No Hope | Teen Ink

No Hope

January 21, 2016
By Bernie_A BRONZE, Nyack, New York
Bernie_A BRONZE, Nyack, New York
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

David sat there. Blood rushing from his flesh wound.
“David, stay with me please,” said John.
They were in an alley walking to John's house when a gang approached them and stabbed David in the chest.
“John, give me your shirt, I need itt p-p please,”said David as he fell to the ground.
John took off his shirt and covered the wound on David's chest. It only took 10 more seconds for David to be lying on the floor, DEAD. John thought, normally you would not die so quickly from a wound like this, but David had lost so much blood that it didn’t seem possible for him to have any left. David’s legs seemed paralyzed as he lay lifeless. It had been 10 seconds since his friend David was walking happily beside him on his way to John’s home and now David lay there on the hard rocky concrete alley. John was thinking, “What could I have done to prevent this from happening? Why did we cut through this alley?!”  John looked up from David and saw no one in the alley,  nothing but deepening darkness. John thought, “David is dead” and let out a huge shriek, “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
In the distance, there was a busy street and John could barely see people walking fast by the alley. He called out to them, “HELP! HELP!“ John did not see anyone stop. “I NEED HELP, MY FRIEND WAS STABBED!” In the distance, John could see a figure pause. Did they hear him? “PLEASE CAN YOU GET HELP!!!” John hollered. The figure turned his head towards John but then walked swiftly away. John began to cry, overcome with emotion, not sure what to do, he slapped himself and said, “You need to do SOMETHING! Get up and run, you MUST get help! Get moving!!” John got to his feet slowly. His legs felt like they were stuck in mud. He was in shock and all he could think about was his friend lying at his feet.
The scream from John was so loud that the gang who had been in the alley a minute ago and was now around the corner, heard him. The kill was successful they thought, and they smiled at each other. The gang knew they had a new member. This was his initiation, proof of his loyalty, asked of each member before joining their gang - they had to kill someone. John’s huge shriek told them that David was dead. The gang went back to the scene.
John, grieving for his friend, now found he was trapped in the alley as the gang started surrounding him and David’s lifeless body. There is no hope anymore John thought as he looked around. When the gang approached him, they saw him and David. They looked at them and examined David’s body like you would look at a patient being operated on. They looked at John with cold reddish eyes, and John felt he was staring into a window of hell. John shuddered, making one of the gang members smirk. John saw a flash of steel and realized a knife was inches in front of him. Then all eyes turned to David as a barely audible groan came from him.
John said, “Wait! I’ll do anything!”
The gang leader laughed, “So you will do anything huh?

“I got something,” said a person in the back, “if you will do anything to survive, why don't you kill your friend.”

“Wha wha what!? Bu bu bu,” said John in shock.

“But nothing,”said the leader of the gang to John. “You said you would do anything, so kill your friend.”
John swallowed and tried to get time to think. “There is no way out,” he said to himself, “they will kill us both if I don’t try to save myself. Will they kill me if I do what they asked? They might kill me anyway... But there is a chance that they might let me live. How can I do this to my best friend?” John’s heart was racing and his hands were cold and sweaty.

 


How can one minute life be great and the next minute - it is changed forever? Why did this gang pick on us? The gang has changed two lives forever without showing one bit of compassion. “I don’t know if I can kill David”, thought John. The gang doesn’t care about us, we are just a game to them.

“Well, what you gonna do?” asked the gang leader. Just then the flashing lights and siren of a police car are at the end of the alley. The gang grabbed David and John and pulled them through a steel door of an abandoned building, off the alley.

John and David were both alive and laid listening to the gang members talking in the darkness as the steel door shut and locked. John can make out the body of David laying near him, wondering if he is still alive. John must do something quick to save David, and himself, but what? David was his best friend, he had seen him through good times and bad, he couldn’t let it end like this and he couldn’t kill David to save himself. John must fight. John’s heart was beating so loud he thought it could be heard by the gang members. Slowly John moved his fingers across the smooth floor and caught his finger on a sharp object. It felt like a long shard of glass. There was silence after the door shut.

“You aren’t suppose to be alive,” said a man with black eyes, tapping David on the shoulder.
“Who are you? ” said a weak voice in front of John, it was David! “You see, normally I wouldn’t tell anyone my name but I’ll tell you only because I know you will be dead in a minute,” said the man. “Looks like your friend will do anything to stay alive, even kill you. “My name is Titus,” said the man. At this point John moved his hands together and held the long piece of glass like a knife. His hands began to burn and get sticky.

  
“Is this my chance, should I make my move? If I am going to die I might as well kill as many gang members as I can,” John thought to himself. John’s sweat dripped from his head down his face as he prepared himself to kill a person, something he has never done. “There isn’t any hope left, I am out of time”, John says to himself. Just as he is about to spring into action he hears a bang outside.
All the gang members, along with John, turn toward the sound. John then thinks, “Now!” and springs towards Titus, who is closest to him and above David’s horizontal body. John takes Titus by surprise and slashes Titus around his shoulders and neck. Titus looks at John in the low lighting seemingly frozen in shock. The seconds feel like minutes as Titus begins to fall to the ground.
Although the thump was not loud, Titus hitting the ground caused one of the gang members to look towards them.
“POW, POW, POW,” the sound of banging at the door, “Open up this is the police.” The gang begins running up a set of stairs to the rooftop. John leapt on  Titus to stop him from getting up.  The police started smashing on the door, and within a matter of seconds there were3 policemen standing over John, “Freeze, drop your weapons!” The police shine a beam of light on them. John drops the piece of glass from his bloody hands and looks down around him, Titus is not there. John is utterly confused.
David lay on the ground in a pool of blood, his neck slashed. John begins to shake with shock as he realizes he killed his friend. The police grabbed him and slam him face down on the ground pulling his hands up behind his back.
“Punk, you are under arrest for murder,” the police say to John. They read him his rights and take him to the police station where they put him in a small room with a table and two chairs.
    

The police interrogated John who tells the story of the gang attacking them. John explained that the piece of glass was all he had to fight off the gang members and in the dark he accidentally killed the wrong person.
“Can you describe any of the gang members?” said the officer.
John, shaking still, says, “One of them, named Titus, had brown hair, reddish brown eyes and a scar under his left eye.”
The officer laughs and says, “Don’t try to lie to me now! Titus died in a gunfight with the police 5 years ago!”
John shrieks and falls onto the ground crying and muttering to himself, “Titus was there...he tried to kill... I didn’t do it..”
The officer says, “but you just said you killed David youself!”
John, voice shook, “No it was an accident! I was trying to kill Titus! Don’t you understand?!”
“Of course you were”, the officer says.” You were trying to kill Titus, only Titus has been dead for 5 years!”
John covers his ears as if he is in pain.
“We have you on surveillance cameras attacking him in the alley and dragging him into the abandoned building.”

John looked at the screen come to life, the image there was of him attacking John and then dragging him into the abandoned building where John then stabbed David to death.”
“Where are the gang members,” John says horrified.
“There are no gang members.”
“So I killed David?”
“I killed David?” 
The policeman leaned in.
“I killed David.”


The author's comments:

This is a story about two friends who find themselves in a terrible situation, without hope of surviving.


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