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She was dead.
Max sat in the stillness, surrounded by the wreckage of everything he’d once known.
The world felt distant, blurred at the edges, as if it no longer existed beyond the walls of their bedroom. As if it had ended when they breathed their last.
This was where everything had ended.
The blood on the floor, on the walls, on his skin, it was still warm, but it was already starting to dry. Michelle's body was cradled in his lap, her head lolling to the side, eyes half-closed, the vibrant light that had once been in them snuffed out. Her hair was matted with blood, her beautiful features marred with the evidence of what those monsters had done to her.
Max gasped, fighting to breathe as he curled over the body of his dearest love.
She was dead - they were both dead.
Her blood was everywhere, coating his trembling hands, his clothes, his face. He could taste it, thick and metallic, filling his mouth with the taste of death. He tried to wipe it away with a hand that couldn't stop shaking, but it only smeared further, coating him with what had been her life.
He couldn’t breathe. Each inhale felt like dragging in shards of glass.
He wanted to die.
Rose was in the next room. He knew she was gone too. Her cries had stopped long before. The silence that followed was worse, a final, ringing emptiness that swallowed everything he had ever loved.
His little girl, his sweetest flower, just a few feet away, lying dead in her crib.
Michelle, his other half, bloodied and dead in his arms.
And here he was. Still breathing. Still alive.
But what was left of his life?
Max closed his eyes, trying to remember how it had felt before all this. His wife’s laugh, the way her eyes lit up when she smiled, the warmth of her lips pressing against his. Her hand in his, holding him tight. He thought of the soft weight of Rose in his arms as he rocked her to sleep, how her eyes sparkled as he tickled her nose and whispered stories to her. Their future had seemed endless - full of moments like that. Their future had seemed perfect.
Their future had seemed secured.
But the future was gone now, ripped apart by violence, splattered across the walls in blood, shattered and broken like Rose's crib in the next room.
Their future was dead.
There was nothing left for Max.
There was no reason to keep going.
There was no family to hold, no perfect little life to return to. No wife. No daughter. Nothing.
There was nothing.
The thought of facing another minute in this world, one that didn’t include them, made him sick. His entire body shook with it, a deep tremor that felt like it would tear him apart from the inside out.
His gaze drifted to the bed, to the sheets saturated in Michelle's blood.
His gun lay there, just inches away from Michelle's head.
It hadn't been enough to save them.
He hadn't been enough to save them.
It gleamed darkly in the dim light, the barrel still warm. The sight of it pulled him in, like gravity, a force he couldn't resist - and he didn't try to. His mind latched onto it, clinging to the idea that there was still one way out.
There was one way to make the pain stop.
He wanted to make the pain stop.
He wanted everything to stop.
Slowly, almost mechanically, he reached for it. His bloodied fingers trembled as they wrapped around the familiar grip, curling tight like it was a lifeline, the only thing left that made sense. The cold metal felt solid, real, when everything else had crumbled into dust.
This was the one thing left that he could control.
He lifted the gun off the bed, the weight familiar but somehow foreign in his hands. His mind was numb, thoughts dissolving into static as he raised it. Slowly. So slowly. His arm shook as he brought the barrel up, pressing the still-warm steel against his temple.
Michelle's blood had grown cold.
He didn’t rush it.
He let the moment stretch, a sickening eternity where the gun felt like the only thing tethering him to reality. His finger hovered over the trigger, trembling, barely able to hold still, threatening to end things at any moment. His breath came in shallow gasps, and the taste of blood filled his throat as he swallowed.
It tasted of blood and death.
It tasted of what was about to come.
The thought of what came next filled his mind, vivid and undeniable. He could feel the bullet, could see it in his mind, ripping through his skull. He imagined the sharp crack of the shot, the sudden, explosive pain that would follow, and then - nothing.
Blessed nothing. His brain would shut off, his heart would stop, and he’d never have to feel this emptiness again. Never have to live without them.
He would slump over, and lie next to Michelle. Like they did every night. And maybe he’d even see them again. He could hold Rose in his arms, press a kiss to Michelle's lips.
He could almost believe it.
The gun pressed harder against his temple, and his finger curled around the trigger.
He closed his eyes.
And pulled.
Click.
Max’s eyes fluttered open.
The sound echoed in his skull, cold and hollow, not the violent crack he’d expected. The was no agonized burst of pain. No spray of blood. No end to the nightmare.
It was just a click.
It was just... nothing.
His hand began to shake harder, a tremor that rippled up his arm as his mind scrambled to understand.
He squeezed the trigger again.
Click.
Again.
Click.
Again.
Click. Click. Click.
No. No.
He pulled again.
Click.
No bullets.
There were no bullets.
Despite it all, he pulled again.
Click.
The useless gun finally tumbled from his hands, slipping from his grip and clattering to the floor, splashing into the pool of blood that should have been his.
His blood should have join Michelle's, coated across the walls and soaking through the floor. His heart should have fallen as still as Rose's.
He should have been dead.
Max stared at his empty hand, his vision swimming. His whole body convulsed, his muscles seizing up as the realization crashed down on him.
No, no...
He couldn’t even do this. He couldn't save them. He couldn’t follow them.
He was trapped here.
Without them.
Max’s scream tore from his throat, raw and broken, ripping through the room in a primal, animalistic howl of agony. His chest heaved, the scream turning into a sob, his body folding in on itself as he clutched at Michelle’s body, as if holding her tight enough might somehow reverse the horror of it all. He pressed her to his chest, sobbing into her bloodied hair, crying out her name as if she would answer.
But she was gone. They were both gone.
And he was still here.
He was alive.