Hazel turned over in his bed and looked over at the opened curtains.
The bright sunlight was twisting and turning into the room as the white rays extended across the rug and drew out the silhouettes of the expensive objects in his expansive room.
He could hear the sound of metal turning with his banging head as he pulled himself up to look out the window.
'Why are the shades open?' Hazel was confused.
He always had his butler close the shades at night, which was closed until he was in the bathroom going about his morning routine. Even though this travesty instantly had to be amended, he could barely manage to move as his head painfully throbbed and kicked.
He sighed while reaching for his phone to complain to his butler as that rage inside of him once again surfaced. The beaten butler was definitely back to his feet by now, with him probably scurrying in the kitchen preparing his breakfast
"Should we kill him… Should we not?" A young girl's mellifluous voice filled Hazel's ears as he yanked the blankets over his head. He had no idea who'd dare come into his room while he wasn't sure if he was wearing clothes.
"Should we kill him," The young girl continued to peel a pedal off a sunflower and tossed it onto the floor.
"Should we not." She cruelly smiled.
"What-what time is it?" Hazel's eyes began to finally adjust to the bright drowning sunlight as he tried to pull out his phone.
"Damn it! What was that guy's name again? Hurry up and come to close the damn shades!"
"Young master. I got to say that I never thought there'd be a day where I actually came in here with something that you didn't want. My name is Maltose… Did you forget you made me legally change my name all those years ago to get a job here?"
"What do you mean? You came in here to do what I freaking wanted and that's to close the shades." Hazel glared at his butler before his chest suddenly thumped from the shadow of a gun, trailing along the floor to right against his head.
The gun was a silver magnum that his father had placed in a special glass case made of ivory with linings of silver and special emblazoned lettering right after its purchase. It was a hunting gun, a treasure, that only people with a million dollars could afford.
The precious gun was currently in hand of his cheap butler. The butler fumbled with bullets as he clumsily put them into the gun as his daughter pulled off the pedals of a sunflower. Her beautiful face was like a rose, ruddy and glimmering with hope.
Her very essence seemed immersed in the flower as if she was plucking an instrument with every stroke of her hand. She appeared as a goddess that controlled one'a fate as she took off the few threads that potentially held Hazel to his ongoing life.
"Wait, you can't be serious? All I did was hit you?" Hazel started to panic.
"You-you don't know how hard it is to count bullets that are worth thousands of dollars," Maltose put four more bullets into the cartridge of the gun as she carefully counted the bullets.
"It's only six bullets, but I figure one of these ought to pay you back for all the jobs I did for you all these years." She shrugged as she glided her hand across the gun.
""What job? You useless piece of shit? Put down that gun!" Hazel pointed at the gun as his wiry, thick arms trembled as he tried to stand up but noticed he could hardly move.
"Shit, I must have hurt my hand yesterday when I was dealing with your granddaughter!" He gave his butler an accusing glance as if he had planned this all out.
"Funny, it's the last two pedals. Looks like you live," Maltose pulled out the last sunflower petal as she stared strangely into the distance.
"Grandfather, it's saying he should live. I don't know if I want him to live. It'd be a shame if someone like him lived. Want me to get another flower?"
"No, it's fine. There are dead bodies outside the room anyway," The butler intimidatingly stared down at the pathetic Hazel.
Maltose grabbed a handkerchief from his pocket and wrapped it around the trigger. "How about we let him run. If he makes it past the bedroom, he might for a second feel like I did serving him all these years."
"You-you're freaking crazy! This is a joke and you're fired afterwards," Hazel suddenly realized that thick pools of blood stained his diamond studded french custom made rug as it travelled out the doorway.
"What the fuck?! You're getting blood on my carpet! I should come over there and slap you!" Hazel mustered up a bit of courage to show that he was still in control.
"You have five seconds to run, young master," Maltose cocked and loaded the gun with excitement and flare as Hazel suddenly lurched off the bed and scrambled towards the closet.
He stumbled as he reached for the emergency button he hid by the closet. However, the door sprung open before he almost pressed the button in the bottom of his closet. His head got smashed in the nose as he flew back, sprawling and rolling onto the bed. His vision slightly wobbled in disbelief of his ex-girlfriend walking out of the closet when he got up.
