Roman~ June 8 

"Please." His tone of voice suddenly changed. Taking a complete 180. He sounded desperate now instead of threatening. He took a few more unsteady steps towards me, and I mimicked him, moving back until I felt the hearth of the fireplace against my calves. "I don't want to hurt you. I just need a place to hide for a day or two then I'll be gone." The intruder raised his hands, the broken doorknob falling to the floor as he did. "Please..." He pleaded, His voice sounding weaker than before and the pain he was in becoming more apparent on his face.

I stared back at him unsure of what I should do. Should I try and run for the back door or go along with what he said? No, I should run. I don't know him, and there's something definitely wrong him. I mean what was with that animalistic growl and his eyes?

"I swear... Just let me stay, even... even if it's only for the night... I'll leave... in the... mor-." His words started to slur together and drift off as he began to sway on his feet. He groaned as his eyes closed and his hands found their way to either side of his head.

"Hey," my voice was shaky as I called to him. "Are... are you okay?" What am I saying? He was obviously anemic from blood loss. Why did I care anyway? This man - thing, had broken into my house attacked me, and now it wanted my help?

The intruder's eyes opened slightly and stared at me for a minute before rolling back into his skull as he dropped to knees and fell back on to the floor.

I just stood there for a minute as I tried to comprehend what just happened. Part of me thought that this was my chance to escape but the other part wanted to make sure he was still alive and help him.

In the end, I chose to run. I need to call the police, I thought as I slowly shuffled to the right then bolted through the kitchen to the back door. I flung it open and dashed outside. I ran around the side of the house and down the street, but I didn't make it very far before I slowed down and stopped. The desperate look on his face flashed through my mind, and I clenched my jaw. He looked scared. I don't know what his story is, so maybe he had a good reason for breaking into my house.

"The hell am I thinking?" I asked aloud. "I'm thinking like some love-struck teenage girl in a cliche movie."

My consciousness was practically at war with itself. One side saying I should go back and try to save him while the other sensible side was like 'screw that. He tried to kill me!' To which the other one replied, 'but he said he didn't want to kill me.' My mind went back and forth like that. It was like having an angel and the devil on either shoulder, but I was having trouble deciding which one actually wanted me to live.

In the end, I decided I was smarter than this and started walking again. "Yeah," I started nervously talking to myself. "I am an intelligent 27-year-old adult with common-sense. There's no way I'm going to put my life in danger for someone I don't know. Not to mention someone who tried to kill me."

If you thought I actually listened to myself, you're wrong.

Before I knew it, I was standing in front of my house again. I pursed my lips and narrowed my eyes at the front door. I shook my head as I climbed the steps. "What the hell am I doing?" I mumbled to myself as I paused at the door. My whole body was tense as I clenched my jaw and slowly pushed it open. The stranger was still passed out of the living room floor where I left him. I hesitantly stepped inside, closed the door and leaned against it as I stared at the half-dead body bleeding all over my hardwood floor.

I pushed my tongue against the inside of my cheek for a minute before finally deciding to push off from the door and walking around my unconscious intruder and making my way to the bathroom for my first aid kit. On my way out I grabbed the fresh towel hanging on the wall and returned to the living room.

"There are so many things wrong with this picture," I told myself as I knelt down beside the man. "Number one, He broke into my house and tried to kill me. Therefore I should be calling the police." I pushed his jacket open then cut his shirt open with the scissors from my first aid kit.

"Number two, He's injured and bleeding heavily. So I should definitely be taking him to the hospital. But no, here I am trying to save his ass."

I continued to talk to myself as I worked. When I had the guys clothes out of the way found the source of blood. He had a gunshot wound on the lower left side of his abdomen. The thing that was most shocking was that there were blue and purple lines spreading out around it and blue smoke was coming out of it.

"Well, that's not alarming at all," I grumbled.

I pushed my hand under his side to feel for an exit wound but didn't find one. Indicating the bullet was still inside. I put on a pair of latex gloves and grabbed the pair surgical pliers from my kit. After sterilizing them, I went to work trying to removed the bullet.

When I pushed the pliers into the wound the fish out the bullet, the intruder's eyes flew open, and he let out a cry of pain. His hand flew to my wrist top stop my attempts at removing the bullet. I nearly jumped out of my skin at his sudden awakening. His eyes were wild as he looked around quickly before he looked at me again. He looked confused for a minute then as he looked at what I was doing he seemed to understand but gave me a questioning look. As if to say, 'Why are you helping me?'

"I don't quite know why I'm here either," I decided that was in fact what his puzzled gaze what saying and went with it. "But if you want my help you need to be quiet while I pull the bullet out. I know it's a lot to ask, but you can't scream, or the neighbors will definitely call the police."

He gave me a slight nod of understanding and let go of me. His eyes went back his side, and he watched me go back to fishing the bullet out. He sucked in a sharp breath through clenched teeth. He groaned as he let his head drop to the floor. His hands started to flail around a bit like he didn't know what to do with them or he was looking for something the grab onto. But when his fumbling hands didn't find anything he settled with gripping his thigh with his right hand while he pressed his left over his mouth.

