He heard the gaggle echo loud in his ears as his throat filled up with the metallic taste of blood. His entire body shook—from the cold or fear, he wasn’t sure which one. He choked as blood sipped down his airway. He was going to asphyxiate to death. He turned his head to the side and let the blood pour out of his mouth. He could breathe again—not much but just enough.

But what was the use of feeling relieved if he was still going to die?

Fear consumed him as he watched the bloody blade descend again, completely paralyzed, and unable to move. Crippled against the attack.

He was defenseless!

She drugged me, had been his first thought when the knife had made its first plunge into his chest, ripping through muscle and flesh with excruciating pain. It was the only explanation, the reason why his limbs felt so heavy making him incapable of defending himself. He should have known she wouldn’t give him a bottle of Chivas Regal without an ulterior motive. If he lived through this, he wouldn’t be able to look at his favorite bottle of whiskey the same way again. No, if he did live through this nightmare, he was never touching the thing again!

But… he wasn’t going to… he was dying, so yes, he was never going to drink his favorite whiskey again, because he would be dead.

Why are you doing this to me? He wanted to scream but lacked the strength to. He turned his heavy head to look up at her. She sat astride on his abdomen, the long kitchen knife clutched in her hands held up over her head. A dazed look in her eyes and a smile… a smile that chilled him to his already cold bones.

“Please!” he struggled to breathe the word through his numb lips and blood-filled mouth.

He groaned, squeezing his eyes tightly shut until tears leaked through the cracks when the knife sunk into his chest a third time.

Just pass out! He begged his mind to turn off.

He couldn’t breathe. Loud whizzing noises came to his ears moments before the gaggle. His throat was filling up with blood again. He was going to die.

He was going to die, unloved and alone—his greatest regrets.

A smiling face filled his thoughts then, calling his name softly with a heavy Spanish accent.

“Danny.”

Daniel Baker came awake then, his breathing labored and his body completely drenched in sweat. His hands automatically moving to grab at his chest. Through the wet cotton of his shirt, he could feel the thick ridges of the scars. Not those from the surgery but those that Ellsa had given him almost two years ago when she had attacked him.

“Fuck!” he ran his hand through his hair, confirming its wetness. “I thought this was supposed to get easier.”

Well… it had… it was… it is.

But he still couldn’t get over the nightmares that sometimes plagued him. Though now at least he slept through most nights unlike before. At least he didn’t wake up screaming anymore. At least he didn’t need to check that all the doors and windows were locked and the security system was working whenever he was home—night and day. At least he didn’t feel the need to sleep with a gun under his pillow anymore.

He was better, he’d gotten through it. Granted he spent a fortune on therapy but he was on the other side now. Knowing that Ellsa had no control over her actions did help a lot. Actually, it was more like he was stuck on the bridge unable to cross. Despite letting everything go and forgiving, the forgetting part had his feet glued to that bridge over a river of memories, fear and pain.

Ellsa Jabari had once been equal to the boogieman to Daniel. A little over a year ago, when he heard that she had escaped from the mental institution and may have killed her doctor, Daniel became afraid of his own shadow, again. The nightmares had been worse then. Frankly he couldn’t get himself to fall asleep, afraid the moment he nodded off she would appear out of a shadowed corner and stab him again. His electricity bill was high then, with the all the lights being on twenty-four-seven.

Before, after he left the hospital he hadn’t needed to be afraid because she had been arrested and wouldn’t be seeing the light of day ever, if Dale, Ellie’s husband had anything to do with it.

Ellsa had gone off the rails and almost killed her twin Ellie after cutting her open and stealing her unborn baby. Daniel’s jaw had hit the floor when he woke from his coma and heard about that. He guessed that was what helped him deal with his own trauma—the fact that Ellie had it worse and would never be the same again and she didn’t need to see him as one of her sister’s victims. She loved her sister more than anything in the world. After the death of their parents, all they had was each other. That’s why he found it incredulous that Ellsa had hurt her that way. Then he found out the entire sordid story and he felt like he had been an extra character to a thriller movie.

A sick and twisted Alfred Hitchcock thriller movie.