Just Another Messy Ending

Waking up the next morning, I found myself staring into the brown eyes of Tragedy, who was gently shaking my shoulders.

“Oi, Wild One, wake up” he whisper-shouted, slapping my arm a few times while I blinked myself awake; once I was fully conscious, I didn’t hesitate to knock his hand away.

“Alright, alright, I’m awake!” I groaned, letting out a yawn before shuffling myself to sit up in bed. “What’s up?”

“You’ve got training with Party, remember?” Glancing at the clock on the wall, I saw it was six am – fifthteen minutes before I had to be meeting Party down in the same box room as last time.

“Ah, shit, yeah; thanks, mate” I scrambled out of bed, weaving past Tragedy in the process and started hurriedly getting dressed, keeping it to simple black combat pants and a short sleeved black t-shirt. Once I’d done that, I entered the small bathroom on the other side of the room, brushing my teeth, hair and using the toilet in what must have been record time before exiting the small room.

With a friendly nod towards Tragedy who – bar the boy he was kissing last night and was now sitting up in bed with – was the only one awake, I left the bunk area.

The cold air bit at my skin as I left the building, starting my walk across the pale sand in order to reach the box room, in which Party was no doubt already waiting.

Kicking up small clouds of dust beneath my feet, I made the five minute stroll to the building I was only loosely familiar with, knowing that I was most probably going to struggle with getting the door open.

To my internal happiness, though, I managed to find the loop handle and tugged it open with ease, holding it carefully above my head so that I could just lower it down behind me once I was on the steps.

Cautiously, I wandered down the wooden steps, half expecting something to jump out and scare me as I descended them. Nothing happened, though, and upon entering the small room, I noticed Party standing in the centre, a lazy smile on his face.

“Good morning, Wild One” he greeted as I walked up to him, stopping about a metre away from where he stood.

“Good morning” I replied, even though I saw nothing good about being up this earlier.

“Today, we’re moving on from hand-to-hand contact” he started, slowly circling me like I was prey and he was a tiger – honestly, it was making me nervous.

“In what way?” I questioned, my breath starting to hitch as Party crept up behind me, stopping so close to me that I could feel his breath against the back of my neck.

“Why would I tell you? A real attacker wouldn’t tell you…” he waited precisely two seconds, nowhere near long enough for me to process his words and prepare myself before his hands grabbed my waist, pulling me sideways to the floor.

I landed on my side with a crash and following Party’s instructions from yesterday - to always make sure you can see your enemy - I scrambled to turn around to face him. He was on the floor behind me when I turned around, reaching out to grab me again.

That was when I saw it – the gun in his hands.

And then I lost it.

Kicking and screaming at Party, I thrashed around in the arms he’d wrapped around me, trying to throw him off.

I was in too much of a panic to notice the confused look Party was shooting me; he obviously didn’t understand why I was acting like this.

“What the?” Party mumbled, as I grabbed at his wrist, trying to push his hand with the gun in away. “Wild one, what are you-?” he continued as I tried to punch his chest, eventually resorting to biting down on his arm to make him move it away from me. “Ow!” he yelped as I continued to struggle violently in his grip, continuing to yell, but this time actually managing to form a coherent sentence.

“Get it away!” I choked out as Party took control and pinned me on my back to the floor.

“What? Billie, snap out of it, now!” his use of my real name must have meant this was serious since he was so adamant about us using code names. “Billie!”

He was now sat on my chest, holding one of my wrists in each of his hand, the right one also holding the gun. While I looked at it with fearful eyes, Party finally understood what I was freaking out about and with a small ‘oh’ he threw the gun across the floor.

“Billie, Billie, look, it’s across the room, not near you” he explained in a calm tone. “Breath, Billie” I tried to control my ragged breaths as tears pricked at my eyes; unless you had a fear of guns and were then faced with one, you wouldn’t be able to understand how much panic I was in – the pure fear that flooded through my veins.

Once I’d calmed down a bit more, Party released my wrists, only to have me sit up and collapse against his chest in tears.

To my surprise, he wrapped his arms around me and held me tight.

“Oh, Billie…”.