Best Friends Forever

“Daniel, what happened” asked Derek who was baffled with Daniel’s frantic muffling. “I don’t know, it all happened so quickly”, Daniel broke down for a fifth time with tears streaming out of his blood red eyes. What had happened was rather atrocious and grotesque.

A few hours earlier, Daniel had gone to a basement party with his girlfriend Elsa. Both of them had indulged in some drugs which were too strong for them to remain sober and in control. Derek was at the party too, but him being teetotal kept him sober unlike his friends. He observed how the pair were staggering and finding it hard to walk, yet still wanting to take some more drugs. “I think you two have had enough and need some rest instead, time for bed”. Daniel sarcastically yawned, “Derek don’t be boring, let us get a few more drinks and the good stuff”. Elsa laughed after her boyfriend’s remark, “Babe your best friend worries too much, he can’t even man up for a drink”.

Derek became impatient as the couple kept on ranting. Finally they agreed to go home but before that Derek had to confiscate Daniel’s car keys. “You’ll have to take a cab, you’re to drunk to drive” he told them as he disappeared with the keys. Unfortunately he forgot about Elsa’s keys, with her car parked outside.

Close to an hour later Derek checked his phone and saw fifteen missed calls and ten text messages from Daniel. Daniel was desperately calling for Daniel to rush to Greenwood City Park. Immediately Derek drove to the spot and was greeted by the shock of his life, Elsa’s car stuck above a tree trunk. He stepped out of his car and moved closer, seeing Elsa’s body maimed at the front seat. Her skull appeared to have cracked open with bits of her brains oozing out. Daniel ran towards his best friend and hugged him as he cried hysterically. “My baby is gone, my baby is dead” cried Daniel, with his tears flooding Derek’s shoulder. They took a moment to embrace the pain of her death before moving away from each other.

“Have you called the Ambulance” asked Derek who was responded to by a nod from Daniel. “Good, now we need to call the police”. Suddenly Daniels mood shifted from sad to triggered,” No Derek we don’t need to call the police, we should just get out of here”. Derek was puzzled, “Why wouldn’t we advise the police, it’s what should be done as per protocol”. Daniel looked at him for a second,” And what will happen once Elsa’s father finds out, he’ll hug us with open arms”. Derek got the point, Elsa was the daughter of a well known mafia boss, and the man didn’t have a reputation for being merciful. He decided to follow what his friend suggested, but before that he went to have one last look at Elsa.

It was five days after Elsa’s funeral. The proceedings had all happened but there was still something which was lacking, the cold hard truth. Derek knew the real truth, but wasn’t sure if he was ready to tell it.

Elsa wasn’t driving the night she died, as Daniel had implied. Daniel was on the steering wheel, and he lost control thanks to his intoxication. He reared off the road crashing into a tree. The boy didn’t get hurt too badly, but his girlfriend’s leg was severely hurt and potentially broken. Crippled yet still alive, she urged her boyfriend to call for help. He called the ambulance then Derek, who wasn’t reachable. A grueling thought kept coming into his head, what would happen if her father found out she was crippled by his irresponsibility. Imagining all the consequences of his behavior made him tremble with fear. There was a way he could make sure things wouldn’t get out of hand. A heinous and unspeakable act, which could give him a potential reprieve.

Daniel moved his girl from the passenger’s seat to the driver’s seat, and then grabbed her head before smashing it several times on the steering wheel until he was sure she was dead. He took a sachet of cocaine, had a sniff of it before spilling the rest of it of his dead girlfriends lap. Surely this screamed of an accident caused by a drug overdose and wouldn’t implicate him in anyway once he fled from the scene.

Derek was no easy person to fool, and particularly knew when his friend was lying to him. Daniel’s will to flee from the scene gave him a lot of suspicion. Strands of hair were sticking onto his clothes and Derek had a suspicion. He went back to the crashed vehicle and found out the horrific truth. Not sure how to act, he decided to keep silence for the sake of his friend. Daniel was his best friend since they were seven and nothing in their eighteen years of friendship made him question it.

Days after the incident, strange happenings began to happen to Derek. In his dreams he would see Elsa weeping with her half open cranium bleeding endlessly, eventually not sleeping to avoid the lucid dreams of the murdered girl. The day brought no rest to him as things became even stranger. Lights and electric gadgets would switch on and off on their own. Taps and showers would run without anyone’s intervention. Derek heard footsteps in his apartment while alone and a lot more weird things occurred. It got to the point when he looked at the mirror and didn’t see his face, but saw Elsa standing behind him.

The ghost of Elsa was haunting him, and he knew why. She wanted justice for her murder and the only witness to it was Derek. He knew what he had to do, but had been trying to remain silent for the sake of the friend he loved. It was a secret he wanted to take to the grave; however the secret was slowly taking him to the grave. Madness was drawing closer to him and he had to put an end to him.

Derek pondered at the quandary he was in. to turn right was to betray his friend, his closest confident and the only brother he had ever had. To turn left would be to subject himself to more of the mental torture he had faced for weeks until his conscience consumed him to suicide.

Finally he made a decision that would alter the course of everything, a choice which would lead to consequences he could not control, but he would take the blame for causing. Daniel had to be sacrificed for the good of everyone. Ignorance wouldn’t have counted as innocence but it would be sin. Before acting though, he gave his best friend a fair warning to run away before things got complicated.

The next day Derek stood at the gate of Elsa’s father, half of him wishing he wouldn’t do what he was about to do, while the other told him it was all he could. After waiting a long time to ring the intercom he entered the manor and was lead inside the house. While waiting for Elsa’s father Derek thought of reversing his choice and lying about what he had come for to save his friend. He hoped his friend had listened to him and was halfway out of the country with a new name.

The moment of reckoning had finally come. Elsa’s father stood in front of Derek, his masculine imposing frame hovered over Derek like a dark cloud of fury. “You’re Derek?” he asked in an intimidating tone that made Derek nod back in a scarred manner. He looked at his guards and signaled them”seize him!”

Derek tried to fight it off while he struggled to resist them. Bemused, he screamed out”what’s going on sir”. Elsa’s father grinned coldly, “What happened is you’ve been caught murderer”. “Murderer?” Derek was beyond confused just before his answer popped up behind him. “Yes murderer, you’ll pay for killing my girlfriend”.

It all made sense now. While he hesitated and stalled, his friend acted and outsmarted him. The man he protected was the man who betrayed him first. Love is everyone’s weakness and his love for his friend was his downfall. As the guards dragged him away, Derek gave Daniel one last look of disgust and disbelief. Perhaps hesitating wasn’t the best thing to do after all.