A Lover Buried Alive
Hope you guys enjoy this short story!
A Lover Buried Alive
Mark was never quite certain whether he was living a just life, given his superior intelligence seemed not to be bringing about any prestige or fortune for him. So, anxious he became. This had taken a toll on him, wrinkling his only twenty-years-old face. This discrepancy of what was and what ought to be increased as ages went by, turning the kid’s life so blend that he gave up on his dreams and dropped out of film school. Now, there was only one duty he had left. He shall prove his mightiness to the world; and that will happen through his debut film, for funding which he’d agreed to a contract from a shady dark-net website, where he signed to drive a kidnapped girl to a hide-house, in return for $10,000.
Cyrus, his colleague for this gig, was about a decade older. They were sitting in the car by the target’s house and awaiting her scheduled arrival from class at nine o’clock. “What’s it like?” Mark asked as the two were deeply in thought, inspecting the surroundings. “What’s what like?” “Kidnapping for money.” Mark remarked.
“What’s prostitution like? Easy money that we don’t deserve, really.” Cyrus was playing with his brownish bear and taking small looks at his reflection on the side mirror.
“I need the money, that much I know.” Mark continued.
“What’s the big occasion?” Cyrus asked.
“It’s personal, actually. I’m working on a film to revenge my doubters.” Mark declared.
And at that Cyrus chuckled mockingly. “Kid, you’ve got issues.”
Mark didn’t seem bothered. He rejected Cyrus’ offer of a smoke, though, and proclaimed that if he was to become famous, he needed to stay on top of his health. He instead opted for jarring sobriety, and his teeth started clinching after a short while, an unwelcomed urge for cold shivering that was creeping on him. Cyrus could see the kid’s scared expression through his prideful mask.
“You know, I had some similar issues myself when I was your age. My antidote was alcohol with the slight seasoning of nihilism. Drunk, I don’t give a shit what anybody thinks of me.” This was Cyrus’ best attempt at advising a younger feller ‘wisely’.
“It’s pathetic, if I’m to say. I don’t care about happiness or comfort, long as I see my enemies, who so ruthlessly negated me, burn in my success.” Mark’s shaking was progressively worsening, until he began to twist his left ear back and forth with his opposite thumb. The clock was ticking faster by the minute, and nine o’clock was closing on them.
After some while spent shaking, Mark slowly calmed down as he found comfort in the imagination of his upcoming success. It was nine already, and the old home’s small backyard, fenced with white wood and tightened in both sides by two identical houses, was slowly fading into the pitch darkness of night as light bulbs ceased one by one. The fifteen-years-old Maria walked on this stage with her pink backpack hung on her, oscillating with the movement of her hips, and blocking her fine, long dark hair. The girl’s gesture and walking were childlike, almost absurdly so. “Any idea why she was chosen?” Mark asked.
“Her father snitched on a top dog. They want him punished. It’s an arm wrestle for power. No money is involved.” Cyrus’ eyes were locked on the girl’s walking from the far end of the road towards the backyard. “I’ll make the move, you stay in the car and drive fast when I’m in.” And with that Cyrus masked his head with a black cloth, and, after a momentary silent contemplation followed by a single deep breath, left the car. Mark was stunned. He kept the bad thoughts under the rug, and remained sober as he watched Cyrus’ slender figure grasp an innocent, unexpectedly atypical, soul.
Cyrus carried the girl on his shoulders, for there was no one around to watch. And the girl, she did not shrill one bit. She was in a state of playful curiosity, coupled with an apparent immeasurable fantasy and unprecedented imagination. Her short limbs amounted to an incredibly small appearance. She had on the uniform of a Christian private school, a white bottom up with light blue collars and khaki trousers. Her gloomy smell of violet, which reminded Cyrus of his ex-wife, painted a tragic blue over her angelic innocence. That wide grin, as she entered the car and sat on the back seat, resting her hands on her crossed legs, aroused suspicious superstition and confusion in both criminals.
They gazed at her for a few silent seconds, and as Mark began driving, Cyrus still maintained eye contact with this mysterious creature, allowing himself a concealed sniff of that memorable odor now and then. “What are you smiling at?” Cyrus asked, aiming at an authoritative tune but sounding puzzled and confused.
“I’m excited. I’ve never been kidnapped.” The girl marked with a quirky voice.
“You better know the rules. We won’t hurt you, long as you follow them.” Mark replied.
