There are no stars in the sky, only the bleak street lamps and moon illuminate the street. Kyle wanders along the sidewalk, nowhere to go, seemingly aimless. He’s frantically typing messages for his older sister, Laura, and wiping away tears from his face. Kyle’s day has been terrifically terrible, first getting fired from his job, finding out his partner has been cheating on him with his best friend, and then getting kicked out of their shared apartment. Now he’s alone, with his few belongings, trying to find a place to spend the night. Laura isn’t responding, why would she? It’s a few minutes past midnight and she works all day, she’d be sleeping by now. Kyle is desperate though, so he resorts to calling Laura after a bit. It rings and rings, but Laura has yet to pick up the phone. The ringing noise coming from Kyle’s phone attracts the attention of somebody. Somebody looking for another person, and they’ve just found a new victim.
Laura finally picks up the phone, and Kyle tries explaining his situation to her so she can help him. Unfortunately, he’s interrupted after the stranger hits him in the head with a fucking metal pipe. He stumbles a bit, not quite knocked out, and tries to figure out what just hit him. As Kyle turns around, the stranger hits him in the head again, rendering him unconscious at last
“Kyle? Are you alright? What are you doing up this late?” Laura says groggily through the phone. The stranger drags Kyle’s body away into a black van and shuts the back doors. “Hello? Can you hear me? Where-” The stranger crushes the phone with the heel of their boots, cutting Laura off. They leave the glass bits on the sidewalk and enter the vehicle, driving off to who knows where.
Kyle blinks a few times and tries to get up from the ground. Due to the blows to the head, he’s concussed and disorientated. He can’t remember how he ended up here, but he does know that wherever he is, it’s not good. The main reasons are; that he’s tied up; he has duct tape on his mouth; and three people in red robes stand around him, one holding a weird-looking dagger and some creepy-looking book. Putting it all together in his mind, he’s probably being sacrificed in some creepy ritual. The realization strikes, and he immediately starts panicking. I gotta get out of here, he internally screams.
“GUYS, I THINK HE WOKE UP!” One of the cultists exclaims.
“Yeah, no shit, Sherlock,” the other one says, “he’s moving.”
“Man, this is gonna end up messier than I thought.” Says the third one with a sigh, placing the book down and then looking straight at Kyle. “Alright buddy, don’t worry, this will only hurt a little bit.”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Doubting this statement, Kyle rolls out of the way of the first swing of the dagger. He uses his legs and tries to kick the cultist, too bad he’s tied up and disoriented, so it doesn’t land directly where he wanted it to. Nonetheless, the cultist holding the dagger is stunned for a moment and Kyle awkwardly worms his way out of the centre of the sacrificial room.
“AGH, DAVID, JOHN, HELP ME OUT!” shouts the kicked cultist. Oh fuck, this isn’t good. David and John look at each other for a moment before getting a move on and grabbing Kyle. Kyle starts writhing around and tries to make it difficult for the cultists to get a hold of him. He doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing, he’s just in a state of absolute terror, fear, and adrenaline.
“Stop moving, it’ll be over soon,” John says nonchalantly. Kyle is thrown back where he was originally, and the cultist with the dagger gets up.
Plan A didn’t work, so it’s onto plan B now. Kyle fumbles at the knots on his arms that are tying him up, and notices they’ve just tied him up in a single overhand knot. He does one single pull, causing the rope to fall to the floor. The cultist attempts to stab him again, but Kyle grabs their arm just in time and throws it away, sending the cultist tumbling down. He quickly unties the ropes around his legs, rips the duct tape from his mouth and stands right up. He frantically looks around for an exit, but this room is too dark and spooky.
“Oh shit, he got out of the ropes, who tied those again?”
“DAVID, IT WAS YOU WHO TIED HIM UP!” The unnamed cultist scolds.
“Oh, my bad, Fred.”
John goes to tackle Kyle as soon as possible. They both tumble down.
“Holy shit- what the hell is your problem???” Kyle says confused and panicked. John doesn’t bother to respond and puts his hands around Kyle's neck, attempting to choke him. Kyle uses his legs and kicks John in the groin, freeing himself from restraint. He stands back up again but bends down to cough and open his airways again.
Unfortunately, letting his guard down was a bad idea. Fred grabs Kyle’s back and plunges him into the dagger. The dagger is driven right into the middle of his chest, slicing a major artery near the heart. Fred shoves it further in a couple more times, ensuring Kyle can’t survive the attack. The pain shoots into him like a sharp, cold icicle. Kyle looks right into Fred’s eyes in disbelief. He bleeds more and more each time his heart beats. He can feel the fleeting of his life at this very moment—the inevitability.
“Nothing personal buddy, just doing what the boss said,” Fred says through gritted teeth. He takes the dagger out and a trail of blood flies after it. Collapsing on the ground, Kyle holds his hand up to his wound, but it won’t stop bleeding. The crimson colour flows through his fingers and there’s nothing he can do. It’s almost silly, all these terrible things that happened leading up to this very moment, dying in a weird ritual room presumably underground. As Kyle closes his eyes, his only hope is that Laura… maybe Laura can find out what happened to him and move on once he’s dead. He doesn’t want to go out burdening anyone.