Round 4, Final Match: WittyAcorn vs TheDUCK. TheDUCK:

Round 4, Final Match: WittyAcorn vs TheDUCK.

Prompt: Ouroboros.

Participant: TheDUCK (https://www.honeyfeed.fm/u/7510)

The sound of a shot echoed across the whole room, and I could feel blood spilling on my pants. 

My arms were trembling, and chills were sent down my spine, it was time to run. 

After all, I knew this guy couldn’t be trusted. At any moment, I could be the next victim. 

I slammed my body against the door, trying to open it, and started to run across the hallway. 

I passed in front of one, two, three doors. The first, was where a baby cried out loud, terrorized, confused and helpless. It was also where a kind mother once took care of him. 

I remember it being a very cozy room, warm, and full of heartwarming moments in its history, as well as passionate love, and mutual affection. 

Thinking about it now, it also had a picture of two people holding hands, a woman dressed in a white wedding dress, and a man in a black suit. They had smiles on their faces, and believed their love and happiness would be eternal. 

The second door led to a dining room, where someone discovered by a phone call that they were fired. 

It was a very unfortunate incident, the person in question needed the job’s salary to sustain a family and its own lifestyle, but after many attempts, failed ones at that, it was obvious there was no way to find another one. The family bound the person’s life to a fixed place and people, and with a little more than 40 years already, there usually isn’t much of a way to change the life you have been leading completely and find a new path in this world, and this case was one of them. 

As I thought about what was in this door, I felt something cut through my skin, and pain started to spread through my feet. I felt an immediate, innate need to look at what had hurt me, but I soon heard a noise that convinced me otherwise. 

It reminded me that I didn’t want to be caught, that I’m not safe, and that I should start running again immediately, something which, of course, I did. 

That said, it didn’t take me long to realize it was probably a shard of glass, from one of the multiple broken, empty bottles of alcohol in this house. 

Yes, there were many, and they were at the same time and consequence and cause of many confrontations, beatings and fights. 

I could already picture in my mind, “if you worked harder, you wouldn’t have lost your job! It’s your fault we are in this situation, you should stop complaining and try to do something useful instead of just giving up!”, one of them said, although the other had already tried very hard, done everything that was possible, before even thinking of ever giving up. “You’ve been drinking for the whole night, you should’ve stopped long ago”, the same one of them would say, without even considering how the other’s night had been so horrible. Insulted in the streets, and humiliated both at home and outside. But no matter how bad these were, I couldn’t stand to see again, not even just in my mind, the worst things that happened here. 

Such an inconsiderate person, suffice to say, didn’t even have a good job either, and thought that complaining, putting all the fault on the supposed “loved one” was a much better decision. 

Before I realized it, I was already at the third door. 

It was a door not worth opening, as beyond it, it was full of decadence and depravity. 

It was from where the shard of glass had come from. Over a table in the middle, there were many bottles of the most different types of liquor, many of which shouldn’t ever, but had been, mixed. Accompanying them too, was a white powder, spreaded all over the place. 

At the end of the room, was a makeshift bed, where two people thrusted back and forth, caressing each other in the most indecent ways. Suffice to say, both were married, but not with one another. 

Such a despicable act, isn’t it? Cheating, that is. Something that should automatically put you on the lowest denominator of society, something that is enough to determine that maybe someone like you isn’t even worth existing. 

After these three doors, now was the end of the hallway. 

I crossed it, and saw a dark room. It had an open window, giving sight to the night, and a mirror, where I could see a man standing, his shirt tarnished with alcohol, and a gund held in his hand. 

In the middle of the room, was a horrorized woman, looking at me. 

She was the one who blamed so much his husband, the one who only wanted to humiliate him, and the one who didn’t help him in the slightest. 

Before I could notice, she was shot in her chest by the man at the mirror, who had been taken by a swirl of hate and many other emotions. 

Looking at the windows on the left, I remembered the man throwing the medications he was supposed to take that morning away, and looking down on the hand of the woman who had just been killed, I saw a picture of her and her grown up son, which led me to realize the things I pictured at the first door really were something of long ago. 

Soon though, I heard the sound of a police siren. 

I slammed the same door I had at the start, and ran, as I remembered that the man who cheated on his wife at that bed was me.

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Judge's Feedback

znf: I thought the writing felt a bit stilted. Progression didn't feel super smooth and overall the twist was a bit predictable.

OscarHM: (N/A)

otkrlj: not bad overall, just felt clunky overall. Could have been slightly longer.