Chapter 2: The seeking of redemption
That night when the nightmare came and the skeleton rose once again to claim me, I wasn't scared, just empty. It was then after the nightmare that I reached for the kitchen knife that I had sharpened and stored behind a loose bit of metal of my bed frame. I raised its poorly sharpened edge towards my face, unsure of what to do, unsure on where to stab to finish it all in the fasted and most painless way. I placed the knife near my wrist then toward my neck, then to the middle of my chest, uncertainty filling within me at every moment of my confusion. I started to panic, my mind became irrational, my body fidgety, my thoughts raced, my heart pounded faster and faster until it was the only thing I could hear. In my confusion, my hands moved on their own. The knife pricked the skin of my wrist, pain shoot along my nerves, then a dark bead of blood slowly leaked at the knifes head. I screamed and threw the shiv at the opposite wall and started sucking the slow flow of blood from my wrist. Tears streamed down my face and onto the arm, mixing with the blood creating a salty, iron taste in my mouth.
I once again stared into the bright surface of the moon, shame clouding my mind as the pain slowly dulled in my wrist and the tears dried on my face. "what on earth are you doing this time?" an old grizzled voice shouted from the other side of the hallway, directly opposite of my cell.
"I'm killing myself," I admitted in a weak, dry voice to Mr Hunter, my eyes barely making out his old body lying on his bed hidden by the darkness.
"Doesn't look like you're doing a good if you're talking to me." His dark figure shifted in his bed towards me.
"Cause I can't do it, I can't even kill myself," I replied, my voice flat and empty.
"Mmmmh, well why do you wanna kill yourself?" He asked nonchalantly, then after a moment of silence, "Who are you trying to redeem yourself to?"
I stared into my hands imagining them bloodied again in that ally. "To the man that I killed," my mind drifted back to the hill and the family crying upon it, "I suppose to his family as well."
"Mmmh, did they ask you too?"
"What?" I looked towards his dark figure
"Did they ask for you to die? Did they want you to repay for his life with your own or did you decide that yourself?"
I looked at him in disbelief, his words replayed inside my head, yet its meaning somewhat lost on me.
"Kid didn't you consider that maybe what you would be doing isn't the best thing, for you and for them."
"How would you know? What widow wouldn't want closure for the death of her husband? What child wouldn't want revenge for the death of their Father? Surely they want me dead."
"Or, maybe your death would only bring more grief, more pain," Hunter stated, his voice still nonchalant but containing something else. "Maybe by killing yourself you would just be reopening an old wound, a past that they moved on from."
"Your wrong!" I snapped back, my voice loud, my body standing up, my eyes starting to swell up. "You have to be, how else would I seek redemption? How else could I repay them for what I've done?"
"Mmmh, why not a letter?' He asked, his eyes meeting my own through the darkness of the night. "Sure, write a letter containing what you want to say. It might reopen that past, reopen that wound within their family that they would like to forget however you would apologise. You can give them the clarity they never received, an option so that they can finally move on with their lives. That's an option not many families get to receive. Being able to forgive rather than continuously hold a grudge against others is a better way for people to move rather than just trying to forget. It always them victim to see the per..perputwater, goddam what's the word? Perpuater."
For some reason, I chuckled. Then slowly I started to laugh, and an uncontrollably spasm filling my body. It was an odd sensation, something I never felt before but it felt nice. It filled that empty void within me and distracted my mind from the horrors that occupied it, I felt happy. "Its 'perpetrator'." I finally replied after the laughter died down within me, a smile still on my face.
"Ugh yeah, thanks. Well, what was a saying again, oh yeah? If the victim was able to understand the perpetrator and understand that they truly seek repentance, then in a way maybe they themselves can find some sort of closure. If you get what I mean?"
"Yeah, yeah I do. Thanks, Mr Hunter, I… I appreciate it."
"Yeah well just don't wake me up again."
As the silence crept back into the night, my clear mind started to swell with doubt and fear clouding any thoughts of repentance. I pondered would it actually work or would I just be hurting them again. The image of the family coming to mind again, the two children sobbing, their grief-stricken voices wailing into the cold world unanswered. The Newly-made widow in her black dress bent over crying, memories of a better time playing, promises and wishes smashed by the cruel reality of life. Surely it would be for the best, surely they never would want to hear from me, let alone be asked for forgiveness. However, Hunters words slipped into my mind again, 'Why not a letter? … You can give them the clarity they never received." The doubt and fear clashed with his words all night within my mind, his logic and advice were good, just poorly given. His idea simple yet challenging, the possibility of rejection always prevalent. Yet I knew what I needed to do, a certainty I never felt before built up inside of me, a conviction of sort to escape my depravity and reclaim my humanity.
As the sounds of birds chirped away in the distance, and voices of inmates discussing family visiting for Australia day drifting through the halls I sat and wrote. Words kept flooding out, 'I'm sorry … I never meant this … his image still haunts me', yet they never felt right, never contained what I wanted to express, never conveyed my [8regret and shame. It took two years for me to finish, two years for me to think and understand the words I needed, two years to understand what I wanted. I sent the letter titled, 'Dear miss Donald', and stood in the sun feeling its warmth hold me. That night I cried, cause a skeleton didn't choke me, but a man shook my hand and hugged me.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
A_literal_nugget
A_literal_nugget That is it, sorry but I'm not stuffed enough to continue on and it was always intended to be this short. However, I would appreciate any feedback as I'm very new to this and could use some advice. This is not the type of work that I intended to write it, its just to experiment.
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