“Rule One: Don’t stare at me like that.” Cyrus said, and the girl’s round eyes dropped. “Rule Two: We only keep you with us for two days, during which you can’t use technology.” At that, he raised his hand at the girl, “Time to pass the phone.” The girl affirmed.“Rule Three: You will confess to the police that you were lost, and we’ll take care that your dad doesn’t tell else either, if he wants to see you again at least.” At this, the girl’s smile soured, and her eyelids began twitching. Her woeful expression seemed to be revering some inexorable truth. She whispered in a low voice, “My dad isn’t passionate enough to listen to a symphony, reporting a kidnap is out of his league.”
“That, we determine. Your dad’s been a naughty boy and he deserves this reality check.” Cyrus uttered, now beginning to lose his patience. “Rule Four: You talk only when I say so.” The girl kept quiet after that. Until she glanced at Mark through the front mirror, who tried to avoid the contact by keeping focus on the road. “Can I talk now?” Maria asked.
“What do you want?” Cyrus replied.
“I want to know his name.” She was pointing at Mark, whose face went pale, as if washed over by a pint of white paint. He looked back quickly before returning his attention to driving. “I’m Mark, why’d you ask?”
“Your friend’s really heated up. You seem so much calmer, I like it. Let’s get the best out of our time.” The girl said, and her remarks left both men perplexed.
They weren’t sure what to think, and continued to drive in confusion. The road was empty, and some rain was beginning to fall, and thick steam saturated the atmosphere, giving the air a draggy feel. The trip to the safe-house took about thirty minutes, most of which were spent in awkward silence. Eventually, they saw the safe-house’s small opening in the wall of an urban area. Though urban, this part of the city had been long evacuated, after a nuclear mess-up years ago. So it lacked people and made the perfect location for outlaws to hide – not many an officer would risk the biological consequences of traveling there. Once settled inside, Cyrus left to receive their prize and bring it back, while Mark guarded the prey, who was becoming increasingly erratic.
There was a big long empty room in the center of the safe-house, with three rusty wooden couches scattered through it unevenly, they were left by previous drug users who occupied the house. The girl was stationed at one of these couches, an uncomfortable, ugly dark green couch that had lived through glory and shame, and at last was futile and replaced, never to be accepted and loved again. Mark preferred to lean by the wall, and quietly, in his own mind, articulated the plot of the movie that was to bring about his salvation. He preferred not to chat. And badly awaited Cyrus’ return so that he could return home and take refuge in the softness of his bed. The girl, however, had different plans and started her fast talk the instant she was sure Cyrus was at a safe distance.
“I say we go to the movies after your friend came back.” Maria whined. “I’m madly in love with DiCaprio. He’s a real gentleman, don’t you think?”
Mark briefly held quiet and then said with a dismissive voice, “Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t. I’m not taking you to the movies either way. Go with some friends this weekend, we’re returning you two days earlier.”
The girl blushed. Embarrassed, she said, “My friends think I’m weird,” while nervously circling her hair strings around her fingers and twisting them.
“And you haven’t figured why?” Mark mocked the girl.
“It’s not my fault I see the world how it really is,” she now wore an upsettingly fragile face, the expression of an inner battle between her insecurities and ego. “A lady my age should live life to the fullest, shouldn’t she?” “I suppose so. Turn down the enthusiasm a bit, though. I think it’s what creeps people out.” Mark began to head towards the couch Maria took rest upon, and sat right next to her. “You’ve got a vivid temper, don’t be embarrassed of it because it’s rare.”
Maria countered, “And I’m not! I’ll express whatever comes to my mind and censor nothing.”
“And what’s so important an expression that it ought to be expressed so badly?” Mark looked at the girl and saw himself a suppressed body, shoulders that curved inward with a belly that weighed down her front, resulting in a stooping posture. But, in spite of that, her face so intensely opposed this gesture. She’d maintained her optimistic face since the first moment they’d met.
“I think people judge for made-up reasons. I sometimes feel like I don’t fit anywhere. Nobody wants me around.” She said, to Mark’s surprise, and then herself realized the hypocrisy that was a nurturing glee on her face as she vocalized those statements. She was crouching in further as she was imagining Mark in a certain long tuxedo – with a full, manly, secure and stable beard that was non-existent in the real version.
“You’re a poser, I see,” Mark said. “I don’t pose happy for anyone but myself. If people won’t accept me, then I will accept myself.” She claimed that with such a strong voice, it was as if she was convincing herself first.