I pushed the pliers a little deeper, and his groan turned into a whine. I glanced at his face a few times as I worked. His eyes were wide and brimming with tears, but he managed to hold still and only make a small amount of noise.

I pushed a little deeper again and felt the pliers hit something. Bingo. I started trying to grab the object to pull it out which earned me some more pained cries from my patient. "I'm almost done. Hang in there. Deep breaths." I instructed. His teary eyes met mine for a minute before going back to focus on the ceiling.

As I moved the tool around to get a good grip on the object, he started to scream. His body was trembling from the effort to not squirm. I paused for a minute and waited for him to collect himself a bit. He pulled his hand away from his mouth and took several deep breathes. He raised his head to look at the wound for a second then dropped his head to the floor again. His hands waved around again as he looked around him. He looked like he was wondering if there was any other way to get the bullet out.

"Fuck," he breathed

Having found nothing, his hands returned to their previous positions, but instead of covering his mouth he put his wrist in his mouth. He looked at me again and jerk his head in a slight nod.

I inhaled quickly then brought my eyes back to what I was doing. I worked as fast as I could. After a few failed attempts and a lot of muffled screaming and crying, I managed to get the bullet out.

"Got it!" I yelled triumphantly.

As soon I said that the man's body went limp. His hands fell to his sides, and his eyes rolled back as he closed his eyes. His breath was labored, and he was still shaking as he tried to keep from crying more. His hands shifted to press against the injury, but I stopped him.

"You can't touch it. You're already at high risk of infection. I don't need your dirty hands touching it and infecting it more."

He balled his fists and pressed them to his sides.

I grabbed the towel I had brought with me and used it to wipe away as much of the blood as I could. When I was finished cleaning up all the blood I could, I pulled out a needle and thread. After sterilizing and threading the needle, I glanced at him. His eyes were closed, and he had stopped moving around. He was still panting, but he was taking deep, steady breaths now.

"I'm going to start stitching you up now," I warned. His eyes just barely opened enough to look at me then closed again without making any acknowledgment of my words.

"Here we go," I said quietly and started to tread the needle through his skin to sew up the wound. He inhaled sharply and held his breath till I told him to breathe again. He did he was told and took shaky deep breathes.

"That's it. Almost done." I assured him as I worked.

Once I was finished, I cut off the excess thread and dropped the bloody needle into the first aid kit and pulled out a patch big enough the cover the wound. I securely taped it into place then sat back and let out an exhausted sigh. "Alright, I'm done," I announced as I pulled the bloody gloves off of my hands and tossed them aside.

"You still alive over there?" I heard a week 'mm-hm' as a reply and nodded slowly. "Fantastic," I mumbled as I stood up. My body ached all over as I stretched. I looked down at the man lying at my feet who was teetering between consciousness and unconsciousness.

I turned and walked into the hallway and opened the closet door. I grabbed a couple random blankets then returned to the living room with them. I stepped over to the couch and dropped one of the blankets on the floor. I unfolded the one I still holding and laid it out over one half of my L-shaped sofa. Grabbing one of the few pillows that decorated it I placed it at the end where his head would be then turned to face the person who would be sleeping here.

"Come on. We need to get you off the floor." I told him as I knelt down beside him again. I slid an arm under his shoulders and got him to sit up. He let out a groan as his head rolled forward. I put his arm around my shoulder and tried to haul him to his feet but failed. "You have to help me out here," I stated. He let out another groan, but he moved his legs around and with a lot of effort on my part I managed to get him on his feet though I was struggling to hold him up. I ended up pretty much dragging him over to the sofa. I tried to gently set him down but ended up dropping him the short distance onto the couch which brought out a cry of pain from him.

"Sorry!" I apologized quickly.

I checked to see if any his stitches had started bleeding. Seeing that they were okay, I put my hands on his shoulders and guided him to lay down. He didn't resist at all and happily let himself fall into the comfy cushions of the sofa. I grabbed his feet and pulled off his boots before putting his legs on the couch too. I turned and grabbed the second blanket from the floor before unfolding it and draping it over him.

I sighed and plopped down on the other half of the sofa. I leaned forward and rubbed my arms over my face a few times before leaning back and letting out another sigh.

"Thank you." A weak voice whispered.

"Don't thank me till you survive the night. Or what's left of it at least." I told him.

I was so tired, but my mind was still reeling from the events that had taken place in the span of the two or three hours that I had been home.

Giving the man one last glance I stood up and walked to my room. I closed the door behind me and locked it even though I didn't think a locked bedroom door would really stop him since he had broken my front door knob off like it was nothing.

I kicked my shoes off, pulled my shirt over my head and climbed onto my bed without getting under the covers. I looked at the clock. 2:11am.

I'm sure if I hadn't been awake almost 24 hours my brain would have been telling me that needed to take more precautions to ensure my safety but I was just too tired to think about that. I laid on my stomach and buried my face into my pillow, waiting for sleep to overcome my body.