Defeated part 1.

The room was dark and dingy. I was sat on a wooden chair, with a red cushion on, but the cushion had started to fade and the wood had started to splinter. A man came in about ten minutes later. He looked tired, there were black bags hanging underneath his eyes. His white shirt was hanging partially over his suit trousers and his tie was strewn off to the side. I glanced at the clock. 3:30 pm. The date was the 5^th November 2001. He slammed a pile of folders down in front of me and came right up to my face. I pulled my head back but he followed me. He sighed loudly and pulled out one of the shit wooden chairs, took a few of the papers out of one of the folders and rustled them before placing them neatly in front of him. He sighed loudly again, but this time it echoed around the navy blue room.

I remember this day like it was yesterday. At 4:05pm on the 5^th November 2001, my life changed forever. The tired man with the scruffy suit was to deliver the worst words a 25-year-old man could hear.

It was a wet Thursday night and I was walking back from a friend’s house. We’d had a couple of drinks together, smoked a few cigarettes and played some games on his console. I left about 11 o’clock and I only lived fifteen minutes away. I stopped in at my local corner shop to pick up a couple of snacks for when I got in and continued on my way my home. On the strait of my road, three men approached in the opposite direction. They had their hoods up so I couldn’t see their faces. One of them had his hands in his pockets and was clearly gripping something which I immediately assumed was a knife or a gun.

The men walked past me, nodding as they went by. I thought nothing more of it and carried on walking. I was just being paranoid and insecure. But with the rate of crime in the neighbourhood, you could never be too sure. It wasn’t until I got to the gate on my driveway that I was knocked to the floor by a blow to the head. I managed to roll onto my back and I saw the three men that walked past me less than a minute ago standing over me. I could see the one that had his hands in his pockets now. His hazel eyes glistened with pure evil and the smile on his lips told me exactly what his intentions were. I started to pull myself to my feet but he knocked me back to the floor with a single blow to the stomach and pulled a knife out of his pocket which he slowly started lowering towards me. The look on his face told me he was taking his time to enjoy every second. His two friends decided to get in on it too, punching me and kicking me until there were barely any signs of life. I managed to find some energy from somewhere, and wrestled the knife out of the main guys hand and got him in the leg, sending him to the floor like a sack of potatoes. He tried to get up but he couldn’t. I stood up slowly, clutching my stomach. That’s when it happened.

I looked at the stranger in front of me, writhing around in agony and I took the knife in my hand, admiring the gentle sparkle of the blade under the streetlights. It was as if something had taken over my body and my mind. Something that looking back, certainly wasn’t me. In what felt like seconds, a lifeless body was strewn over the sidewalk. His friends tried to run. They’d seen the side of me that I didn’t even know existed. I managed to get them too, and soon there were three bodies lying at my feet. Three brothers, three sons, three grandsons. I threw the knife down the grate at the side of the road and ran into my house, fumbling at the lock on the door with shaking hands. That’s when I fully realised the extent of what I’d done and I sunk down the front door and cried like a baby.

The Police only got me because I had to call an ambulance to my home. I had suffered a serious blow to the head and I desperately needed medical help. The paramedics had arrived at my home a little past midnight, and had called the Police when they found the guys lying outside my home. They were pronounced dead at the scene. After being discharged from hospital I was carted away to the station. In the interview I claimed self-defence. But the officers protested that I didn’t have to kill the two unarmed men. That they probably would’ve left the scene after I’d brutally ended the life of their friend. In the early hours of the 6^th November, I was officially charged with the murder of the three men, and was read my rights.