“That’s a rad attitude. A bit mad, but I respect it.” Mark was making himself comfortable on the couch, sinking a bit further in and feeling himself at more ease than when he was around almost anyone else. He’d gained a peaceful manner – so confident in the face, it reminded Maria of the popular athletes who were always first to be picked in her old middle school. A confidence rooted perhaps in his dream of revenge being closer than ever, with his funding on its way to arrive in the coming hours; or maybe in Maria’s honest and genuine questions, to which Mark had been a stranger almost his entire life. Maria asked if any food was around, and Mark said he’d some sandwiches in the trunk, which his mother had made for him. He brought two tuna and cheese sandwiches, one for each of them. As they began eating, he felt the need to say, “Those are my mom’s, but I usually make them myself. Mine are better.” “I’m sure they are,” Maria said quickly, because she was rushing her chewing. She was hungry for one, but also particularly enjoyed eating in the absence of her father and his repeated picking of her. It allowed for such absolute freedom of expression that it lead her to take on an animalistic and raw behavior, and devour the food like a beast. She, too, felt a strange need to make a strange remark, “I’m so glad my dad isn’t here. After my Ma left us, he hasn’t been himself. He’s developed this over-sensitivity to everyone’s flaws, and his rude bluntness and stinging tongue don’t help either. And he’s a hypocrite, too.”
“Well, he snitched on a prestigious dealer after working with him for three years, so hypocrisy is suitable I imagine.”
“He did what, now?” She had her eyes fixated on Mark and awaited an answer intensely. Her quick transformation to oddity unnerved Mark, who looked away to gather his thoughts before asking, “Snitching on the prestigious man or his working with him?”
“Both.” “Maria, your dad is a terrible man. He’s a washer, cleaning other people’s crime records and lobbying for any gang who pays most. You don’t like him, and I don’t blame you for it.” Her last question had shaken him up a little, but he was still more confident than his normal self in answering it. “That bastard. I wish him dead every night.” Maria’s eyes were circled with wet tears. She was starting to chew on her thumb and her feet were speeding back and forth under the couch, so to calm her. Mark recognized that anxiety, and he was most familiar with every sign of it. He was good at detecting anxious thoughts, but not so skilled at confronting or resolving them. After an array of ideas on how to calm this poor girl’s heart came to his mind, he realized he’d been in silence for far too long and the girl’s desperate cry was deepening. He stated hastily, without any thoughts, “I never saw my own dad. But after hearing what my mom had to say about him, I prayed him dead too.”
“I want mine to be tormented in the anguish of uncertainty. Tell him you killed me and never turn me back to that hell.” Her voice was slowing down with her struggle to breath as her heart rate rose higher and higher. She was never so confident in anything as she was in wanting to spend the rest of her life away from that demon. This is when, after her remark had already been spoken, she realized her implication in dwelling alongside Mark, a kidnapper and a stranger. This twisted her feelings for a while as she scanned Mark’s uncomfortable reaction.
“That’s brave, I have to admit. But I don’t make the decisions around here, it’s all up to what the client wants,” Mark said, and then felt the tension that had built in him be released. It was the perfect respond he’d given, he thought, because he wasn’t to be blamed for being heartless this time. He was being honest – honest – untruthfully honest.
Maria’s fantasizing went on, and Mark had now worn forty different customs and had acted in hundreds of hypothetical scenarios. She was sure that in a life where no one had accepted her, she should not shy away from the opportunity of being loved by another misfit. “I need a savior, someone to love me unconditionally and accept me no matter what,” she continued, “I’ve never felt the intimacy of being accepted without conditions and requirements. Will you be my loving savior, dear Mark?”
Mark was shivering and uncomfortable, his stomach growling with indescribable pain. His sense of confidence were depressed in the ambiguity of the newly established question of their dynamic chemistry. He’d no idea how to act. The pressure of answering burden over his shoulders. On the one hand, Mark knew that this was the wrong decision, for no matter how cold her dad was, with her dad, she wouldn’t be destined to the abnormalities of Mark’s reality. Abnormalities and strange episodes that he wished not to share with anyone. But on the other hand, he was in no delusion that the cause of these abnormalities was, at least in part, his cynical view of humans and his general untrusting of their judgments. In this regard, in untrusting judgments and anticipating only evil deeds, he saw himself no companions, no one that held similar values. Until he found Maria, a fifteen-years-old whose hatred of people had made her act eccentric, who needed his help most of all, and in whom he saw a younger reflection of himself, rebelling others at all cost. “I’ll have to talk to Cyrus about it first, he knows the boss better.” Maria was not satisfied. Her fantasies were turning wild. She was rushed with a surge of emotions in her belly, a nervous feeling she’d never had any positive associations with, but this time was glowing her up with an odd sense of liveliness. Her eyes did not leave Mark’s side, and her mind was lost in his sweaty smell of strength and power. Maria’s mind was portraying in him everything she ever wanted in a man – a caring man, elegant with words and considerate in nature, whose strong body and powerful character protected her against all troubles. In her mind, this picture of a bearded, slightly older Mark, who was to father her future children, was becoming bolder and bolder. Her sweating became more intense, as well, and Mark was bound to finally notice how fiery she’d become inside.
