He woke with a gasp, his hand stretched out over his heart. He could feel it beating, furiously pumping the blood around his body in an effort to keep him alive.
Staying motionless for a minute, he felt his heart beat slower and slower until it had reached normality. Sighing, he paused to wipe the sweat off his forehead and leant back against the headboard, his arms behind his head.
He’d had the same nightmare nearly every night for the past couple of weeks; it started the same, and finished the same. He always felt the same when he woke up. Something was going to happen, something big. He always tried to console himself, telling himself that it wasn’t true. Not only was the dream unrealistic, it couldn’t possibly be true.
The dreams he’d been having were horrifyingly vivid which gave them the essence of reality. He had seen the scene played over in his head so many times that he could recall it at anytime possible.
He was in his bedroom, his iPod and phone both on his bedside table, where he had placed them the night before. His covers were done up in the exact way that he preferred and his pillows were where they were supposed to be. His shoes were all aligned against the wall according to their purpose and his suits were all hung up on the wall opposite.
He would be awake, sitting in front of the computer, staring at old pictures that had been put up on Facebook by his old friend, Selena. He would click through the album showing no interest in any of them except one.
A picture of two boys aged around sixteen or seventeen. They were standing side by side, with their hands around each other’s waist as though they were a couple. Huge grins on both faces, it seemed like it had been taken at a happier time.
The boy on the left was carelessly handsome, his black hair shining in the sun. His smile not only graced his face but reached his eyes also. His teeth shone from his face, as perfect as the rest of his body. His companion was not as handsome, his hair was greasy and seemed to lie on his head as though they were attached by glue. His eyes were small and red and his nose seemed to have been broken twice.
Underneath the picture was a caption ‘Mustafa and Bug 12.09.10’.
On this picture, the mouse would pause and he would stare into it, hypnotised by the miniature figures on it. And then, they would move.
They would both begin fighting, Mustafa would lunge at Bug and Bug would sidestep out of the way. Pulling his opponent to his feet, Bug would go ahead to snap each of his fingers, each CRACK deafeningly real to the man viewing this.
And then the pain would come. The pain of having his fingers cracked, bent backwards until the bones separated and the ligaments cracked. His fingers would fall down uselessly and he would blink in pain, tears rolling down his cheek.
Opening his eyes, he would see that he had taken place of Mustafa in the photo and was held by Bug, his handsome face somehow distorted with anger, burning away with the hatred behind it.
Trying to breathe, he found that no air was being allowed down his throat, such was the grip that Bug had on his throat. He would die here, in this morbid Facebook photo and no-one would be the wiser. Realising this always came as a shock to him and it was here that he would simply give up, his knees buckling before him and his vision going away to blackness. And he would hear a voice, distant and yet absolutely clear ‘You were meant to be my best friend!’
He would open his eyes for the last time to see Bugs burnt face so close to him that he could feel his hot breath, smell his burning flesh. And he would flinch and then scream in pain as the flames from Bugs body leaped and jumped onto him, leaving Bug as handsome as ever.
It was here that he would wake up, the twenty-four year old Mustafa Mohammed, in his silk pyjamas in his king-sized bed, gasping and trembling with fear.
It has been a total of eight years since he had attacked his best friend and yet the memory was still fresh.
After nearly killing Bug, he had woken up in a hospital bed, confused and disorientated. Sitting close to the bed was his brother, apparently sleeping. He looked like he hadn’t had much sleep and looked as though he were under stress. Mumbling in his sleep, he moved and tightened his arms around his chest.
Mustafa had then moved up to see if anyone else was around. He wanted to know what had happened and why he was in a hospital bed. Doing so, he felt a sharp pain from the side of his torso and gasped. Reaching down with his right hand, he gingerly felt the pain and felt something sticky, wet. Confused, he pulled his hand up and saw the blood.
Waking up once again, he found himself in the same bed but the time had changed. It was now day, the sunlight from the window behind him streaming in. he wasn’t alone this time either. He was surrounded by his brother, father and mother. There was also someone that he didn’t recognise who he assumed to be a doctor.
Leaning up, he tried to speak but the words came out jumbled. For some reason his tongue felt weird, as though it was too big for his mouth and was getting in the way. The people in the room all turned at once towards him, concern written on their faces. Trying to speak again, Mustafa got annoyed as they didn’t understand what he was saying and began to get angry.
His mother, realising this, came and sat down on the bed with him. ‘It’s going to be alright son. We’ll get you sorted.’ She smiled at him but it was as fake as the hope in her voice. Stroking his hair, she turned back to the doctor. ‘When will he get better?’
