Chapter 1
Like my heart, the glass is defiantly half empty

The man had been at his vile tricks for days, haunting us and harming us for no apparent reason. But there was nothing we could do, according to everyone we know, he doesn’t exist and we have no physical proof. The first encounter id had of this mad man was three days ago, when me and viper were on our way home (her real name obviously isn’t viper it’s just her nickname due to her slight obsession with snakes.) my real name isn’t vixen either, it is a nickname my mother had given me when I ran away from home when I was 10 years old due to all of the stress I had with my life. My mother found me six hours later curled up asleep on the cliffs opposite my house with a cute baby fox curled against me, hence the name.
Anyway, we had our first encounter with the phsyco three days ago when he followed us home, shouting pointless curses and crude threats at us for no apparent reason. Me being the agitated person I am, turned around and ruined our lives, screaming more and more insults and curses back at the guy, threatening to hurt him if he continued to follow us. He vowed to get revenge, of which he was certainly doing.
We then met him again the next night at one of viper’s many ‘sleepovers’ though sleep always seemed the last thing that ever seemed to happen at our sleepovers. We were home alone that night; her parents had gone out for a meal hoping to get out of our way, but I really wish they’d stayed. At about 12 midnight a knock came from the door, scaring us both senseless. We decided not to answer which only made matters worse as he then decided to break in. he crept up the stairs to where we hid petrified in her room and as a figure appeared in the darkened doorway of viper’s room we noticed who the raging figure was. He had a knife gritted between his teeth and his eyes gleamed a wild glint of madness. This guy was sick; he had grabbed us both by the wrist and used the sharp blade to cut a gash into the skin above our veins, blood rushing down our arms and with that mild act of torment, he left.
All that was in the past now, and as my eyes pierced open in the dark room I felt that gush of pain take over my body from the evil wound in my right side. I could identify that I was in my own bedroom, lying lifeless on the dark sheets with viper lying next to me, watching nervously as I attempted to sit up.
“How you feeling?” she asked, propping herself up on one elbow and on looking as I cringed in pain. “I managed to carry you back up here after you passed, I followed a ‘what to do when you get shot and you can’t call help’ video on YouTube, I’m surprised that actually existed, but you still need some time to recover, it was a pretty bad wound. It was pretty gruesome trying to get that bullet out…”
I groaned and struggled to stand, still clutching at my agonisingly painful waist so viper jumped to her feet to support me as I helplessly staggered around the room attempting to grab hold of the painkiller pills that lay on the chest of draws next to a half full glass of fruit juice.
“This is just over the top now vix, I’m freaking out!” viper suddenly whined at me. At first glance she looked fine and healthy but peering deep into her eyes the pain and fear was clear to see. She was cracking up. “What do we do…?”
I shrugged casually, sighed and cringed as the pills slid down my throat followed by a gulp of the cool juice. “We have three options, fight back, chicken out or get thrown into a loony bin. Oh and there’s always death”
We suddenly shrieked and jumped into each other’s arms as the sound of a loud, forceful bang hit the door. When will this creep leave us alone?
“What happens now?” viper breathed, she was clearly so shaken by this experience and I was surprised she didn’t break down into a heap of tears on the spot.
I took a deep breath in and clenched my fists, hoping in doing this I could take out all of my anger.
“We pick one of our options…” I breathed, almost crying with fear as a second forceful bang hit the wooden door in an attempt to knock it to the ground and viper jumped into my arms again; finally breaking down into the helpless state id expected her to. She’d been so brave through all of this, she’d been my rock but now I’m the one comforting her.
“Can we just get killed and get this s**t over with!” she sniffled, pulling away and wiping her sore eyes with the back of her scarred hand. I grabbed her supportively by the shoulders and stood directly in front of her to gaze at her petrified face.
“Ok we have two options then cause kid, I’m not letting you go anywhere, fight this out or get thrown into a loony bin”
Even I let out a fearful scream at the sound of the third blow to the weak door and I imagined what it would be like if we did give in and follow vipers plan. I imagined it being my head receiving the third blow from this psychopathic man, which seemed a good idea right now.
“We fight”
I could hear the grunts and curses of the aggravated man attempting to blow down my door and in a split moment were the world seemed to stand still around us, the door smashed to the ground. My vision blurred with fear and tears and I was left with just my hearing to guide me through the traumatic experience- again. Viper cursed as I could hear the man stomping loudly up the stairs, the sound of breaking china echoing up the hallway.
“Don’t leave me” viper cried as she grabbed my hand and fell to the floor to huddle against the back of the closed door in an attempt to block out our murderous killer.
“I won’t I promise”
The door behind us suddenly jerked in an attempt to open as the man’s shoulder barged against the wood but we put all of our power into forcing the door shut.
“Leave us the f*** alone!” I screamed, my voice cracking and tears spilling down my flushed cheeks, “what the hell do you want with us?!”
“I won’t hurt you little girls, just come out and play” the man snapped back sinisterly, throwing a ton of punches at the door protecting us from our death.
“We’re not bloody toddlers!”
By now viper was totally incapable of talking, just sat huddled next to me, sobbing and screaming her lungs out but now I had no time to comfort her.
“Then how old are you now vixen?”
How did this guy know my name? Has he been stalking us 24/7? I turned to viper and mouthed ‘should I tell him?’ to her. She shrugged and squealed again as the man attempted to shove the door down again. “Maybe I should try and distract him, ya know, try and talk to him?” I whispered and when I received no reply from a snivelling viper, I decided to try my idea out.
