"I WILL KILL YOU, JOSEPH MYERS!"
He was yelling for help while running towards the emergency exit on the other side of the hall. It wasn't kilometres away, but he definitely felt like running in a marathon. The staircase seemed so near yet so far.
A woman opened her door and peeked towards the source of the loud voices, but when she saw Joseph and the murderous looking woman trailing behind, she immediately drew her head back in and slammed the door shut. Joseph didn't blame the woman, but he would have appreciated if she sheltered him for a moment while he called the police.
Joseph's heart was pounding so loud, he had not ran fast for a very long time. In fact, he had not ran at all in a long while. He was slow and lacked stamina. An easy prey. By some sort of miracle, he got to the emergency exit before Emma got to her. Joseph went through the door and immediately used his back and body weight to close it behind him.
Before he was able to shut the door, Emma slammed into it and pushed him back. It left enough room for her to slip her arm through. Her elbow barely through the opening. Joseph pushed harder against the door because if the rest of her entered, he was done for.
Emma swung and slashed the knife from the other side of the door. She was trying to get Joseph to lose his hold of the door, all while holding back the pain of getting her arm repeatedly pressed between the door and the frame. Unfortunately for Joseph, there was not much room to dodge the knife without losing control of the only thing keeping him alive: the door.
Her tactics worked, it made Joseph lost focus just for a brief moment, but a brief moment was all it took for Emma. Joseph felt a sharp pain on his side, cold steel already made its way on the side of his stomach. He screamed in pain and the blade was pulled out. Then another stab came but it was merely an inch below the first wound. From the other side of the door, Emma laughed.
He gritted his teeth. The pain was so immense it made him want to let go off the door. No. He was not giving up. He was young and there is so much left to do. Joseph immediately pushed the hardest he could without giving Emma a chance to react. The door crushed Emma's arm so badly she screamed in pain.
Instead of applying pressure to his injury, Joseph grabbed Emma's forearm and pinned it to the wall. All the while his whole body pushed against the door. He might just injure her arm so that he could stand more of a chance against her. But then, Emma started flicking he wrist frantically and her knife cut a big gash on Joseph's arm. He let go and recoiled a bit.
With the weight pressing the door lightened, Emma pulled back her whole arm and Joseph used his shoulders and whole body as a door stopper. He sat against the door, finally being able to slow down his bleeding and taking a good look at how bad it was. He almost vomited.
Knocks came from the other side of the door. "How are doing in there?" it was eerily casual. As if they were just hanging out and he spent too much time in the bathroom.
"Please... Please don't kill me. I won't tell anyone, I swear." His voice weakened, his head spinning, his eyes heavy.
"We could have been happy together, Joseph." She replied as she scratched the door with her knife, "but you hurt me. Now I'm gonna make you suffer."
Ting. Both of them went silent. Joseph recognised the elevator bell. The police are here. Thank god. It was most likely the woman who peeked the hallway before. Water welled up in his eyes.
"Are you okay, Miss? We had calls about a disturbance on this floor" The distant voice belonged to a young male with whom Joseph had talked too for a very short while on his first day here. It was the bellboy.
"Yeah, everything is good. No worries." She replied. Her voice gradually gaining distance. Then faintly, Joseph heard the bellboy asking whether her arm was alright as he pointed out the bruises. Does he not see the knife? Unless he really doesn't. Joseph needed to save him. He fought the pain on his side and gathered his strength to stand up.
He opened the door slowly and saw Emma standing between him and the bellboy. The knife now hidden in her other hand behind her back. She was chatting with him. It looked so natural that it sent a chill all over his body. One second she was a rampaging, murderous psycho but then the next second she was such a sweet person, smiling like there's no care in the world.
"GET AWAY, SHE HAS A KNIFE!"
The bellboy peeked over Emma's shoulder towards him in confusion, it was either the suddenness of the warning of the warning itself or the fact that a dark-skinned man looking paler than a ghost with bloodied hands was crouching behind an emergency exit door screaming for him to get away. Joseph himself, would have been extremely confused in that kind of situation.
Him and the bellboy locked eyes for a brief second, then, the bellboy's eyes widened in shock. Blood poured out of his mouth. Emma stepped aside and turned to glare at Joseph. When she moved, he saw the knife on the side of the boy's throat. The psychopath pulled it out slowly and shook her head, "Look at what you made me do."