MALICE IN WONDERLAND
Salty sweat runs down your neck. You can’t wait around much
longer. Move! You crawl along the
floor like a pathetic child to the white cabinet. Your hangover intensifies as
sunlight punches you in the eyes. You see double. The gunfire grows louder as
screams echo out from other rooms. Around
the corner, the bathroom, quick! Your hands touch the metal strip below the
white doorframe. You slip forward when half in half out of the room, your hands
wet and cold. You look down to see urine yellow against the perfect white
tiles. A woman lies dead in the shower, her eyes gouged out with a stream of
blood below each socket. Don’t be sick!
Crawl into the bathroom and wait.
You kick the door
shut, struggling to your feet, using the sink as support. Don’t breathe so loud! You try to keep your eyes away from the
corpse; it isn’t easy. Footsteps: *Thud* *Thud* *Thud* *Thud*
Each grows louder, congruent with your heartbeat, the sweat tastes disgusting
as it enters your lips, like salt mixed with the grease from your skin. You
can’t hold it back, don’t! You spin
around as a final glance at the corpse tips you over the edge: You’re sick.
Your head in the clean white bowl, dirtying it with an off-white-golden mix of
bile and not-yet-fully-digested concoction of whatever you drank last night.
Sounds become muffled as your hearing strains against the noises of your
regurgitation. Weakness strikes your limbs, your arms aching, your legs like
jelly as your grip tightens on the sink. You creep out of the bathroom fatigued.
Upon exiting, it
comes from the door behind you: *Knock*
*Knock* The window, go! You creep
with speed past the floral pattern duvet on the king-size bed. A glimmer of
sunlight breaks into the room from a small crack in the curtains. You pull them
apart, a gateway to safety. You open it. Just before you walk onto the outside
windowsill, a foot penetrates your door, the black boot kicking the wooden
white thing off its hinges. Dressed in black like a secret agent he stands 20
feet away from you, brandishing a black, hi-tech shotgun across his chest like
a bouquet of flowers. Teeth bared, barrel turning. You drop backwards.
You see the shot
fire out of the window, the sound deafening as some of the glass cracks, a vaporised
potted plant falls with you, the dirt showering over you. Debris hits you in
the face as you travel, some entering your mouth. Don’t be sick here, please! You count the floors as you go, other
windows smashed and damaged. The floors disappear: Fifteen… Fourteen… Thirteen… Eventually, you hit the pool, the
water rising up around you: It stings you as if you’d been bitch-slapped all
over. Panting, you swim frantically to the edge and rise from the water.
Gasping for breath, your lungs are aflame as if you’d just run a marathon. Get up! Rising slowly, gaining balance;
you look towards the hotel, then turn around to see the deep blue sea and
coastline, the sun glinting on the surface of the Caribbean water.
Behind the hotel,
an explosion. It deafens you. You cower like a frightened animal as the light
blinds you, missing your sunglasses since they’re no doubt destroyed. The
explosion clears away, bloody parts of corpses, furniture, some of the guys in
black who killed everyone, left in its wake: Just in front of you lies the man from your room and
next to him, his shotgun. A splintered piece of wood impales his left leg, his
black sunglasses broken. You remove the glasses. Pick up the shotgun. Ready the
aim. Ignore the cries for mercy. And
fire!
And like the potted
plant, his head lies vaporised, before a once 5-star hotel.
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