becoming blurred; my body was about to fail.

The scissors lay just a couple feet out of reach. I reached out with my right arm and pulled my body forward. As I did, I felt the skin on my arm being cut open as it pressed against the glass now hidden beneath the pool of blood. I could tell it hurt, but I felt the pain from far away, as if it wasn’t even my own.

One more time. I reached out with my left arm and pulled. This time, pain exploded from my arm as it was penetrated by the glass. The man stirred for the first time since he fell. A painful, groggy groan escaped his mouth.

Blood dripped from my bangs, running down my forehead and attacking my eyes. I forced them to stay open, forced them to stave off the terrible stinging. The trails of blood continued their assault, fouling my mouth with an awful iron taste.

Now I reached with my right arm and felt the scissors between my fingers. I tried to close my hand around them, but my fingers were no longer working properly.

I shut out the rest of the world. All my concentration focused on these scissors. All I needed to do was get my fingers through the loops, and then it wouldn’t matter if my hand couldn’t grip. I got my middle finger through. My index finger wasn’t working as well. In fact, after several near successes, I realized, like the arm beneath it, I no longer had feeling in it.

I was suddenly lifted up into the air by my left arm. The floor sped away from me. My scissors dangled, threatening to fall from my middle finger. I turned my head and saw the man with two voices, his face just inches from mine. His right arm hung limply at his side. Blood poured from his hair like an over-saturated rag.

“Kill,” he grunted. More blood splattered my face as he spoke. “Eat.” I tried to lift my right hand, but my strength was gone.

Behind him was one of the mirrors that hadn’t fallen. I saw myself, covered in blood. I didn’t recognize myself, suspended over the ground by the hulking man as if I weighed no more than Zoey.

Half my body was numb; dismembered for all the use it still provided. The other half radiated pain " the kind of pain that makes you forget who you are. With my last shred of sanity, I put Zoey in my head, and pictured her wonderful eyes, and her long blonde hair. I pictured the way it bounced when she laughed. I heard her squealing laughter, and, once again, found myself laughing weakly. There were worse ways to die, surely.

The man raised me higher, preparing to throw me, or slam me into a wall, I didn’t care which. I just kept smiling like a fool, focusing on the reflection of Zoey in the mirror.

I reached my maximum elevation. And then I stopped. He had stopped moving. I hung there, held in place, staring at Zoey.

“Zoey?” I whispered. My heart doubled its already rapid pace, because I had realized that the image I saw of Zoey in the mirror wasn’t imagined. She was standing outside the bathroom door, her hands covered her mouth, and her hair swung from side to side as she shook her head. And the man with two voices, my would-be killer, saw her too.

“Girl!” He shouted.

My right hand flew to his neck with new-found strength. I wasn’t even sure if the scissors were still hanging from my finger. They were. One of the scissors’ open blades stuck into his neck. He screamed in surprise, but it came out a gurgle.

His grip released me, and I fell to the floor. The last thing I saw before I blacked out was Zoey, her blue eyes like a beacon amid the barber shop painted red.

 

“It’s me!” I heard her voice; the woman I loved. Her words were cracked, on the verge of hysterics. “We can’t because of me!”

An image slowly melted through the black curtain of my vision. I could see my own hands holding something: a plastic white instrument the size of a tongue depressor. A solitary green dash lay singularly, defiantly, tauntingly in the center. I hated that green dash.

I heard my own voice. It was a forced calm, also teetering on wild emotion. “It doesn’t mean we can’t keep trying…”

Susan hiccupped, holding back sobs. “It’s all because of your stupid battery! That " that GODDAMN LIGHT!”

My vision became faded " everything turned blue. The color became brighter and brighter, until my arms disappeared behind the glare. A solid, neon blue dominated my sight. It became so bright that even Susan’s wailing sobs became muffled through the white noise.

“Jim…Jim, I’m sorry…Jim, where are you? Don’t leave me!”

 

“Boop. Boop. Boop.”

I heard it like an echo. Was I dreaming? Even alive?

I felt something small, soft, and warm touch my nose, three times.

“Boop. Boop. Boop.”

My eyes opened. The store was dark. I could only see shadows. I saw a massive, lifeless bear of a shadow lying on the floor next to me, scissors protruding from its neck. Another shadow sat on top of my stomach. It had long hair, and I could barely make out two blue eyes. I smiled. It was weak, but I smiled.

