by Wynnie Tan (S2 2021)

        I trudged along the eerie-looking alleyway past midnight. My work shift had just ended and I finally got the chance to go home to rest. I had this uncanny feeling settling in the bottom of my gut telling me that something bad was going to happen soon. Thinking it was all a bunch of nerves, I shrugged it off and continued dragging my feet down the alley.

       All of a sudden, a whoosh could be heard. As I turned my head, I saw a knife dangerously lodged beside my head. A masked man took huge steps towards me, the alarms in my head sounding off at the sense of danger.

       “I… I have nothing to give you, what do you want?” I stuttered as I moved backwards as if it was even possible with my back against the wall.

       Just before he could reach me, another rough arm yanked me towards him. “Let’s go now!” With anxiety coursing through my veins, I did not question but followed. Our footsteps stomped against the floor with an uneven momentum as we tried catching short breaths in-between, dashing through the alleyway. As if I had run a marathon, we finally made it out of the never-ending alley.

       All of a sudden, the same hand gripped my arm. “Wha—” Before I even finished my sentence, his hand went up to my mouth and pinned me down.

       “Shhh, he’s still here.” My eyes widened twice the size as my heart leapt up to my throat. I gulped down my saliva as I tried controlling my ragged breaths. The footsteps got louder as I closed my eyes hoping that the “murderer” I had seen now would not take my life. As the footsteps softened, I heaved a sigh of relief, my posture slumped and I stood up, eager to leave this frightening place.

       As I moved my feet to the direction of my house, the man spoke up. “Let’s go to the river,” the person who saved me instructed as he began walking in a certain direction.

        “Actually… I think I’ll go home since it’s late now and I really appreciate your help,” I thanked him before turning again. “The person might be waiting for you. Come with me. It will be safer!”

       Upon hearing this, I nodded thinking that it made sense.

       He brought me to a river. The moon hung high up in the sky and glowed brightly as the river shimmered under the light of the moon, reflecting its light. I washed my face in the clean waters of the river hoping to erase the memories of the events that happened earlier.

       Suddenly, I felt a push behind me before losing balance and falling into the waters. Despite the calm river, the depth of the river was scarily deep. Panicking, I thrashed my arms around in the waters. All the swimming classes I attended to went down the drain. Trying to keep my head above the water, I peeked out of the surface of the water. From the corner of my eyes, a brown object that looked like a log came into view. I swam towards the log before putting my arms over it and coughing water up my mouth harshly.

       I could not believe that I trusted a man I did not know to save my life. I felt so foolish for trusting a stranger. As thoughts in my head grew, I realised I needed to get out of water. Using the rest of my arm strength. I lifted my drenched body from the calm waters which hid a huge turbulence underneath its surface.

       My clothes clung onto my body as I got out of the waters. Upon strolling on the bank I stumbled upon a book? A book stained red. I gingerly picked up the bloody red book before flipping through its pages.

       My eyes widened and my legs lost all their strength. Inside there was a list of women each with a splash of red ink over their profile which signals that they must have been done with. As I scrolled down, I saw my face on the book and beside my name, “mission accomplished” was clearly written in red ink. As I moved my vision to the lower part of the book, a long-written background of mine that I never knew existed was penned into the book:

       Targeted due to being the descendant of Rody Lee who killed our teammate. Try and trick her into trusting one of us then, kill her.

       “That was a good reason to kill me?” I scoffed in disbelief. Thank God I did not die. A part of me really wanted to look them in the eye and say, “Ha, you thought!” Who could have thought that I would land myself in such a situation I could not even control. Not to mention in the middle of the night when the most unexpected things happened to me.

 

 

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