[ WP ] A man stops a woman from jumping off a bridge , but he finds out she really should have jumped .

My wrists are chaffed and raw from the ropes. A single bare light bulb hangs from the ceiling, just like in all the clichéd films. As I sit in the small pool of light it offers, I think of how I came to be in this tiny basement hell. It was a cold, early, morning and I was on my daily run, my breath rising in a fog and my lungs aching as I raced along the streets. I so loved running. I loved the movement, the strength and the freedom. Things that I wish I could still appreciate. 
 
 I was crossing the bridge over the river when I saw something in the dim, predawn light. It was golden hair blowing in the wind. She couldn ’ t have been a day over twenty five years old, but he look on her face was that of one years older. Clad in only a thin cotton dress, something straight out of country music video, she dangled her legs past the concrete barrier, nothing but empty air separating her from the icy water below. Why I stopped, I don ’ t know. She was much younger then I, but something about her stature called to me. I approached her carefully, unsure of what to say. 
 
 “ You don ’ t want any part of this, mister. ” She said in a low, surprisingly cultured voice, barely sparing me a glance over her shoulder. Her features were delicate and her eyes were shadowed, as if sleep had eluded her for many nights. A car rumbled past on the street, leaving a heavy silence in its wake. 
 
 “ You shouldn ’ t be out here in that. ” I gestured to her dress, even though she did not face me to see it. “ You ’ ll catch your death. ” 
 
 “ If I have my way, mister, I will catch it much, much sooner. ” 
 
 I gasped at her bluntness and replied in a way I did not expect. “ Why? ” 
 
 Her head raised from where it had been staring at the water, and contemplated. “ It is better that I no longer live. ” She said this with such honesty, such resolution, that it tore my heart. 
 
 “ Did someone tell you that? ” I asked her. 
 
 “ Yes. In his own way. ” Her posture sagged then, as though the burden she carried was too great for her. 
 
 “ It ’ s not true, honey, no matter what he says. Trust me, we men say stupid things. ” 
 
 “ You don ’ t understand. ” She said slowly. “ It *is* true. ” 
 
 It was then she turned. I saw how pretty she was, delicate. I also saw the bloodstains splattered on her skimpy white dress and I shuddered all the way to my very soul. I should have run then, but I did not. Frozen in place, I watched a small, cold smile play across her lovely bow shaped lips. “ It ’ s as I said, mister. It ’ s better that I no longer live. ” 
 
 She had a rope in her hands. 
 
 And now I sit, tied to this chair. My skin is sticky with sweat and my own blood. I have screamed myself voiceless to no avail. What she will do with me I do not know. She barely batted an eye when she pulled my fingernails slowly from their beds. A delicate piano wire had removed my toes, one twist by bloody twist. What ’ s left of my running shorts are soaked in my own urine and its smell repulses me. I ’ ve given up hope of ever being found and I ’ m close to resolving to die in this horrible nightmare. 
 
 The sound of a key grating in a padlock draws me from my reverie. She is coming again. Trying not to cry, I listen as the quiet footsteps descend the stairs. Her dress is clean, hair twisted neatly up in a bun with little tendrils escaping from it. In her hand she holds a scalpel. On her lips is a smile. 
 
 “ Don ’ t you see now, mister? ” she asks, with all the innocents of a child. “ It would have been better that I did not live. ” 
 
 She strode over to where I sat bound and climbed onto my lap. I felt a stab of disgust with myself when I noticed the smoothness of her slim legs as they curled around me, and how I felt rather then saw she was not wearing anything beneath her dress. Her soft fingers touched my bearded face, and with a precision that called to mind how a woman puts on her makeup, she began to remove the features of my face with the scalpel. After the second eyebrow was neatly sliced off and the blood was flowing freely into my eyes, I felt no more. 

