"I'm a murderer." Bemoaned my friend, his hands hiding his face. 

I looked skeptically at my friend, knowing his penchant for ill-timed jokes. I noticed that he was trembling lightly, confusing me because he never went all-out when he made jokes. He usually spoiled the 'punchline' before he could get to it. Making a decision to play along with him, I asked.

"Who did you kill?"

He raised his head from his still trembling hands, looking at me straight in the eyes, his lips pressed in a thin line.

"Oh, I haven't done it yet."

I burst out into an unsettled laugh, covering my lips with one hand. I slowly stopped as I noticed that he didn't break character. "Uhh, that was a joke right?" I hesitantly asked feeling a bit disturbed by his uncharacteristic seriousness. Reaching out to him, I placed a hand on his shoulder. A tense silence descended in the room as he kept staring at me.

Then, as if possessed he grabbed the nearest object in the bedroom, his lamp, and bashed it over my head. The warm and viscous blood dripped down the side of my forehead as tried to run away from him. In my panic, I didn't notice that he picked up the darts that were near his game room. A sharp sting erupted from my shoulder as the darts hit my unprotected back. Letting out a cry of pain, I tried to open escape from his house. Noticing that I was near his bathroom, I ran in and locked the door.

I scrambled to open his cabinets looking for first aid. Unable to handle the constant jolting of the darts that were punctured into my back I removed it, knowing that it was a bad idea. Grabbing the hopefully clean towels, I wrapped them around my wounds. Noticing that the window was open, I grabbed the opportunity to unlock the window lock and maneuvered around the bath to hop out of the bathroom. As a choked-up sound of unbridled hope was at the tip of my tongue.

That's when I noticed him in front of me, the metal porch fence - the only obstacle blocking him from reaching me. Running to the entrance I ignored the pain and let adrenaline block it. As I ran, I moved the patio furniture behind me hoping that it would deter him from catching me.

He ran faster than I ever thought possible, in his hand a kitchen knife. Breathing heavily as blood loss blurred my already half-blind vision. And in an inhumane cry, he stabbed me. the pain was searing. The feeling of a cold sharp knife separating my skin, flesh, and bone. I tried to move, tried to look at him to get him to stop because of the pain, the pain it hurt.

"Pl-Please," I begged, coughing up blood. He stopped moving as soon as he heard me, but continued after a short while, stabbing my back and slowly gaining speed and ferocity. As my vision got darker and the pain slowly fading into the dark recesses of my consciousness, I noticed that a faint light approached. Maybe; just maybe, they heard my screams and called for help?

With a shuddering gasp, I screamed as loud as I was able to.

"𝑵𝒐𝒓𝒎𝒂𝒍 𝒑𝒆𝒐𝒑𝒍𝒆 𝒔𝒄𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒎𝒆." — 𝑨𝒎𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒏 𝑯𝒐𝒓𝒓𝒐𝒓 𝑺𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