Ready, Set, Go.

Dreaded Avenue

I read the glowing yellow street sign parallel to my eyes.

  I squinted to make sure I was at the Dreaded Avenue. This was the place the court said they had buried my wife.

 It has been seven days since I have been to court, and seven days since I have been trapped in this bedroom framed in mattresses. I remember the judge called it, “The Rehabilitation Center.” 

How sweet of them to imprison me next to my wife.

It has also been seven days since the death of my irresistible wife. I have no idea how to function without her addictive smile. The one she would always use whenever playing with me.

 I could not fathom why they could accuse me of being responsible for Eliza’s death. It was only a harmless game of hide and go seek, or as we had called it, Ready, Set, Go.

All I could remember from our last game was that she cheated, and therefore I was responsible for punishing her for her actions. She kept telling me to stop chasing her, but that really wasn’t fair.

Before I could finish my thought, I was interrupted by the graceful nurse who came to check on me every day. Everything about her reminded me of Eliza, from her light brunette hair to her dirt brown eyes.  

As she walked into my reinforced room, she pulled a metal cart filled up with hundreds of pill capsules with her. Behind her, I saw for the first time what was behind the door of my room. 

I could see a window the size of a fully grown man, one that was much larger than mine and overlooked the graveyard of Dreaded Avenue. I crawled up from my kneeling position in curiosity to see where my love had been buried, but the door was violently shut by the nurse.

“Now listen up you psycho killer!” she paused to glance back and make sure the door was closed, “It’s three in the morning and I have no reason to be here other than to receive the  dirt-low salary I get for giving you freaks their medicine.”

I grinned at her. I could not ignore how much she reminded me of Eliza. Eliza’s rebellious attitude never failed to impress me. Maybe that's why she thought she could get away with cheating in her last game of Ready, Set, Go. Perhaps, the nurse being this outspoken was an attempt to match my Eliza.

The nurse ignored my grin and bent down to look at all the capsules filled with medicine. Her eyes kept bouncing from left to right, and up then down, searching for a specific capsule. 

I was shocked I could see her expressions this well, with only a dim light coming from the ceiling that was completely covered with a piss colored mattress. 

Now that I think about it, I really don’t understand what the point of all these mattresses are. It would make playing Ready, Set, Go a difficult game to play. But I know that my woman, Eliza, would have always found a way to play. Maybe my love whispered in the ears of the judge to bury her here so she could test out that theory. My love never failed to impress me.

I quickly reverted my attention to the nurse when I heard her make a loud and angered stomp with her left foot. It was so impactful that I could feel it from under the mattress I was sitting on.

“Looks like the medication to fix you ain’t here,” She said as she turned her back, “I’ll be right back,”She opened the door to the room.

I focused on her body as she left the room, my eyes following her every movement until she was out of my vision through the open door. 

Eliza had taught me this tactic when playing Ready, Set, Go. It involved focusing on your target's motion. It helps you know what direction your hider is going in…that clever woman!

That's when I realized that this was a message to do my job. I am the one who must go seek the nurse. Eliza’s spirit must have told her about the game, only a professional would know to be as sneaky as this nurse was being. She had left me an open invitation. I knew the resemblance to Eliza was a sign!

I closed my eyes and chanted the words internally that began my time of seeking, “Ready, set… go.” 

I stood up for the first time since I had come to this room, and focused my eyes on the light coming in from the open door. After a week of being detained in near darkness, the singular light was blinding. 

 I quickly focused on the opening of the door, and the room started vibrating with all the tension of excitement that was flooding my head. My heart began to fill again as I realized that my old love had left a woman for me. A woman, or a love that could play with me endless games of Ready, Set, Go. This was her way of forgiving me, her way of compensating me for the injustice I had faced for rightfully punishing her.

I felt her spirit give me a push, and I pounced up and chased after the open door that was about two meters away from me.

Once I reached the door I looked left and right with the most excitement I’ve ever had playing this game. I could feel Eliza's spirit directing me to go left, and that’s where I ran.

I ran to the end of the hall, barely traveling in a steady pattern, and that is when I found her, my newest love, by a cabinet.

I opened my mouth to catch a breath of confidence before I was going to run towards her. I thought of a clever way to catch her attention, because I knew Eliza loved the way I would always bring her attention undivided on me. Surely she taught the nurse the same way too if she has already taught her all the dynamics of Ready, Set, Go.

I smiled when I found her searching through the cabinet full of pill capsules. Just as she took one of the many non-distinctable capsules out, I stomped my left foot, just like how she did earlier. 

The sound echoed against the white painted brick walls of the empty hallway and my love turned her head to face me almost immediately after the sound reached her. 

I knew she could see me clearly because her facial expression changed. This typically meant it was game over for the loser, a reaction I was very familiar with. 

I stepped forward, but out of nowhere she screamed:

“GUARDS!!! GUARDS!!! NUMBER 2389  IS OUT!”

In that same moment, the capsule of medicine that she was clutching tightly in her hand dropped to the floor and the pills had all spilled. She ran in the opposite direction.

“Another cheater,” I said as I gleamed and angled my head to the ceiling. “Eliza, may this new woman compensate for your loss and be my cheater.”

I shifted my body into a manner that I would be able to sprint at, but suddenly in the corner of my eyes I saw a group of five men carrying shackles and approaching me. The guards were here.

 “Being a rebellious, lovely woman comes with its consequences,” I whispered in the direction of my love  as I turned to the guards.

They flinched back in fear, and I found it so amusing I had to let out a chuckle. In one swift move, I dashed after the love of my newest life. 

