Twigs snapped beneath his feet. The sounds of night echoed through his head, bouncing off his thoughts and vibrating in his ears. He ran, ran through the dense forest, trees clawing at him, pulling him back. He ran on the narrow path but didn't know where he was going. He ran as the darkness encased him. He ran, clutching at his aching chest, desperate to release the pain. The path forked ahead of him. Without thinking, he turned right, the path inclining up. He stopped.
A figure stood before him, coming out of the darkness in the shadows.
"How did you find me?" He whispered angrily, taking a step back. But the ground was lower than he had planned, his foot fell back, twisting as a sharp pain flowed through his ankle.
"Leave me alone!" He shouted through tears, trying to sound tough, dragging himself backwards. For the first time, he wasn't entirely sure he would find a way out of this situation.
But it was too late to make a new plan as the figure had already jumped out at him, pinning him to the ground.
And then as he felt a sharp blow to his head everything started spinning and then went black.
***
He woke up in a daze, his ankle and head aching in the darkness of the tight space, his bound legs making the ankle injury worse. He attempted to move free but his arms were tied too. With a sharp jolt, he slid to the other side of the tight space and when he heard the highway outside he realised he was in the trunk of a car. He had so many aching questions. How long was he unconscious? Where was he now? Where was The Man taking him? Is he going to live through this?
He felt like crying at the unfairness of it all, how he got roped up in this mess of a situation just because he was at the wrong place at the wrong time. He tried to undo the bounds at his hands, rubbing them against each other trying to get loose, but it didn't work. All he had accomplished was exhausting himself further.
The car came to a sudden halt. He heard a car door open and then slam again. After a short second the trunk door opened. "Matthew Moore." The Man said with some amusement, peering down at the boy in the trunk.
The Man made quick work of undoing the bounds on Matt's feet before grabbing him by his bound wrists and pulling him to his feet. Matt stumbled a bit on his sore ankle but managed to stay standing and quickly surveyed the dark area, trying to see if there was any possibility of him making a run for it. But The Man had a firm grip on his wrists and it was too dark to see much.
The car was parked in a small clearing of a different forest than the one he was running through before. This one surrounded by rows and rows of tall pine trees. There were two pathways, one going out of the forest (the one The Man had just driven up) and one leading deeper into the woods.
The Man still hadn't let go of Matt's wrists, he pulled a gun out of a holder on his hip that wasn't visible before and put the muzzle against the back of Matt's skull. Matt tensed as he felt the cold metal. "One step out of line," The Man said, pushing Matt forward, signalling for him to walk down the path leading into the woods. "And this bullet goes straight through that pretty little head of yours."
Matt stumbled forward and held his wince as he stepped on his pained ankle. He started walking along the path, making an effort not to stumble over any rocks in his way. His mind kept on swimming, his thoughts went from his mom, to his little brother, to his friends at school, to the police and the investigating, to his misfortune in letting everything get to this point, to…
No, he had to distract himself, if he overthought everything too much he would never get away from The Man. So, he started counting. 1, 2, 3, 4… he began, it was a very mundane and repetitive task but it was better than thinking about what The Man would do when they stopped walking.
It was no use, he had only counted to around 112 before losing count. He tried to count trees instead but at this point his mind was too foggy to concentrate, he eventually gave up on that too.
The man was staying close behind him with the gun pressed deep against Matt's skull, breathing down his neck. "Left." The man said as the path reached a slight fork. As Matt turned left up the path he saw a small hut come into view. He foolishly let himself get his hopes up. Maybe someone is living there and they could help me. He thought.
But as they come closer to the hut he realised his plan of escape won't work. No yellow lights were illuminating the windows and the small driveway along the side was empty. But what he wasn't expecting was for The Man to gear Matt towards the front door.
This is it, Matt realised. This was what he was trying not to think about the entire way up. What would happen when they eventually stopped walking? But Matt had no way of effectively fighting back, he was only 17, no match to a middle aged man with a gun.
The man undid Matt's bound wrists and pushed him through the now-open front door, he stumbled forward and fell to the floor against the far wall. He was terrified yet he couldn't get any words out to plead his life against this man. The man then turned away from the door, towards Matt, gun raised.
"I have to do this." The man mumbled. "I'm so sorry." He then looked into Matt's tear-streaked face, hesitated a moment and then pulled the trigger.
*BANG*
The noise travelled through the forest as an echo, along with Matt's scream as he clumsily clutched his now rapidly bleeding chest as he fell back against the wall. He watched The Man leave, closing the cabin door behind him, leaving Matt to bleed out on the blood-stained wood floors.
Matt now knew what people meant when they said how your life flashes before your eyes when you die. Each of his memories took turns playing in his head, some were happy, sad and some humble. He forced himself to look down at his chest and saw he was now coated in a layer of his own blood. So much for a fast, painless death, he thought darkly.
He was in an unbelievable amount of pain from both the wound and the realisation that he would never see his family and friends again, never be able to reveal the real truth to the police.
But then he heard sirens. Heard a group of people outside the hut and then pounding on the door before it flew open and a team of people in a mix of blue and white outfits came rushing in. Matt could tell it was getting loud and that people were trying to talk to him but it all seemed to blur into the background and he was unable to respond.
When he was lifted into the ambulance on a stretcher he was slipping in and out of consciousness, everything seeming to turn into one blur. After a short few minutes a long *beep* sounded through the moving vehicle coming from the heart rate monitor in the corner. The paramedics rushed to do chest compressions and tried to restart his heart but nothing worked.
"Time of death, 1:52 am." One of the paramedics said sadly and pulled the blanket over Matt's pale, dead face.
***
And who knows, maybe all of this could have been avoided. Maybe if Matt turned left that first time he was running through the forest he wouldn't have run into The Man in the shadows. Maybe if he hadn't fallen back and injured his ankle he would have been able to run back the way he came and would have outrun The Man. Maybe if he made a run for it when The Man had just pulled him out of the car he would have been able to get away. Maybe if he tried to reason with The Man then maybe he wouldn't have shot him. Maybe he would have survived. Maybe he would have been able to see his mom and brother again. Maybe.
But for Matt, there was no more chance for a maybe. For Matt, there was no chance for anything. Not anymore. Not ever.
***
When the paramedics got Matt's body to the hospital they called his family to tell them the heartbreaking news, when Matt's mom answered the call she was enjoying some tea on the couch. When they told her that her eldest son was shot and killed, she broke down in tears, allowing the ceramic mug to smash on the floor. Matt's 9 year old brother, Noah, was standing by the door when his mom got the phone call, he heard everything. He watched his usually put-together mom breakdown before him and watched the mug with boiling liquid smash on the floor in front of her.
His mom turned around as she heard a soft weep behind her and saw her son at the door, all she could do was cry louder and louder. But Noah wouldn't believe a word of his brother's death. He instead turned on his heels and ran up the stairs towards his brother's room. Still crying he burst through the door marked with the scribbled words 'keep out', screaming his name.
But to little surprise, Matt wasn't at his desk playing video games or even laying on his bed, mindlessly scrolling on his phone. Instead his laptop was closed and his phone was still innocently charging on his bedside table. Noah slid to the floor and let his tears drown him as he stared into the empty room.
After investigating Matt's death for over 9 months it was eventually labelled as a cold case when they ran out of leads to follow. Whoever had called the police on the day of Matt's death was anonymous and refused to give his name. So with no known witnesses there was no way of knowing who killed him, no way of identifying The Man and no way of figuring out the secret he was trying to conceal.
Whatever Matt had witnessed to cause his death had died with him, just the way the killer had wanted