Fiction: Group 4
Simultaneously, a pair of light beams burst into existence further down the path on either side. Both beams
seemed to be levitating wholly on their own until the shadows of men were outlined in the faint orange
glow cast out through the windows of the house, shown to be progressing silently and steadily towards
Zhengs unknowing fate.
“So here they are,” Tai thought grimly “right on schedule.”
All this occurred in intense, complete silence and as Tai spectated, it was as if he were looking through the
window of a space shuttle, the world outside alien, unforgiving and terrifying as one might realize that safety
and certain death are separated only by a few inches of metal.
Once Tai had witnessed enough, he cranked the car back into drive and drifted slowly back through the
night towards home, experiencing a nauseating combination of disbelief and relief.
His leaden feet retraced their steps until he was lying back on his bed, eyes returned to its state of unseeing
and his heart returned to its state of unfeeling. He expected the police to visit eventually, sometime soon
most likely, but when he searched for the courage to begin the second leg of his life at this point, he just
couldn’t find it.
He lay in a daze for a while, until after a period of time, he was suddenly aware of a knocking on the door.
Quite distant at first, like the ominous sound of a foghorn to a ship lost at sea, but then its growth was so
unnatural, it came to a point where it seemed to be violently shaking his entire being, threatening to capsize
and spill all its contents into the chaotic vortex of water that surrounded him.
“BANG, BANG, BANG.” The door vibrating wildly, surely about to implode.
Tai’s heart began to race, how could they have come so quickly, it couldn’t have been more than a couple
of hours since the incident?
On his first attempt to stand, his legs slumped beneath him and he fell back onto the bed.
“BANG, BANG, BANG.” The door threatening to bring the entire house down on him now.
He scrambled as best as he could towards the door and with the support of trembling legs, he looked
through the key hole. What he saw made his heart stop.
For a moment suspended in time, he paused, uncertain, and then instinctively opened the door.
A blur flew through the crack instantly, slamming Tai to the ground and screaming like a beast, pounding
his face with a rage of fists before he realized he had fallen, let alone could comprehend acting against it.
Pinned down underneath, blow after blow shattered across his face, each one creating a firework of agony to
be set off behind his eyelids, and every explosion was accompanied with a piercing, tortured scream. Tai
struggled so frantically as to appear to convulse under him, until suddenly there was a break in the relentless
flood of pain and screams. Tai found him through a filter of blood, the knife being flicked out from its
leather sheath and a manic smile grotesquely consuming his face.
“Always remember that you did this to yourself, little brother.”
Zheng grabbed his jaw and yanked it apart as he slowly raised the other arm. It reached its apex, and Tai saw
a glint of steel come swooping down from above whilst frozen in his fear, then suddenly, he was gargling on
his own copper tasting blood. A limitless red river poured out from his mouth and collected in a reservoir
that grew and insidiously spread across the cold tiled floor as his wailing shook the frames of the house,
experiencing a pain unlike ever before, with times only purpose being to serve suffering, the bliss of
unconsciousness eluded him for an eternity and the only graspable, translatable thought was the disbelief that
even after so much blood, he was still not dead.
Through a worm-hole of comatose, Tai became aware of a burningly bright, fluorescently lit space beyond
the thin screening of his eyelids, smelling definitively of sanitation and antibiotics. Tai opened his eyes for
the first time and confirmed his suspicions that, be it by miracle or tragedy, he had been delivered to a
hospital. He was about to call out for a nurse, but then he remembered and a flood of emotions
overwhelmed him. Suddenly he didn’t feel like talking to anyone anymore, which he supposed was quite
convenient. His deep well of despair quickly evaporated upon realizing, perhaps the doctors were able to
reattach his tongue. So in the silence he experimented, sending commands timidly and reservedly, however
soon he could swear that there was sensation in his mouth. He let a grain of hope implant itself into his
heart, yet when he opened his mouth to speak only to hear a monotonous, incomprehensible moan, it
instantly transformed into a wrenching wail, signalling complete defeat, and he felt the seed wither, leaving a
rot in his heart.