“14” I sighed, giving in and weakening my body as practically I gave up my life. “What’s your name?”
The man sighed and gave the door one lest push which succeeded in blowing the door open, sending vipers weak body to slam against the unlit wall, hiding her from this phsyco killer in the dark.
“Now why would i tell you that b***h?” he breathed heavily, standing in the dark doorway of vipers bedroom, his chest heaving and his wet black hair hanging over his face with sweat. His face as well was dark, his eyes faded and evil, blood dripping from his lips, how threatening, not.
“Well your about to kill me anyway” I mumbled as I put my miraculously spontaneous idea into action and flakily stumbled backwards, grabbing the glass filled of juice on the way down as if id missed grabbing the cupboard. Turns out drama classes do pay out. I cursed and pretended to rub my back in pain, holding the glass tightly in my other hand behind my back so he couldn’t see the fact that I still had it in my clutch.
“Damn right I am” he scowled, pulling out a sharp silver blade from his pocket and holding it in front of his face admiringly. Now I was really shaking, still lying on the floor, unable to find my feet. The only thing I could feel was pure ice running through my veins.
“Why?” I managed to choke out, gripping the carpet to stop my body from shaking; all I could remember was those annoying anti bullying talks that our class had to sit through during the first few years of school. The teacher would always tell us to try and find out why the bully is being so mean to us and see if he has problems you can help with. It felt pretty lame trying this but if my and more importantly viper’s life depended on it then it would be worth it. “What happened to make you need to hurt people?”
“DON’T TRY BEING ALL UNDERSTANDING WITH ME BRAT!” he snapped, spit frothing from his mouth as he did so, pleasant. My eyes darted to an unconscious viper and I immediately felt a tremor of fear for her.
“Just get it over with then” I snapped, holding my breath and closing my eyes awaiting the blow that would soon end my life- so he thinks. It all happened so fast, as I listened expectantly as the man dived forward holding the deathly knife in his clutch. My mind jumped back into action the second before the knife struck my chest in the pitch dark room. My arms found a way to shove back the murderer, slamming him weakly against the wall next to a now conscious viper who sat screaming as she watched me attempt to destroy this criminal. As soon as the man’s head smashed against the wall I lunged with all my power towards him and shattered the glass around his head, knocking him to the ground as blood dripped from his face were the glass shards had struck his face.
With the last remains of strength he had left in his battered body, he smashed his fist against viper who lay pained next to him, sending her back into the darkness that is unconsciousness.
“DON’T YOU EVER TOUCH HER AGAIN YOU B*****D!” I screamed, dropping immediately to my knees to hold her unconscious body in my arms, attempting to bring her consciousness back to her. I slapped her hard around the face in my moment of desperation which did nothing as id expected.
“C’mon babe please help me out here, we gotta go please…” I sobbed, feeling more crimson blood spill from my nose and down onto my chin, dripping onto vipers face beneath me.
I knew there was only one way to go about this and it wasn’t pretty. Judging by the state of the man he would remain in this state of unconsciousness for about an hour so I had plenty of time to wake viper and get the hell out of here.
“I’m so sorry about this” I whispered practically to myself as I grabbed viper by under her arms and began to drag her in the direction I guessed the stairs were, not being able to lift my arm high enough to find any light switches due to the pain slashing through my shoulder from the awkward way id landed on it in my attempt to fake fall over.
I dragged my best friend down the ever so dark and ever so steep stairs of her old fashioned house one by one, apologising each time her body hit the corners of each step. After six cringe worthy steps I gave in and quickly ran the rest to cause her as little pain as possible. “Sorry again” I mumbled, pushing the door to her lounge open with my back and dragging her onto the soft beige rug that lay in the middle of the room in the middle of two brown leather sofas and a television set with a large collection of dvds in the cabinet next to it. As my mind raced with many ideas of how to bring viper back to consciousness but I had one miraculous idea once my eyes laid on a half empty glass of water on the stool next to the largest sofa. I ran to gulp the liquid but held it in my mouth as I ran to kneel besides viper were I spat all of the liquid over her face, spraying her clothes and hair too. She stirred softly before her eyes lids flickered open to peer up at me.
“Did you have to soak my clothes?” she asked, sounding annoyed.
I stroked a strand of her soaked hair from her forehead when a loud band came from the floor above us.
“What’s going on?” she asked, realising we lay in a dark room with blood over our body’s.
“Him again, he’s really lost it but I’ve got a plan, were ganna run, I don’t know were but were going to run away from it all!” I whispered urgently, listing to the noises from upstairs as the man came too.
“If you haven’t realised I’m recovering from passing out…” she complained, grabbing the back of her head as pain obviously struck her.
“Please… if you haven’t realised, its run or get stabbed to death from the phsyco upstairs!”
Viper seemed to understand now, and slowly attempted to get to her feet as I supported her. She complained about it hurting but we couldn’t stay here unless we wished for death, which I must admit I was staring to do, but I wasn’t going to give up so easily. I suddenly found myself grabbing the half empty glass of water and throwing the whole of its contence over vipers face to give her a bit more energy. Not waiting around for her reaction or curses, I dashed into the kitchen and grabbed out one of those massive meat cutting knives my mother used to use to cut up the beef on Boxing Day many years ago, shoving it into my back pocket, handle first obviously, dropped my mp3 into my other pocket and ran back to viper.
“Forgive me for that…” I mumbled, grabbing her by the hand and guiding her through the dark walls of the house and to the front door and just as we heard the man get to his feet, we managed to creep through the door and expose ourselves into the freezing pitch darkness of the night.