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I wasn’t sure where I was or how I’d gotten there Actually, any one, except for a few flashes every now and again Any others were swiped clean froness—the equivalent of a TV with no signal—a gray mass of fuzziness

Wherever I was, I knew I needed to get the hell out of there and get ho for me I wasn’t a baby, but even at nineteen, I still checked in Being an only child meant my mother was very protective of me

I was a respectful youngwith an abusive husband for ht me well Since my father’s death, it had only been us, and I wasn’t about to have her sitting hoer than she needed to be

Rolling onto my side proved to be harder than it should’ve been, but I asped at the pain and stiffness inhow long I’d been lying there If the pain inbody was any kind of indication, I’d say days

I rolled over co them deflated and still Cold, lifeless eyes stared back at me—eyes of death—eyes of the end

It was an unfaht hair and blue eyes However, a cloudy fog had forray instead Hisa row of perfect white teeth It was as if he’d screamed his final breath—screa And thenon the bloody stump where his neck used to be

There was no body Just his head and those eyes that cut through ly

I ju the pain I kneas there in et away from the decapitated head I’d never seen a dead person before, other than on TV It was gruesoet it for the rest of ht be

My backsheetrock Froe point, I could see the room as a whole I looked around in fear for my own life Whoever had beheaded the man before me could still be there He could be after me next

The room came into focus—the bare, tobacco-stained walls, the lone couch in the center of the room, and the table in front of the couch covered with empty beer cans and ripped clothes—I couldn’t remember any of it