Young Writers Society

My best friend died last night. He was stabbed five times in the chest. They say he bled out in the middle of the street, writhing in pain, his screams falling on the deaf ears of a sleeping city. The city is a deep sleeper; he didn't have a chance.

The police say they have no leads, but I can tell you who did it. I knew it had been a long time coming. It all started in middle school. That's when I first got to know him. That's when he got to know him, too. He had always been an angry man, and I knew he was going to kill my friend someday. But no one else seemed to know; they seemed oblivious to my friend's actions, and his reactions. But I noticed, and I knew one day he was going to snap.

My friend always seemed to do something to set him off, but he wouldn't come right out and admit it. He always seemed to fume. For weeks on end he would just sit there, staring at my friend, muttering to himself. Every few weeks or so, he would come to school with cuts and bruises on his hands. He said he went home and punched holes in the walls in his room, and he would always blame it on my friend.

Things didn't get better as we moved onto high school. We were all in band together; my friend played the trumpet, and he and I played percussion. He would always get shots of revenge at my friend, and he loved playing the mallets because of it. MY friend would reach back and play with the xylophone, and he would smack my friend in the hand with one of those hard plastic mallets. That would make my friend wince in pain, and my friend would glare at him, and he would just grin back at him. Only it wasn't those "just kidding" grins; it almost seemed like one of those foreshadowing grins.

As we continued though high school, he and my friend seemed to be in a constant duel, getting people to pick sides. Most of my other friends would side with my friend, and a lot of the other percussionists would side with him. I sided with him, too; what my friend was doing was disrespectful to the percussion section, and it really needed to stop.

Junior year, I saw a side of him that I had never seen before. My friend, after band one day, began playing on the percussion equipment. While we told my friend to quit, he just went back there, grabbed a chime mallet, and hit my friend in the head. My friend wasn't knocked out, but he was bleeding from the ears. My friend also started to cry; no one had ever seen my friend cry, but he was bleeding pretty badly, so no one blamed him. Meanwhile, he had to talk to the band teacher. He wasn't punished, which made a lot of people mad, but none of the percussionists blamed him for doing what he did.

Last night, he and I were going for a drive. I forget what my friend did that day, but it really pissed him off. He was swearing up a storm the whole ride, and didn't quit until he saw my friend's truck in front of us. He followed my friend for a long time, then finally took a different corner. He gunned it down McMillan Street and T-boned my friend's truck.

My friend hopped out of the truck and started swearing at him. But he was eerily calm. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his knife. My friend stared wide-eyed at the knife, and stopped talking. But it didn't matter; he lunged at my friend and stabbed him in the heart.

"That's for not listening to me!" he shouted.

"That's for being a dick to everyone!" he shouted after a second stab.

After the third stab, he shouted, "That's for not knowing your place!"

The fourth stab was because he had no respect for people around him. According to him, at least.

After a while, he stabbed my friend a fifth time in the throat. He got up close to my friend's face and said, "That's for not dying when I hit you with the mallet." Then he put his knife away and drove home.

My best friend died last night. I stabbed him five times in the chest. And you know what? I'm glad he's dead.