Chuckling and planting soft kisses on his arm, she brushed aside his overgrown hair and toyed with his beard some bit.
“Why did you leave me?” he asked in a subtle tone bearing enough hurt in it.
It was a question he had been aching to get an answer for and he wouldn’t want the opportunity passing him by.
Closing her eyes and leaning closer so their lips could lock once again, she slowly slipped her pair out and headed for his right ear as she whispered, “Ask Hammon”.
Drawing away from her gently and with a slight frown growing on his face while his lips parted to ask, “What does Hammon have to do with this?”
A rather loud and distorting noise came badgering through immediately from the distance. The grounds began to shudder in similitude to an earthquake about to happen, before cracks slowly grew from the north wall towards the ground and heading for their bedside immediately. Too stunned to move and in fear of aggravating the disturbing occurrence, the duo remained still and slowly began to move on the bed.
Without notice, the bed broke in half, caved in and the walls began to crumble as the ceiling followed suit. Rolling on his side and to the section of the floor still standing, his heart began to race as copious amount of adrenalin came coursing through his veins immediately.
“Susan!” he yelled. “Take my hand! Take my hand!”
Susan stared back at him, clinging to the bed and hearing the earth beneath them both rumble as it threatened to give way some more. Her eyes shone brightly but bore the expression of fear mixed with a sense of betrayal.
“You always leave me!” she cried. “You always end up leaving me!”
Shaking his head, he hoped to dispute her claim and replied, “I would never leave you… you are my life and I will never leave you!”
The ground between them tore further, setting them apart with the growing seconds.
“Please Sean… Sean! Please!” Susan’s cry grew as the floor beneath her gave way completely.
Pangs of uncontrollable guilt riddled his heart, while his eyes widened in fright as the floor finally collapsed and sent him sprawling to grab hold of her hand but to no avail.
“No!” he cried aloud, ramming his fist into the ground upon which he sought shelter.
Sitting up in his tiny bed and feeling beads of sweat running down his face and back, Sean looked at the walls surrounding him before casting his gaze to the ground too.
“It was just a dream… it was just a fucking dream”, he reassured himself before yanking at the sheet he had snuggled underneath in bid to shelter himself from the cold.
Wrapping the sheet over his head and reminiscing on how lifelike Susan’s face had been in his dream and still looking as beautiful as the last time he had seen her, he couldn’t help but feel a pang of guilt ride his soul there and then. She had accused him of leaving her and as much as she had been the one to in fact walk out of his life, she was still right.
“Maybe I could have chosen better”, he thought to himself underneath the sheet.
Every assignment and decision taken over the years only made things worse for his relationship and he never gave it good thought until it was a little too late. Still drowning himself in guilt and wondering what he could have done different and whether his actions would have prevented Susan from coming to work where she had gotten killed, he heard a trip wire he had put in place at the front door get tripped.
“Someone is in the house!” he thought and slowly moved the sheet off of his face to look around.
Barely seeing a thing through the darkness as the wall clock rang and indicated it was midnight, Sean fondled around his bed for his handgun before taking off the safety and arming himself with a torch. Threading carefully through the darkness and heading towards the source of the noise coming from the kitchen area, he readied himself for any unexpected visitors.
“I wouldn’t take another step if I were you”, he warned, pointing his gun at the back of the intruder’s head before reaching for the light switch just some feet away from him. The intruder remained still, gently lifting his hand high enough to be seen as obedient, and slowly tucked them behind his head.
“Now, slowly turn around without giving me a reason to shoot you in the head right now”, Sean commanded.
Turning around slowly and revealing himself to be his dear photographer from earlier, Sean’s eyes widened and his lower jaw dropped in astonishment.
“Fuck me!” he groaned. “You again?”
Still holding his hands where Sean could see them, the young man responded “Yes and this time around, I need your help”.
Wearing a frown and looking around the room momentarily as though he expected the proceedings to be some form of joke, Sean snorted derisively and pinned his gun in perfect focus to his intruder’s head.
“You must be out of your mind if you think I don’t want to shoot you right now and get this over with”, he threatened. “At least it will be payback for what you did to me earlier”.
Acknowledging with a nod and an apologetic expression, the intruder spoke, “If you kill me then you might never come to know what happened to Susan… the Captain’s girlfriend”.
Absolutely gob smacked and barely able to hold his breath as he waved his gun in the air violently and brought it down and back into focus against the intruder, Sean had no idea on what suitable response he could give the young man.
“Are
