Tanner Frank

Darkened
      I was just a typical teenage boy. I had, or at least I thought I had my life figured out. The world seemed so simple and happy. But little did I know that my life was going to turn into a life in hell. I had the life, I had a beautiful girlfriend who thought the world of me. I had tons of friends and was a very popular kid in school. I was a varsity football player and had a scholarship to go just about anywhere I wanted. It would seem that everything was just going my way, like I was living the dream! But everything that goes up, must come down at some point.
         The day was October 17, 2013 and I had just gotten out of football practice. I was getting ready to head home and shower. After I got myself cleaned up, I was going to go over to my girlfriend Brooke's house. We were planning on having a movie night with her parents. So I went home, took a shower and went and started my car to turn the heat on since it was cold outside. I noticed a dark maroon SUV sitting on the other side of the barely lit street. At the time I thought nothing of it and just figured maybe the neighbors had company or maybe they had gotten their garage doors painted and couldn't park in the garage. But as I left the driveway and walked back into my house, I heard a man's voice talking from the car. The the car door opened. A dark, robin hood looking character stepped out of the car and looked at me in astonishment. He yelled “crap he's seen us!” And another man quickly stepped up out of the car. They instantly started running toward me. So I took off. I sprinted through the gate going into my back yard. I ran to the tool shed in the back. Thinking maybe I could hide in there and possibly evade their pursuit. I got in there and shut the door. Right as they came around the corner of the house. They looked at eachother and discussed about how they need to find me and kill me so I couldn't tell anyone about the substantial robbery they were about to commit. Specifically saying, “The boy has seen us, we need to take care of him because this heist is all we have left.” They searched everywhere and they got to the shed last. I heard their footsteps coming closer and closer so I grabbed the shovel in the back corner and braced myself. They busted through the tin door and saw me. They pulled out a knife that had to be at least a foot long. I stood up and swung the shovel as hard as I could. I could tell I made contact with something but I didn't know what. I opened my eyes and saw the man's partner running away and looked down and realized why. The hooded man lay flat on the ground with a pool of blood seeping from underneath his head. I'd killed him. The man was dead and it was my doings. I ran inside to get my parents. They saw the mess and freaked. The police came and made a huge mess out of things. By the next morning everybody had known what happened. It was all over the news and was coming out in the newspaper. I had came to school and people looked at me differently. I reckon now that I had killed a man it changed who people saw me as. My girlfriend said she was too busy to hang out with me but in all honesty I believe she was petrified of me and didn't want to be dating a murder. Even my football scholarships were on the line. I would have to go to court and testify and it would be broadly telecasted and everyone would know that I could potentially be involved in the death of someone and even though it was just in self defense, no school wants to be associated with that kind of darkness on their football team. I became depressed and fell into a very dark place. My mother would bring me a bright colorful happy breakfast every morning and I would pour my darkened soul all over it. Over all of the darkness and all of the grief. People had abandoned me. My girlfriend had left me, my coaches and opportunities vanished from my life. But there was still one light in my life that kept me happy. My mother. I had began to realize that she made me happy with all of her smiles and unconditional love. And she realized if I wouldn't have killed that man then she would be planning a funeral for me instead of cheering me up.
    I wish everyone could just be grateful that I wasn’t the one who was murdered. It caused me to be so depressed that people would look at me differently. Walking thruogh the halls was the worst for me. People gave looks of horror, but it didn't go a away. They started bullying me and making me eventually drop out of school. There was nothing left for me I had hit rock bottom. The only person who fought for me was my mom. She supported me through everything. I had lost the things that made me who I was. It was hard to get back from that. But I did, I got one scholarship that didn't fall through at Mesa University. It was hard at first because I was so scared someone might know my secret. So I spent most time being alone, away from the crowds. It was weird tho, I was okay with it. I didn’t always have to be the star all the time I could just be myself. This was the new me. I began making friends, joining activities and best of all beginning to put the past behind me. I was a well changed man because of what happened that night.