‘Soon, but we don’t know yet. He has suffered great injuries and we don’t even know how. His right side of his body is completely broken, the rib cage, everything. It’s a miracle that his lungs didn’t collapse. The full recovery period for his injuries would be about six-to-eight months.’
And so it was. Mustafa stayed in that hospital bed for nearly an entire year. He became a social reject in that time, refusing to speak to anyone. As he didn’t return to college that year, his friends forgot about him and didn’t acknowledge the fact that he was gone. Even though he could feel his strength coming back to him physically, his strength mentally was low.
He didn’t feel the need to do anything except lie in bed all day. The nurses had all given up on trying to talk to him and the doctors had just concluded that he was suffering from some sort of psychotic trauma.
He had never been able to move on from what had taken place between him and Bug that night. Even now, as the owner of a multinational company that was valued at six million pounds, he couldn’t forgive himself for what he had done. Questions always ran through his mind about what could have happened and what he should have done.
Riddled with guilt, he had spent the last three years tormenting himself. Leaving his hometown, he had come to stay in London where he had built his business. Staying in various hotels, he failed to settle down and kept moving from place to place. His wealth kept people from asking questions and so he continued living like this. Most people thought of him as the ‘eccentric millionaire’.
He was in a hotel right now, guarded by six guards. His paranoia was reaching an ultimate high as he didn’t stay in the same place for more than three months at the most.
Reaching under his bed, he pulled out his laptop and turned it on. The hum of the machinery soothed him and the bright light filled the room. Seeing absolutely everything from where he was sitting, he logged on to laptop and checked his email for any news about the new venture he had set up in China. Seeing none, he sighed and closed the lid.
The darkness soon enveloped him and his heart rate increased significantly. He was blind. Stumbling around his room, he searched for the switch that would turn the lights on in the room and succeeded after falling over twice and hitting his knee on a table.
Sighing in relief as the light flooded the room, he made his way back to the bed and laptop. Getting into his comfortable bed, he reached out for his iPod on the bedside table. Instead of holding the smooth metal, his hands touched nothing.
Confusion flittering over his face, he looked at his table to see that nothing was actually there. The table was bare.
Panic rising through his body, his breathing intensified. Someone had been in his room! What if they were still here now? They could kill him without a moment’s thought and be on their way. His throat convulsing as he swallowed twice and then once more, his forehead already glistening with sweat.
Staying motionless in his bed, he strained his ears to see if he could hear any abnormal noises. He could hear the low hum of the laptop and the howling wind from outside. He could hear the rhythmic tapping off the rain on the windows.
But nothing out of the ordinary.
There was no other breathing in the room. There was no other presence in the room that wasn’t inanimate. He was just over reacting; his six security guards would be more than enough to stop any human being from entering this room.
His reasoning comforted him. There was no danger or at least none in this room. His sleep had been disturbed by nothing more than a nightmare and this was the reason why he was having trouble relaxing.
Reaching for the laptop again, he flicked the lid open and looked in confusion at the screen. He couldn’t understand what had happened. His laptop had just suddenly died on him, even though he had charged it the night before.
There was something out of place with this hotel. His iPod and phone had gone missing and the electricity wasn’t up to scratch. Mentally noting this, he sighed in annoyance and placed his head on the pillow. Closing his eyes, his brain conjured up the picture of Bug’s burning face and placed it before his eyelids.
The feeling of anger replaced his annoyance and he threw back his covers, standing up, and then sat back down again, realising where his phone and iPod had gone. Why his laptop had suddenly stopped working.
He hadn’t realised before that there was a window on the side of his bedroom as well as the one behind his bed. This window was mainly concealed by the blinds that he normally had drawn but now they were open, showing clearly the hooded man that had been watching him.
Seeing this, Mustafa expected to go into a nervous breakdown, have a panic attack and succumb to the ultimate blackness of unconsciousness. Instead, he felt as though he had had a burst of adrenaline shot through his entire system. He could feel the hatred coming from the man, pulsing in through the window and hitting him. He could similarly feel his own panic and energy flowing through the room.
Closing his eyes, he laughed as he saw the image of Bug’s burning face once more. Opening them, he saw that there was no man standing outside the window. In fact, there was no window there. The blinds were once again drawn. His laughter dying down, he wondered whether that had been a hallucination, an effect of sleep deprivation. Deciding on both, he contemplated on whether or not it was time to admit himself into a mental asylum when he heard something that set his heart racing.
