The Final Stage

Final Moments
-Arabella Lindsay
The sweat began to bead on her brow. Her heart was racing at a thousand miles per hour, while her heart pumped adrenaline through out her body. Her attempts to muffle her labored breathing where in vain. Her body simply would not allow her to calm herself and slip into the shadows.
The sound of footsteps came echoing into the room, a pair that was moving frantically in terror, and one that moved confidently in long strides, their boots hitting the ground deafeningly, causing the noise to bounce off of the wall in every direction. She peered through the blinds of the closet where she was hiding.  
Please God, don’t let him see me.
Gage burst into the room, stumbling over himself, as entered. He turned and slammed the door shut, locking it. Gage then ran to the corner, propping himself against the wall. He drew a knife from his belt, and held it out in defense.
He knew that the lock would not hold for long, after all how had the intruder entered the house in the first place. How had he skimmed past their high tech security system? So much for ADT and their Always There.
Claire wanted so badly to leave her hiding space, and comfort her anxious lover. But she also knew that it was not long before the intruder entered into this room. And if she was visible when he entered the room, then she knew that would be her end.
Gage’s breathing was labored; the knife was quivering in his normally steady hands. Sweat poured down his frantic face. He had become the complete opposite of the strong and tougher than nails man that he had once been. Now he was like a sniveling puppy, ready to do anything to spare his life.
The doorknob began to rustle. “Oh, so you are in here,” called a shrill voice. “Very well.” There was several more seconds of silence, before the deafening sound of a shot gun blast filled the room. The knob of the door was gone, and the intruder kicked down the door, standing triumphantly in the debris that clouded around his feet.
“So this is the stage you have chosen for your finally performance. A bathroom. I thought that you would have better taste then to choose something so…” he drifted off as he looked around the room, staring distastefully at the space, “unglamorous.”
What was wrong with this man?
“Well his to his own as they say,” he said arrogantly, as if he was enjoying this, mocking his victims before he did the deed.
“Back away fiend,” Gage said, attempting to sound valiant and full of courage, but the intruder could easily see through the attempt, and see that Gage was nothing more than a scare man, scare for his very life that he knew hung way a breaking thread.
“Fiend? Is that what I am to you? A common criminal?” he questioned with a mock hurt in his voice. He stepped swiftly toward Gage, Gage’s blade began to shake and become increasingly unsteady. The intruder leaned forward, his face mere inches from Gage’s.
Her heart almost stopped beating, a part of her wanted to burst out from the linen closet and kill the man who threatened her lover. But the instinct inside her, the part that feared for her own life, would not let her. She loved Gage, with all of her heart, but when it came down to either him or her, she would be the one to live. She didn’t love him that much.
Gage opened his mouth in an attempt to say something in response to the snide remarks that came from the intruder, but the words could not make their way past the ball of fear that resided in his throat, the ball that was almost choking, making it harder and harder to breath.
“No reply Mr. Walker.”
“Please…,” was the only word that he could say. He was now begging for his very life.
“Please. Your begging for you life now. You aren’t the strong man I thought you were. I thought that you would merely put up a decent fight. But look at you now, quivering like a scared school girl. And let me tell you something. I don’t grant mercy, especially to sinners. And my friend, are covered in sin, dripping in it, drowning in it.”
The intruder drew the blade from Gage’s hand without effort. Gage was to shell shocked to fight back or even have even the faintest idea what was going on.
“Mr. Walker. I am no fiend. I am your worst nightmare. The devil himself.” The intruder the brought the blade across Gage’s throat, making a deep gash. Gage’s blood erupted out from slash in Gage’s throat. The intruder then grabbed the fabric of Gage’s shirt, which was now stained in a dark scarlet blood. He dragged the body of the dying man to the center of the room, and threw it toward the linen closet. “Filthy animal,” he hissed as he did so, an evil grin crossed his face.
Gage’s blood pooled across the cold tile floor of the bathroom. The dark liquid flowed in under the linen closet, surrounding her feet. She felt the scream attempting to escape her lips. To muffle the rebellious cry, she sank her teeth into the flesh of her hand. The cry was muffle, but only once she tasted blood in her mouth, the bitter metallic taste of her blood.
The intruder walked nonchalantly to the toilet, and sat down upon it, crossing on leg over the other as he did. He pulled a small hand towel off of the rack that was mounted to his left. The intruder began to wipe the blood from the knife. “I know that you are in here, Claire,” said the intruder, as he wiped the blade clean.
She felt her heart stop, and then begin to race. The fear in her body suddenly multiplied by over one thousand and spread to every limb in her body. Her breathing grew strenuous on her lungs.
“I will wait for you to come out on your own time. I hope that you will be a little more fun then your boyfriend here.” He looked down on the body, “What a pity and waste of life.” He then spit onto the body. “A true pity.”
The intruder brought his piercing burgundy eyes to look upon the closet again. Claire, knew that there was no way out of this. This was the end of her life, her short meaningless life.
She didn’t know what else to do, how to spend her final moments. Then a thought popped into her head. What the intruder had said to Gage about sin. She looked up at the ceiling of the closet, seeing only darkness.  She began to whisper. Our Father, Who art in Heaven…
“Claire,” called out the intruder, he walked toward the closet, staring in at her throw the panels. “Found you.”