It could be tears, I think, as the hot, sticky blood dripping into my eyes when I run reminds me of rain. Gory, metallic rain, a sheath of red clouding my peripheral vision. Maybe my heart is just so shattered it doesn’t have the strength to pump blood into my body. Maybe it just uses my eyes as an exit point. My feet catch on a crack in the pavement, almost sending me sprawling. I shiver. My lover. He is the thing that’s chasing after me, sending spikes of fear through my heart where there should be butterflies. I am so caught up in my thoughts, I almost run face first into a tree. I manage to dodge it, but my foot gets caught on a root and this time I really do fall. What used to be my whole world catches up to me, grinning like the devil and oh God, there is no trace of him. The one who held me while I sobbed, celebrated when I accomplished my goals, and kissed me when I felt like I wasn’t enough. Which not very oddly happened a lot. He was the one who I thought would be my forever, the one who would caught me when I fell off the ledge of insecurity and other terrrifying, indescribable feelings. And he was. But then something had changed, like his very beliefs had been taken over by someone else, someone who was very much a psychotic murderous person. My already broken heart shattered even more. I didn’t know it was possible for someone to to feel so much physical and mental grief and fear at once. His soulless eyes bared me down, no hint of recognition inside those pools of black. I was so tired. Tired from running, tired from nightmares and grief, from life itself. So I stopped. He pulled out a small revolver from his pocket. The barrel gleamed under the streetlights, bare inches away from my face. Terrified was too weak of a word. “Why,” I whispered, the softest little sound. He cocked his head like a puppy, as if I was a toy he was meant to play with. “Because of him, of course,” he said, the menacing smile growing back onto his face. I knew this was it. No escape, just the thought of numb blackness ahead. So I said it. “Chance.” His name. I always thought of it as special, something signifying new beginnings. Now it was something that I had to take. “You will never leave my mind. Even if you do go through with this, I’ll still never forget.” Then all she heard was the click of the trigger being pulled, and then nothing.