Six THUMPS as his guards hit the floor. A CLICK as the door opened. And then the soft sounds of footsteps hitting the fur carpets.
He walked with all the grace of royalty, his footsteps making less then no noise on the fur carpets. Stepping over the curled up charger lead and the laptop, he stopped in his tracks, his cloak moving. Motionless, he stood there, watching.
Time seemed to slow down.
Standing up to face the stranger, Mustafa felt a sudden burst of bravery. ‘What do you want? Money? Jewellery?’ He tried to incorporate some sort of hardness to his voice but it came out quivering.
The man said nothing but moved forward and threw both the iPod and phone to the bed. Both were mangled beyond repair.
Stepping forward once more, he seemed to be so close to Mustafa that they were practically inches apart. Mustafa was reminded of the recurring nightmare and wondered whether it had been a warning to this.
The end of his nose was only visible from beneath the hood that covered his face. Everything else was shrouded in darkness.
‘You are the ‘eccentric millionaire’ then?’ Scoffing, the man stepped back and seemed to view Mustafa for the first time. ‘Don’t look much eccentric to me if I’m honest. Just a paranoid little businessman who doesn’t realise how little difference it would make to the world if he died. Sure, the world would lose out on your ingenuity but I’m pretty sure another self-made business man would take your place.’ He paused here, as though it took great difficulty to speak. ‘You ask me what I want. I want my revenge. You see, a few years back I had this friend. He was a greasy, spotty idiot who had nothing going for him. But he was a good friend, or so I thought. Turns out I’m not a very good judge of character.’
‘Bug?’ Mustafa’s voice came out through his lips as though forced, his voice full of surprise and denial.
Ignoring him, the man continued. ‘He tried to steal away the love of my life and his elder brother so much as killed her. See now that, that sounds trivial. Something that high school kids would do and then play revenge on them. But he then tried to kill me. Even this is not enough to get my revenge, am I right? I’m right. But then I found out the worst bit ever. Although, you know all about that don’t you? I repeatedly told you, Karma is a bitch.’ Sliding out a sword from beneath his cloak, he tenderly stroked it. ‘You see, the thing about swords is that they’re so much more efficient then bullets. Bullets leave traces and traces get you caught. But who would ever suspect that your death would be done by a sword? The idea is laughable.’
Stepping towards Mustafa, he lifted his chin and looked into his eyes. ‘See, that’s the thing about growing up. Your outer appearance changes but your inner remains the same. You’re still that same little boy who wanted to kill me because he loved my girlfriend more than I did. And no. I’m not Bug anymore. The names Revil.’
With that final statement, he threw his right elbow up and slammed it into Mustafa’s jaw. The CRACK that followed was ear splitting as well as the moan of agony that came after it.
Moaning in agony, Mustafa threw his right hand up in defence and used the other to touch his jaw. It had split in two places and hung from his face, the skin stretching as it tried to hold his bottom jaw up.
Leaning down towards Mustafa, Revil smiled and held his sword by the handle and twirled it in the air. With all the flexibility of a gymnast, he thrust the sword into Mustafa’s right kneecap and twisted until the crunch of the bone was heard. He then simply pulled the sword and a piece of bloodied bone hit the floor.
Mustafa moaned again, unable to scream or shout for help, his jaw unmoving. His eyes frantically looked from side to side, as though he were somehow able to telepathically scream.
‘You know, for such a paranoid person, your security wasn’t all that. I managed to twist their heads right out of their body without a single scratch on me. It’s quite laughable if you think about it.’ Smiling at Mustafa, he stood up, his silhouette against the light from the open door casting a shadow on Mustafa’s body. ‘You brought this on yourself you did. I could have lived with the fact that you kissed my girlfriend. I could even have lived with the fact that your brother tried to kill her. But you, god! You didn’t even once think to apologise!’ Sighing, he drew two small knives from inside of his cloak and polished them with his sleeve. ‘I guess I’ll have to finish up here and continue. You know you were a good friend, most of the time.’
Stepping back, as to get a good view of Mustafa, he threw one of the knives with the unnerving accuracy. Hitting Mustafa’s head with a metallic noise, it quivered there, above his blank eyes. His head lolled forward, his bottom jaw hitting his left knee. A dribble of blood oozed its way past the knife and dripped onto his pyjamas.
‘Probably hurt you more than it did me.’ Laughing at his joke, he pulled the knife out from his head and walked out of the room. Closing the door behind him, he stepped past the six bodies on the floor and whistled cheerily down the corridor.
Each body had had their necks twisted and were placed in a circle in front of the door. A note lay by one of them.
12/10/2014.
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