Mark’s thoughts were racing at the speed of sound. He could not focus. He normally had no trouble controlling his thinking, for he was not an emotional person by any definition. He always repressed his emotions at intense moments and tried to act with pure reason. But there was no escape this time. He could feel the young girl’s body heat rising degree by degree, pulling the string that was already tensed with even more horsepower. Normally he took no notice of a girl’s physical appearance, of anyone’s physical appearance really, but this time, Mark, imitating a hungry stallion, became deeply focused and attentive of Maria’s every small movement, and, finally, of her tragic smell. His inner battle was between his heart and mind.
And at that, Maria seized Mark’s collars and the two bodies finally touched. Maria felt warm, appreciated, accepted and secured. Not to be abandoned, not to be ignored, but to be considered and loved. Mark’s mind, which was unstable until a second before, stabled in the courageous decision to let go and allow this situation to take its full course. He, too, felt some love, but more than that, he felt peace. Almost as if something deep inside him had switched – and now, he no longer ought to be in an indefinite competition to acquire praise. But both were unsure. And hesitation characterized their expressions of love.
Mutual acceptance bonded the two broken soul as they first touched. They continued as if they had been in love for years. An ecstatic stream of emotional fulfillment was drowning them in bliss. Their long search for love had ended, and now the end justified all the struggles of its means. Or so they thought.
They spent the next three hours melding into a human pile of affection. They made promises, as it were. Mark’s initial hesitation had now turned into an obsession with the girl, a fast-growing obsession which was apparent in his deep stare on her. He’d found the solution to all his inquiries in Maria’s sweet smile and tragic smell. And Maria’s doubts about the purity of Mark’s soul were met with his assuring words, “I promise you, once we get out of this place, I’ll never commit another crime, for money or else. I’ll be a good person. And I’ll always listen to what you say.”
At last, Cyrus rang the street door’s bell. Mark and Maria were both surprised and terrified by the shrill sound. “We need to leave,” Mark said and rose from the couch, fixating his classic dark brown button up. Then he leaned a hand to help Maria, who accepted it and rose as well. The two opted to walk out the back door and cross the building from outside, hoping in the car before Cyrus has a chance to see them. The plan seemed plausible, given they were still intoxicated with exotic forces.
So they walked out the back. Maria grabbed her backpack and Mark made sure he had the car keys with him. Cyrus’ banging became louder as he was growing inpatient and was calling Mark’s phone repeatedly. Cyrus smelled something wrong. He knew he shouldn’t have left that young lad alone with a kidnapped girl, nothing pious could come out.
Mark first silenced his phone, but the vibration was still loud and would make them apparent to possible predators. So he shut it down and kept it in his back pocket. At that, he remembered what he was rejecting with his new life, a chance to revenge his enemies with making his superiority known to them. He was trading his greatest dream for a lover’s touch, and he was not one bit hesitant about doing so after experiencing true love.
As the two were crossing the side of the old building, they could hear Cyrus’ frustrated voice, “Where’s this idiot?” Slowly it got louder and more aggressive. The two took a look upon the car in the not-so-far distance and decided to run at one call.
“Ready? Three, two, one, go!” Mark counted, and the two ran like hell was chasing them. As the distance shortened bit by bit, and the car’s view became broader and broader, they realized they were seconds away from a new life that had in place a peaceful and loving aftermath for them. This was the redemption they both had sought for years.
But life is full of unexpected turns. In the last second, as they only were two or three steps away from the car, Cyrus saw them and growled with personal anger, “Stop, or I’ll shoot.” His gun was pointing straight at Mark’s bosom. He’d been suspicious of him from the very first moment, he thought, and continued, “I thought you a careless man, but what is this? You are kidnapping the kidnapped?”