“Daddy, I found my other shoe.” She handed me the shoe that I had lost. I took it. She held her foot out and I slipped her shoe on and began tying the laces.

“Zoey, you didn’t stay in the bathroom like I asked. That was very dangerous.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s OK, honey.” I finished tying her shoe, and poked her nose three times. “Boop. Boop. Boop.”

Her giggle warmed my heart. A flash of light caught my eye. I looked outside, and saw the sun, reflecting off a high window across the street. It was dawn.

“Was I asleep all night?”

She nodded enthusiastically. “You’re all better now, right?”

I ran my left hand down my right arm. It was covered in sticky, dry blood, but there was no trace of glass or cuts.

“I think so, sweet heart.”

Zoey gasped “Daddy! Daddy, guess what?”

“What?”

“There were eight bricks on the wall!”

I remembered my attempt to distract her yesterday. I laughed. “Wow! Eight bricks?”

“Yeah!”

I pulled her closer to my chest and hugged her for the first time, her warm body breathing life back into me. I ran my hand through her long, blonde hair, and kissed her on the top of the head for the first time. As I lay on the floor, dried blood cracking on the tiles, we watched the reflection of the sun rise.

“I love you, Zoey.”

“I love you too, Daddy.”

Author's Note

One of my writing goals for this book is to include as little exposition as possible. I want the reader to get a vast majority of the information they need through dialogue, or through the active thoughts of the narrator. My hope is to accomplish this in an organic fashion that doesn't also leave the reader constantly back-tracking for missed information. Instead, I want the reader to be able to say "Aha! this explains that thing from earlier! And I figured it out by myself." Anytime this happened to me while reading (or even with TV and movies), it made the discovery mean so much more than if I simply had it all told to me in exposition. Being told "this is important" always felt like I was being told what I had to take away from it, which defeats the purpose, in my opinion.

Reviews

[Kianna]

Dear Alex,

When the father blacked out, was that a flashback or something? Is it going to be important because I found it tore me out of the story. I had to reread to understand what was going on there. Maybe more detail, but then again that might be too much exposition. I don't know; I have a thing against flashbacks. That was my only concern, but otherwise, I loved how you handled this fight scene. My insides were literally churning and my heart racing as I read, hoping the protagonist lives to see his daughter again. I think you've done a great job with this chapter. I saw minor mistakes, but only grammatical and nothing to distract from the story.

So good job!

SIncerely,

JazzSoulKeke

God bless

[Alex]

Thank you, that's very satisfying to know how anxious this chapter made you! Yes, that was a flashback/dream-based-on-memories. Was it the transition that confused you? I did put in a line break to show a break in the narration, but it is hard to argue that it doesn't really stick out from the surrounding chapters. I included it because I feel it's important, as it's the only new thing introduced in the chapter, without which, this could be a closed story after 2 chapters. Not a bad thing, but not what I'm going for. Yes, it will be important. I don't intend to include a lot of flashbacks, so bare with me for now! :)

[Kianna]

If the flashback is important, then it's fine.

[ANTO]

"The puddle had become deep; almost deep enough to completely hide the scissors" - super descriptive - says so much about the villains well-being.

I do want to turn the page. I normally have diffs with stories on here - poor concentration but I didnt with this.
well written.

[Alex]

Thanks for your reviews! I'm glad you're enjoying my story so far - it's been very rewarding to get so much support from readers!

[Sesame]

Hello Alex,

Good violent chapter. This is what I was hoping for after reading chapter 1. It is well written and the tempo is good as well. Good job. There was one thing that threw me off a little bit: somewhere during the fight the father has no feeling in his arm and has the greatest difficulty to get hold of the scissors. When he sleeps on it, he is again able to tie his daughter's shoe laces, a complicated operation for human fingers. I am no doctor and have no understanding of what you mean him to suffer from before passing out, but it sounded a bit contradictory to me. In my opinion this could be solved by mentioning the arm/fingers when he wakes up again. Example: "his arm hurt, good, this meant the feeling had come back. Could he move his fingers? Yes. Could he move them enough to tie..." Anyway you get my point and its just a suggestion. I'll add chapter 3 to my reading list ;)

Regards,

Sesame

[Alex]

I'm glad you enjoyed the action in this chapter. I'm also very glad that the shoe tying stuck out to you. This was deliberate, and I've been curious to see how obtuse this exchange was.