In the dead of the night. That was how I expected to find her. Dead. As I approached the house, nothing changed my mind. It was still. Still like a house with no one alive in it.

I pictured the scene I knew was waiting for me. Her, lying on the floor. Red blood pooling around her. Eyes open with a vacant empty stare. The knife, or maybe a gun, still smoking, lying next to her. Made to look like a suicide, maybe.

The door was ajar. I pushed it open. The hallway was in darkness. I found the light switch, flicked it on. Illuminating. Off the hallway, the door into the living room. I knew it well. It was only two hours since I had been there. Pushed that door open.

There she lay, just as I knew she would be. But she wasn’t alone. His body was next to her. Look closer. The pooling blood isn’t hers. The knife isn’t lying next to her, it’s sticking out of his chest.

She isn’t still, I can see her chest moving up and down. Shallow, but breathing. He is the one that is still. He is the one who is dead. I knew she was tough, I guess I never realised how tough. I picked her up and got her out of there.

We drove away, her still passed out on the backseat of my car. The sun started to break over the horizon. In the mirror I watched the house grow smaller, still, in the dead of the night.

This is a response to the #writephoto Prompt: Stillness  – curated over at Sue Vincent’s Daily Echo. Click on the link to read other stories inspired by the image.

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