“Cyrus, I wanted to tell you about it first. I’m in love – we are in love, and I can’t submit to your stopping us.” Mark was standing tall, with eyes raged with red blood and tensed fists. Maria was more scared. She thought of herself unlucky, it was clear that life would find a way to ruin her every moment. And now, whatever happened, the stain would never be cleaned entirely.
“Listen to me, you idiot, love is a lie. I know how you feel right now, but it’ll all pass in a couple of weeks and you’ll be left with the same terrorizing emptiness that frightens you now. Don’t chase it, it won’t solve your problems.” Cyrus tried to fight Mark’s strong air, but he was scared of what might happen next and his own darkened memories and experiences of love were banging him in the head. “I know what I’m talking about. Look at me, man, and see what a lover’s fate is. One day, she’ll abandon you, one day you’ll be left all alone to yourself. One day you will remember your every encounter with her painted in gray numbness and red wounds and thirst for her blood. Once you’re betrayed and cheated, after you’re left in your own isolation, you’ll never be the same Mike. Please, don’t trust love.”
Mark had nothing to say; he was simply amazed at how emotional the man had gotten. It was as if he was speaking with his whole heart, crying a loud sound, begging to be heard. Maria had begun crying, as if this man’s emotions were transferring through the air. The slight rain was suddenly fastened, and its smell dominated the scene and stole the attention of everybody momentarily as they stood in silence, awaiting the next stimuli to react to.
“Cyrus, please, my friend, be more rational about it. I’m sorry about whatever happened to you, but this is what I want for me. I don’t care if it gets ugly one day, because to have lost is better to never have.” Mark was playing rhetorically with his newly gained confidence in an attempt to talk his way out of being shot. But with that, he lost track of Maria’s growing unsteadiness. The sound of her uncontrollable shaking and crackling shivers were approaching the sky, and were only getting worse after hearing Cyrus’ soliloquy about love.
At that, Maria ran towards Cyrus with her hands open. Cyrus was ready to shoot, but Maria’s weak appearance coupled with her outward expression of genuine terror yielded his mercy. He pushed the girl down, however, and rejected her desperate request of a comforting embrace. She fell to the dusty ground head first. Her chin was bruised.
Mark’s eyes were filled with fury, a maddening rage that cracked the well of emotions he’d buried inside. At once, he took benefit in the fact that Cyrus was distracted with Maria’s shrills, and jumped on him like a nomad. As if intending to eat this skeleton already dead inside, Mark engraved his two sharpest teeth deep into the man’s shoulder blades, and twisted his head to scratch off a piece of this man’s flesh and expose his blood to the wilderness. Cyrus’ screams rose high, his bodily pain silencing his constant loneliness at the cost of bringing about his death. He was shot with his own gun after his flesh was bitten off his alive body. And Maria laid on the ground, forced to watch this scene unfold. She looked only at the floor and kept both hands on her ears to avoid as much of the frightening sounds as possible. But this bloody dispute appeared wilder when inspected through the play of the shadows; a tragedy in the theaters of shadows, of a man-beast, a werewolf who, frustrated in search of contentment and caged in a reoccurring puzzle of self-worth, had broken into the realm of the lunatics.
But Mark never saw this play. To him, this was an act of bravery, a sacrifice for the greater benefit of his lover. For his lover, he’d do anything that was there to do, he thought. He never perceived the shadowy scene of his figure towering over a defenseless and broken man.
“I can’t handle this. I can’t handle it,” Maria screamed in between her gulps of tears and gasps for air. Mark tried to hold the girl up, but at his touch, she jumped back like a snake in terror, and gave him such a defeated look that he was silenced. Mark saw, in Maria’s terrorized stare, his own demise, his own failure to be a man. It was a fear greater than anything he’d felt, more bone shaking than even the rage that gripped him seconds before. A fear that he’d lost what he’d searched for all his life after only hours of achieving it. He’d wanted love, true love, genuine love, all through his life, and he’d thought it was never possible, he’d thought that since true love is not real all that mattered was prestige, but all those beliefs, unnatural but appearing harshly true to him, all had disappeared with the first touch of a lover, only for that love to be shattered soon after like a fallen mirror. This fear transformed him. He wasn’t shaking anymore. He wasn’t pacing his feet or biting his lips. He was stationary – he was dead.
Mark’s cold and lifeless stare hypnotized Maria. She was speechless at the deepness of this man’s soul. She wasn’t scared; she was awed. But she had seen what this being was capable of. She knew he had nothing to lose, and no force could confine this man any longer. He was a man to escape from, a murderous and merciless tormentor of souls. So she ran, she ran like hell, away from Mark towards the open country and the tall, skinny, and branched trees – all leafless in this time of fall.
