Listen.

For the first time, I'm uploading something very different: this is a creative piece from my latest english exam paper. The topic for my essay was 'Write a story titled 'Listen' in which the protagonist becomes the antagonist or vice versa. Create a sense of timing and setting.'
So here goes. 

Listen.

Listen very closely.

Can you hear that feeble sound, like autumn leaves crunching crunching underfoot?  Can you hear the light footfall coming your way?

Keep listening. 

Can you hear raspy breaths like a hot summer wind blowing against rags?  Can you hear the rhythm of the breaths as you hear them approaching you?

Close your eyes and listen.

The darkness is closing in on you but listen or it will swallow you.  Close your eyes tight and hide in the darkness beneath your lids for that is your only solace.

Listen- what do you hear now?

The footsteps are coming closer.  The breaths are growing louder.

What else do you hear?

The slow thudding of your beating heart like a sledge-hammer in your chest.   

The darkness is warm around you; yet you feel shivers running down your spine.  Your fists clench in anticipation but instead of feeling any hope, all you feel when you do this is sweat and anxiety.  Your knees are shaking now and your lower lip is faintly trembling.  Sweat gathers on your forehead like fresh dew might, in the mornings on young green leaves.  Even in the darkness, your face is visibly losing colour.

Keep listening.

As I watch you, I wonder, do you feel any sense of remorse for all that you've done?  Do you  remember now, in this moment, that all the women you slaughtered just to see their life and blood ebb out of an incision you made; stood right here before you- just like this?  Does it thrill you to take their place, in the way that it thrilled you to put the women in this place at all?  The sweat beaded on their foreheads too and mingled with the tears on their faces.  Did you care?

You should have listened.

You should have listened to them screaming and crying, praying and pleading.  Instead, all you did was hear them.  It excited you, to see them before you silenced them forever.  It was music to your ears, to hear them cry and scream.

I know all this because I listened.

You have shattered families, you have shed blood that left children orphaned, parents child-less and husbands as widowers.  You carefully picked out women with complete families in their homes and love in their hearts.  You meticulously hunted them down, drew them out and walloped them in your darkness.  One quick incision to the life force at their throats and you would let the darkness swallow them forever.

I just saw your eyes flutter wide open in terror.

You can't see anything in the darkness.  Has realisation set in on you?  Do you know why you're here?  Something about the amount of fear I see in your eyes and your quickened thudding heartbeat amidst all this silence, tells me you do.  Don't struggle, your hands and feet have been bound as tightly as you bound the women you killed.  Don't try to scream, your mouth has been gagged because if you scream, you won't be able to listen.

And you need to listen.

Listen to the now faster falling footsteps. 

Listen to the low, throaty chuckle as it comes your way. 

Listen to the raspy breathing almost at you ear.  Listen to the hum of metal as it callously cuts the air, it hasn't touched you yet.

Keep listening.

Listen in your own head to all the screams and cries and pleas of all the innocent women whose lives you took.  Listen, now, instead of hearing them.

Listen to the tears rolling down your cheeks and listen to that scared little heart of yours, pounding away within your chest.

Listen, for I am coming.

Listen to my footsteps.

Listen to my breaths.

Listen to the hum of steel as I send your own instrument of joy, your way.

Listen until the darkness swallows you like it did all those women.

Listen to the heart beating in my chest for all the women you slaughtered and all the women being killed out there.  These killers are going to have to start listening to Me soon.

For now, You listen.