Who Would Do This?

&nbsp Surrounded by darkness. My heart races. I feel blood pounding against the temples of my skull. I can't breathe. Fear has crippled me of my most basic needs. All, that is, but one. I feel a warm stream run down my left leg.

My lungs burned. I need to breathe but knew doing so would give away my position. That is, assuming the smell of my urine hadn't already done so. And then I heard it. A sound most men only imagine in their worst nightmares. The blood thirsty, anger driven, hate consumed scream of my persuer. My heart-rate increased. My body froze. My every instince shouted "Run you fool", but here I sit, frozen in terror. The smells of fear and piss consume my surroundings. I'm finished, done for, doomed. In the darkness i see two gleaming red dots slowly inching my way. Finally able to move agian, I reached into my bad and removed the closest thing to a weapon I had. A long slender surgical knife. I set my bag down on the ground, trying to keep the sounds of my other instruments quiet. It failed and alerted the attention of the red eyed beast before me. I scream and rush forward, brandishing my knife, in the hopes to eliminate this bastardization of humankind with one clean cut.

The charge lasted only seconds. I heard screams, then the sound of this creature caughing blood, and finally nothing. The deed had been completed. The devil was dead. But what's this? The creature had delt a wound to my side. I felt the blood coming out of the gash and knew I too would soon be dead. I lay down near my victem, blade still in it's body, and awaited the cold dark embrace of death. Tears filled my eyes as I slowly drifted off to eternal sleep.

I awoke. A dream? The entire thing had been just a dream? What a relief! I was certain it had all been real. Even the pain in my side still throbbed as though I had been attacked. I went about making my breakfast that morning. Liver with eggs over easy. It was then that I looked at the Newspaper on my table. The headline read "Jack the Ripper Strikes Again". My housemaid, Mary Kelley, comes to hand me my breakfast saying, "Terrible isn't it? Who would do this? At least this girl left the Ripper a wound the police can identify him by". It was then that she noticed the blood on my shirt where the gash was located.

Perhaps it wasn't a dream after all...