At her escape, Mark did not hitch. His mind was empty now. He let the girl away for a few seconds, and then switched open his car and drove toward her. Maria was striding with quick steps and breathing heavily for her life. She focused all the strength left in her to run faster, with longer steps. She was exhausted, scared, and sad – disappointed, really, that her lover turned out more unstable than she was. She could not begin to imagine the horrors that awaited her if caught. Her imagination tortured her in articulating masochistic images of her animalistic destruction by this wild beast, colored in scream and pain, squeezing and twisting.
Mark’s blank brain drove the car with full power right at Maria, and she was knocked down at impact. Her senses sank and she fell to the ground with her eyes closed and her mouth open. Mark left the car and carried the body to the truck. He opened the trunk’s door, emptied the trunk of the old sandwiches and the playboy magazines he carried, and extended Maria’s body long in there. He then walked towards Cyrus’ body and inspected his jacket’s inner pocket for his cigarettes. He grabbed the cigarettes and lightened the first one with a lighter he found in the same pocket. Then he got on his car and drove to the east. He smoked like a professional chain smoker the whole way, stopping only briefly in a tool’s store where he purchased a shovel.
After roughly two hours of driving, he reached the forest that was near a mountain that sat atop of the city. Here, thick and tall green trees dominated. He went to the trunk, and by opening it, he awoke Maria, whose eyes opened into a metallic pain that stung her mind near her left ear. The sharp stabbing was felt in her right knee first, but more intensely in her brain, where a dazed headache was overtaking her reality. She wished to run away, but upon getting up from her laid position, she realized her left ankle was completely smashed and her left foot was barely hanging off her leg. This gory scene elevated her suffering and she yelled in her crying voice, “Please, kill me off and let this pain be over.” Mark wore a sinister grin on his face similar to the one Maria had on when she was first captured, but he did not say anything – only the insignificant outburst of air through the nose that was a chuckle. He then walked to the back seat and grabbed the bulky shovel. Maria saw it, and wasn’t sure what to make of it at first, until he started to dig, that’s when she realized what he planned for her.
“Mark, I promise to do anything you say. I’ll be your slave for the rest of eternity. I’ll love you and only you. I’ll never look at someone else. Please, don’t do this to me.” She kept yelling and crying as she watched the hole get deeper and deeper. “Isn’t this what you said you always wanted? To be loved? I love you, sweetheart. I love you!” She cried more helplessly than ever.
Mark dug deeper and deeper, and stayed dead silent. His robotic motion continued until the hole was about three feet deep. He was hearing Maria’s words but could not make their meaning. A deafening cover of silence had been drawn over his auditory field so that voices merged into one another, and distinguishing the external ones from the internal ones became impossible.At last, he carried the body to the hole. Her every bone was shaking, as her body prepared to be buried alive. All her instincts and memories were inept at overcoming the sheer strength of this monster. He had full control over her in her last minus. A dominance that satisfied him and seemed to him the only way of fixing his broken pride. It was all that he could ask for, but it didn’t feel the same as when he was embracing the girl’s body only hours earlier. This control seemed artificial – incomplete and artificial in some sense.
After she was laid in her dead bed, her intense, passionate crying turned into a slow, tragic weeping. She’d accepted her faith, but her instincts did not let go, even in those very last minutes.
“Please don’t do this to me… Please don’t do this to me… Please don’t do this to me…” She mumbled in dissembled fragments, with the weak, defeated tune of a resident who’s lost to mass genocide. Mark continued through this. He started to, shovel by shovel, put back the dirt over her still breathing body. He had no expressions at this time – a blank canvas that observed Maria’s soul accept defeat and death. The dirt had covered all her lower and upper body, with her eyes and forehead at last covered in mud and dirt. The only exposing part was Maria’s mouth and nose. It was as if Mark took pleasure in letting her live and suffer for longer. It gave an extra taste to his sense of control; he had control not only over this girl’s physical being, her biological life, but also her psyche. He could scare her to the point of destruction, and he was determined to do so.
But life is full of unexpected turns. At that last moment, as she uttered the last desperate and weak, “Please don’t do this to me,” a sharp sound came, and a bullet traveled straight into Mark’s head. It was the deputy from the nearby station that Maria’s father had alerted after her absence through the night. Mark’s body fall over hers, and she breathed out a vow of freedom as she smelled the same sweaty strength she smelled earlier, but this time with a different meaning.
