The crickets are roaring. Squish-squash, squish-squash. Our feet are sinking with every muddy stomp we take in the green, gooey swamp.

“Bently, you have to be quiet,” I say. Bently has a very loud, annoying laugh he got every time he’s too overly anxious. This is how it all began…

Bently and I are best friends. About a year ago we were going down to the Mini-Mart to get sodas and pizza. He was seventeen and I was sixteen. Of course, being the typical teens, we were both texting, even though he was behind the wheel of the car. While neither of us was paying even a lick of attention, a black kitten ran out in the street. I looked up from my, what seemed at the time, very important conversation just in time to see the kittens innards fly in various directions all over the road. A little girl, no older than six or seven, ran to comfort her kitten, which no longer was in one piece. The tears streamed from her eyes, her nose was bright red and full of the loose snot most toddlers had. She looked up at me with more hurt in her eyes than I had ever seen. The pain and agony I had put on this little girls shoulders was something I’d never experienced before.

I had no clue what I could do to make her feel better. Just then her sister, Miranda, came out. I’d known Miranda from school. She seemed like a fairly sweet girl and to my acknowledgement, she never harmed anyone and she mostly kept to herself.

“Well, well, well, if isn’t AmyGrace. You did this to my little sister?” The anger she held in her eyes and around her mouth was almost too much to look at.

“I’m sorry, Miranda, it was an accident. Is there anything we can do?”
“Yeah, leave. And don’t come back.”
“Okay, me and Bently will be going now, if there isn’t anything we can do.” I was shaking and you could hear it in my voice. I was a nervous wreck not only because I’d killed a kitten and broke a child’s heart, but because now there was some awkward air with a girl I went to school with.

If looks could kill, I would have been the deadest person ever. “One day, I’m going to let you two feel the pain you just put my sister through. Be ready for it.”

Her threat actually bothered me. It was on my mind for days, weeks. Every day in the hallway for the past year I got the same look from her. A year went by, an entire year. I thought she would have been over it. Bently and I were. We continued on with our lives, not remembering the black kitten or the little girl.

Today is September 27th. Today is the day Miranda was getting her revenge. Bently and I were sitting in fourth period, which was Geometry. Miranda came strolling in, with the looks again. I swear, Satan was living inside her and he was the one creating the fire in her eyes.

She was wearing tall black boots with black pants and a black t-shirt. She ordinarily didn’t look like she had just come from a funeral, but maybe she thought she looked good or something. As she looked at me, she bent down, reaching into her boot. While she was still doubled over she recited a phrase that sounded as if she’d rehearsed it a hundred times, “I told you I’d put you through what my sister went through some day. I told you. Today is the end for you two.”

Bently and I frantically stood up, making our way to the fire exit that was stored in the back of the room. As I turned around to gage how far behind me she was, I saw her standing in the center of the Geometry room holding a seven or eight inch knife. Bently and I took off for the back of the woods. With Miranda trailing right behind us, we dove under a fallen tree into a green and black swamp. Both of us were unaware a swamp was even on the same property as the school. The stench of it is so horrible, it made me want to surrender and just give myself to Miranda so I no longer have to inhale it.

That brings us to the situation we’re in now. Trying to hide from Miranda while Bently is making it near impossible because of his ridiculous laughter.

“I’m sorry, AmyGrace, I’m trying to be quiet. I’m just so nervous. What if she finds us?”

“How hard could it be to take down one girl? She’s obviously crazy, and she has a knife, but there are two of us and one of her. We got this,” I say, trying to sound confident so Bently would maybe ease up on his laughing. In all reality, I’m scared shitless.

My plan didn’t work. As the anxiety grew, so did his obnoxiousness. Miranda was standing in plain sight, the look of immorality crossed over her white, pasty face. The laughter stopped. As I looked over, I saw blood draining from Bently’s mouth. My heart stopped beating inside my chest as I looked into his blank eyes. Studying him for just a minute, his hands are loose and free, his head is dangling as his semi-long, blond hair started to fall in a way that made me sick to my stomach.
“Miranda…”
“Shut up! It wasn’t her, dumbass,” the little girl has a deep voice, almost the same as a grown man.

The irrational child was holding a knife bigger than the one Miranda held. The evil look in her eyes combined with the smile on her face is my clue to go on and get out of there.

“Fantastic, sis,” Miranda’s voice was soft and some-what delicate, almost as a whisper.

I started to get up in a panic from the bubbly swamp I was sitting in as my foot was pulled down. Laying, sinking, in the swamp, a black and red-brown object flew in front of me. They kept the kitten? The sharp blade came pressing through the flesh in my back. The blood running down is hot, so hot I could feel my skin start to burn. She’s like eight. I flipped over, reached up, and grabbed the little girls’ neck, slamming her down so fierce fully she let out a great roar. Miranda came charging after me, knife in hand. I froze. I saw the crazy eyes. There’s nothing you can do that’ll beat the crazy eyes. This was a life or death situation but for some reason, I couldn’t seem to bring my eyes away from hers.

The pain of my wound finally started to take over. Oddly, I was grateful for that I decided it was time to run. As I started to take off, I fell. That’s my luck. Coming down on my hands, I flung myself up resuming the escape.


Miranda tackled me. “Ok stop, I’m sorry!” She could sense the fear in my voice. She knew she had me wrapped around her finger; I’d do anything just to survive. She grabbed my forehead and pulled in back. My greasy, slimy hair fell in my face. The blood on my back was hotter than ever and the sweat was running in my eyes. She put the knife to my throat, digging it into the side of my neck. As she slid it across, I felt my flesh breaking apart. I was alive long enough to feel my eyes roll in my back of my head. Then, I was gone. Miranda had won.