“GET HIM!” One of the guards yelled while pushing the others forward.

I swiftly jumped past the pills, carefully dipping one foot in front of the other in such a manner that any wrong movement would make me trip over.  I turned to the only available hallway there was, and once I passed the pills I began dashing through hundreds of rooms as my dirty hospital rag flew behind me.

After taking the path I found myself at the window that I had observed earlier when the nurse…my love had opened the door of my room, but this time there was something different. There was a huge hole about the size of a human inside the window. The outline of it showed a person's arms and legs being spread out as if they had just been fleeing in terror.

I looked back and saw in the far distance the uncareful guards tripping one by one on each of the pills my clever love had spilled as they fell on top of eachother. Regardless of the storm of sounds I was hearing, I peered down out the hole of the window. I saw a woman sticking her body to the wall of the building, about six feet below me with her arms flat against the bricks of the facility.

I smiled right away knowing that my love is the one who had jumped out the window, and was trying to keep the game going by hiding. What a cheat!

All of the sudden before I could take a further chance in the game, I saw the guards recovering from their falls and rapidly approaching my way with the sound of their heavy boots slamming onto the ground. 

“My love, you know that reinforcements are against the rules!” Without another thought I pushed myself through the hole of the window,  feeling shards of glass on the crevices of the outline cut through my uncovered skin. I came crashing to the ground on my butt, and instantly turned to see if my love was still hiding against the wall. 

I looked around and right away found her walking backwards in the dark night with her hands in front of her face stuck in the enclosed corner of the building.

“P-p-please,” She paused to catch her breath, “I-I-I’ll give you anything please just dont hurt me.” 

I turned to face the window of my fall and then turned to face all the cuts on my hand, and then reverted my attention to the guards who were trying to figure out the direction I had gone in. I assumed they did not notice the window because they were too busy scavenging the halls trying to find me. 

I turned back to my love and said, “I want you.”

She shrieked and sprinted towards the empty road behind me, the one that led straight to the graveyard. She cheated again. I decided to save any punishment for cheating once I got to her. Eliza was teaching her too much of her troubling ways that got her where she is today!

“Perhaps I can lock her in the attic of my apartment, or even leave her hanging by her arms in my basement,”I thought as I chased after her.

Suddenly, I found the energy to run much faster. The thought of all the punishments I could inflict exciting me.

In a few seconds, I became much closer to my love. Just two feet behind her. As she turned her head back, she screamed just as I slammed into her.

The collision was so intense that we both fell onto the cold ground of the night, but she was in my arms, and that was all that mattered. 

“Well, let's just say I won this one,” I said, smirking.

The endless chasing made me completely forget that I was out of the facility and in the open. There were more important things happening. I had found a replacement. A new Eliza.

I looked  around as I caught my breath and noticed I had made it right in the middle of the Dreaded Avenue graveyard, where Eliza had been buried. I looked back at my room to see that the dim light of my room was instead filled with the aggressively gleaming flash lights of the guards. If they took a good look out that one small circled window, they would see me, and I would be back in there, unable to punish my love. I could not let that happen.

“My love, it’s time to go, I’ll take care of your punishment later,” I nudged my love, but she did not budge.

I kept nudging her, and gradually began to panic that the guards would get to us if she didn’t get up soon. “My love? MY LOVE?” I wailed while my chest inflated and deflated quickly with air as I raised my voice. 

I put my hand on her heart and felt nothing. Not a single beat.

It couldn’t be. No…no…it couldn't be. HOW COULD SHE BE DEAD. It was just a light collision.

“THERE HE IS, LOOK!” A guard alerted while waving his arm to the rest of his guards.

I was overwhelmed with so many thoughts. All I could do was crawl over to the tombstone of Eliza lying right in front of me. I dragged my beloved’s body along with me, which forced her body to scrape on each small rock from the lifeless ground.

I caressed the tomb with my shaking hand as the shouts of the guards began to reach me. I ignored them. 

“Show me your love once more, if you raise the woman you have provided for me, I shall always keep you in my heart!” 

All of a sudden, her tombstone began to crack from its edges, and pebbles broke off of it.  I crawled back away from the tomb, excited for what would happen next. 

“Yes…YES!” I shrieked excitedly as I saw a transparent and cloudy form of Eliza emerge from her tomb.  Her entire body was exactly as it had been last I had seen her, and I knew for sure it was Eliza.

I crawled back to my original stance and clamped my hands together as if saying a prayer. 

“My love, I knew you were here with me this whole time.”

Behind her ghost, my newest love appeared. “Which one of your loves?” said the woman who was just pushing around a cart of medicine a few minutes ago.

For the first time in my life, I had experienced something unsettling within me. More unsettling than any feeling I had ever felt before. I choked on the air that I was breathing, unable to stabilize myself. 

I coughed so hard I felt as if my voice had left my body. I somehow managed to ask, “Eliza, all I want is that you provide life back to my newest love and bring us somewhere away from this place”.

Like the sound of an angel, Eliza loudly whispered, “Irresistible yet worthy of punishment? Thought I would take her for myself.” She said as the ghost of my newest love stood next to Eliza as both of them looked at one another.

My crippling fear froze me as the sound of the guards rushing like a herd of bulls intensified. 

Instantaneously, the guards dispersed themselves throughout the graveyard, while both the spirits looked at each other and whispered something to each other.

“Ready.”

 The guards shined their flashlights on me and I tried to move but my legs were frozen.

“Set.”

 I turned around to look at my surroundings, unable to grasp what was happening to me. My loves, both old and new, whispered one last word together, a word they knew would condemn me. 

 “Go.”