She didn’t count on the disorienting darkness. When he caught her hair she felt a numbness before the searing pain rose on her scalp. Her neck snapped back and he brought the barrel of the gun to rest under her chin. When he cocked the barrel back, her insides froze and she whimpered. He body shook uncontrollably. He asked if she were trying to get herself killed but she didn’t dare shake her head or speak.<br/><br/>A sea of regrets for things she’d never done passed through her mind as she waited to die. She thought of loved ones she would never see again; their faces swam before her mind’s eye. Her mouth went dry and she closed her eyes. Tears rolled down her cheeks as he held her head back, the gun barrel digging into her soft skin, the bullet’s chamber aligned with the barrel. Her mind travelled through a tunnel where the the oncoming lights were the bullet laying in the dark chamber. Her pulse and breathing were amplified in her tunnel and all other sound was obscured by her terror. She stood frozen, paralyzed by her fear, and at his mercy.