She was holding onto another revolver from his dad's hunting collection as she wore a brilliant red dress he got her for their anniversary. Was it a coincidence that she wore that the day before he broke up with her?
"I think you told me once to not lean against this door. Good thing I checked," The girl smiled and nodded at the butler as he opened the cartridge and took out four bullets.
"You remember me? The girl you ruthlessly broke up with when I put my trust in you?"
"I still have scars from working at the agency you set me up with after! How the hell do you call yourself a human? Everyone of your friends hates you, rich scum!" She screamed.
"Now, now! He was a nice boy," The butler mocked Hazel.
"Something must have happened when he got kidnapped. However, just because he's broken, doesn't mean we can fix it." The butler placed the gun against Hazel's head and prepared to fire.
"No-no please! I'll pay you double!" Hazel got on his knees as he waved his hands in panic.
"Bang!" The butler smiled and pressed the trigger, causing the cartridge to turn.
Hazel got to see the end of his life flash by as the drum of the gun hit the bullet. He saw nothing of value in his past, and cried out and crazily screamed until he found a hint of safety when the bullet never came.
"Maybe he isn't meant to die."
"Can I come in?" A knock came from the door as a woman in a plain white dress walked into the room.
"How's my Hazel doing? As his own mother, you'd think he'd invite me to his funeral." She arrogantly flipped her blond hair.
"Mother?! Stop them!" Hazel crawled over on his knees to her as she pulled out a dagger covered with blood. She wiped off the blood and looked down at Hazel with a sullen expression.
She never intended to murder her son, but considering she was living in poverty ever since her divorce, she stiffened her heart. He had a will that would give her half of his assets from his immediate death. She used to love Hazel before the accident, but he became so cold, aloof.
She had to painfully break it off with his father as Hazel destroyed everything good about their relationship. Hazel had been abducted once when they were on a shopping trip in Cancun. Even though she had guards around him, she never stupidly kept her eyes off him.
She didn't have a choice when a group of men came up to her with a handkerchief that smelled of chlorophyll and knocked her out. The security guards she hired were executed with pistol shots to the back of their head as Hazel soon disappeared.
Was it because her husband was involved in some billion dollar business that cut corners?
She didn't know.
She looked at Hazel like a sick puppy dog as his ex-girlfriend put her arm around his neck.
His ex-girlfriend pulled Hazel up to his bed and thoughtfully placed him down on her chest as she wrapped her elbow carefully around his neck. She gently squeezed the grip and put the gun against his head as if she was feeling a sense of relief while putting her wedding finger on the trigger.
"Do you remember? That beach you took me to?" She whispered into his ear.
"The one where you said my entire life would never be the same if I just followed you, and did whatever you said. All I had to do was give you what you wanted, when you wanted it, and you'd give me the world."
"Did that happen to include three weeks later when breaking up with me and then taking a girl I knew to an even more expensive resort?" Adelaide reminded him.
"I was a kind girl. I grew up with a rich family, but that got taken away from me." Adelaide wiped the tears out of her eyes as she tried to contemplate what her life would've been without Hazel.
If only that young boy, the one she saw as a child in the circle of all those bullies, took her to his lofty lifestyle she might have been fine.
She was something of a lost shell after that.
Wait, did that make sense?
She couldn't think clearly and looked over at Hazel's mom as she smiled and kissed him on the forehead.
"Good luck in your next life. Maybe this time you'll learn to behave better." She left the dumbfounded Hazel on the bed.
"You sure?" Maltose faced Hazel's mother.
"If you do this, you'll be starting a war with your ex-husband." Maltose moved the chamber of the gun to the place with the one bullet that was completely made out of gold.
"We don't have a choice. If this bastard is alive for two more days, he might destroy a thousand more lives. My son already ripped a company to shreds to make a small profit." His mother spit and closed her eyes.
"Do it. I-I won't cry. I promised myself I wouldn't cry," His mother uttered as she covered her eyes.
"I loved you," Hazel felt his ex-girlfriend put the pistol against his head and started to pull the trigger.
"Not anymore." She denied their past relationship to each other.
Bang!