Accidents

David never forgot who held the knife, who cheered, who watched him bleed. But there were others—people who weren’t there that night but still helped crush him in quieter ways.

His twin brother’s girlfriend, Marissa King, had spread lies about him for months.
His best friends, Troy and Lucas, had fed those lies, repeated them, and pushed him closer to the community that hated him.

They didn’t swing the fists.
But they sharpened the knives.

David whispered to himself that morning, “Not every sin is loud. Some are whispered… and those people think they’re innocent.”

He walked through the quiet streets of Yonkers, the air cold and sharp. His hoodie was pulled low, and his mind was silent. There would be no beating, no screaming, no blood tonight. Only accidents—beautiful, believable accidents.

Every step he took, he felt less like the boy who had died and more like something new. Something exact. Something inevitable.

Marissa lived in a bright apartment filled with plants and sunlight. She was the type who posted inspirational quotes while destroying reputations in private. She had told the community leader that David was “dangerous,” “unstable,” and “a problem that needed to be corrected.”

David found her routine easily. She went jogging every morning at 6 AM, crossing the same wooden pedestrian bridge that stretched over a deep ravine behind her apartment building.

He arrived at 4:30 AM, dressed in black, calm as ever. Fog drifted through the trees, softening the world. The wooden beams of the bridge were old—old enough to rot if someone weakened them.

David knelt by the first support beam and carefully unscrewed the bolts, loosening them just enough so the bridge would hold for a while… until the wrong footstep landed on it.

He stood up and brushed his hands against his hoodie.
“Accidents,” he said to himself softly. “They happen.”

From the shadows, he watched Marissa appear an hour later, ponytail swinging, music blasting in her ears. She jogged confidently across the bridge, unaware of the quiet nightmare beneath her.

The moment she reached the center, the wood groaned.

Cracked.

Then snapped.

Her scream echoed through the empty ravine as the floor folded beneath her. She fell between the trees, crashing onto the rocks below.

David didn’t smile. He didn’t cheer.
He only whispered, “One more debt paid.”

He walked away while the birds still hadn’t noticed a human had died.

Troy and Lucas had been David’s closest friends once. They laughed together, skipped school together, played games in the summer heat. And yet, when the community began whispering about David, they were the first to nod, the first to betray him.

They never apologized.

Now, they would never get the chance.

David watched them from across the street, hidden beneath a bus shelter as the two boys left a convenience store, joking loudly as they climbed into Lucas’s old car. They had no idea that the brake fluid had been leaking for three days straight.

David had visited the car late one night, wearing gloves, loosening the brake lines until they dripped in slow, silent intervals. The leak wasn’t obvious. Nothing dramatic. Just enough to guarantee failure at the right moment.

As he watched them pull onto the busy downhill road, he whispered, “You left me to die. Now physics will finish what you started.”

The car moved faster.

And faster.

David followed from a distance, turning corners quickly, listening for the inevitable.

When the light turned red at the bottom of the hill, Troy and Lucas pressed the brakes.

But the car didn’t slow.

For a split second, David saw them panic—Lucas gripping the wheel, Troy yelling, both desperately pulling the handbrake.

Then the car slammed into the intersection, crashing into the side of a delivery truck with a sickening metal scream. Glass exploded across the pavement. The truck’s horn blared, stuck in a frozen moment of shock.

People screamed.

Cars stopped.

Someone yelled for help.

David watched from the crowd, face blank, hands in his pockets. He felt nothing—not triumph, not regret. Only silence.

He whispered, “Accidents always come for people who deserve truth.”

He walked away before the sirens arrived.

That night, he sat in his grandmother’s basement, the dim bulb flickering overhead. Daniel paced the room, worried, shaky, anxious.

David sat still, hands folded, eyes calm.

Daniel asked him earlier where he had been, but David simply said, “Settling things.” Daniel didn’t push. He knew better than to ask questions that didn’t want answers.

David stared at the list he kept inside his notebook—names of everyone involved in his death.

He crossed out three names:
Marissa King
Troy Miller
Lucas Gray

The ink bled slightly into the paper, like the page itself wanted to swallow their names.

David said to himself, “The circle tightens.”

He could feel the storm growing inside him. With every name crossed off, his mind became clearer, sharper. He wasn’t hunting out of rage anymore. He was performing a duty.

A correction.

He closed the notebook slowly.

Tomorrow—another name.
Another debt.
Another accident.

David whispered the words that had guided him since he climbed out of the river:
“They thought the river ended me. But I am still here. And they will understand why.”

The light flickered once more, then steadied.

David’s eyes stayed open long into the night.