My heart shakes, but my focus is not on the name that has come up, only on what is about to happen.
But for 'Mike', that name seems more important than anything else, as his expression changes, apparently noticing that his thoughts have suddenly become clear, flying all over the room for me to pick up.
I open my mouth for another helpless shout, while he turns toward me, frowning, and with a hard look in his previously indifferent eyes. His hand moves slowly, at least in my eyes. But in that same perception, I also move slowly, wanting to, but failing to catch up to that burning desire to cross the half a dozen meters faster, to save Liz faster.
The dark tip of the gun faces me, chills my mind and my heart, before it shifts.
The sound it makes is subtle. The chill I feel at my thigh is just as subtle. But while my mind doesn't react fast enough, my body is not afforded any respite by reality. It takes in the kinetic energy of the bullet that hits it, and stumbles.
I fall down just in time to see the gun move away from me to point downward, at Liz, and let out another silent burst of fire, a silent but louder than thunder that produces an innocuous hole that I can barely see the edge of beside 'Mike's' foot. But that is enough for me to freeze like I have dropped into a cave in one of the mountainous poles of the planet.
'Mike' moves, and I can feel him look at me, but I am like a statue. I can only see the wound on Liz's stomach, I can only feel her pain, not even my own. The satisfaction bleeding off him seems to pick my skin with enough sliminess to disgust me, but only a far away part of my mind manages to process that.
I don't even know how I am managing to think, in this moment when my brain has all but crashed, broken exactly like he wants. So he goes on to finish the job, like he has planned, and wrap things up.
'That's good. Now, she can die.'
*Poof!*
The first sound is accompanied by another wound on Liz's stomach. And I say the first, because in 'Mike's' mind, there is a second to come, a final, fatal shot that the reflexes he has developed over the years using a gun have made him create the sound of in his mind, before even producing it in reality with the gun in his hand.
The sound, the new wound, the last shot… Everything turns into lightning that shakes me as it passes through my veins. Adrenaline explodes inside me, making my mind go from the lowest to the highest, without any stop along the way, snapping like a stretched string at the end of the rope producing that last burst of energy.
The dark killing tool with its elongated end moves, crawls through the distance as it angles itself to point at Liz's tight and sweaty face that refuses to give anything away, whether pain or submission. But she seems to see her own end, because she turns her head with difficulty, finding me on the floor, and my desperate eyes, to convey all her hope for my survival, for me.
*Clack*
The gears moving with the press of the finger on the trigger seem to whisper in my ears. My eyes widen so much so that the skin at the sides snapping would be normal, and and blood not seeping out would be abnormal
I feel air in my lungs like never before, hot like power itself as my body buzzes, even though I can't feel it, at least not at the forefront of my mind, even though I can only feel my mind, wrapped in an electrified haze. I don't know when I open my mouth, and I make a sound without thinking, without trying, without anything other Liz, and her survival, in my mind:
"NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!"
I have never made a shriller sound, nor have I heard any. The world goes silent as it buzzes. I don't know if the windows shook, if glasses broke, or if anything snapped. But I know my wish got answered.
'Mike' shakes, then stumbles like a drunk drunkard. His foot leaves Liz's stomach, and he stumbles back trying to regain his balance. He raises his hand to his head while reflexively keeping his gun pointing to the floor. But what my shout did to him, it caused blood to come out of his ears, then his eyes, then his nose.
His face, previously so superior with its indifferent mask, is now warped in pain as he tries to suppress grunts and groans. He loses his grip on the gun, letting it fall with clatter, and moves back until he hits the couch that faces away from the door and almost falls down.
My head is filled with buzzing sound as tiredness engulfs me, along with a hazy fog that wraps my mind. But despite that, the buzzing sound like a scrambled radio broadcast 'Mike's' thoughts have become pierces through through the obstacle to resound like something far away in my mind.
It is painful. I just want to lie down, but Liz is in a state that makes me unable to breathe, unable to even feel myself existing. So I pull myself forward with my hands, and crawl while listening to the maddening pain that has taken the place of the previously oh, so ordered arrogant mind.
I crawl while his mind tries to survive, until I reach beside Liz, and beside the gun not far away on my other side.
Just a few seconds like an eternity have passed. Liz has passed out, and 'Mike'...
I make a choice and force myself to sit up. I pick up the gun, the object too heavy as something I am touching for the first time, but too light for what it can do, for what I am about to do with it.
The bloodshot green eyes meet my tearstreaked face and dry eyes, then fall onto the dark muzzle I'm aiming to the best I can with my trembling hands. They widen, the small rationality in the depth of the ocean of pain bringing about the fear all living beings have before the engulfing abyss about to claim life.
That instinct of survival in his blood jolts him with a shot of adrenaline that makes him start moving, aiming for the door with one hand struggling in front as if in the water, and the other holding his head as if to prevent it from falling off.
But none of that matters to me. I aim. I steady myself. And I press the trigger. Once. Twice. Thrice. Until I can only make the gun click and ring empty.
I let it fall with a clattering sound, and I move, pulling myself with my hands despite the pain and the shaking from the recoils. I reach Liz, take her in my arms, and cradle her.