A/N: Hey, everyone! It's Jenna, back with another fic, but with a twist. I'm co-writing this fic, "Why Am I The Witness", with the one and only Samantha (ILikeScarves). Sam is a fabulous writer and we figured we should write a fic together. We switch off chapter by chapter, starting off with me. Chapter 2 will be written by Sam. Hope you guys like! R&R and let us know what you think!
"Hey, Rog, I'm going out to film, okay?" Mark called to his friend as he opened the sliding door in the small loft.
From his room, Mark's roommate replied, "Yeah, whatever. Have fun."
Mark rolled his eyes. Sometimes he just couldn't understand why Roger couldn't accept things the way they were and live out his life—or at least pretend to. Then again, he mused, he wasn't the one with a deadly disease running through his veins at every second of every day. Mark didn't really know what it felt like to be reminded constantly of the fact that time was of the essence for him, because it wasn't. He sighed heavily at the thoughts and headed out the door.
A warm breeze brushed up against the pale skin of lanky, shy Mark Cohen as he filmed the streets around him with his old camera. In New York City, there was always something going on, and that made it easy for Mark to take some interesting footage, especially around this time in late afternoon.
Panning down the sidewalk and capturing passers by along the way, he felt particularly empty, although he wasn't exactly sure why. He contemplated about the fact that his life seemed to be always at a stand-still; moving but not moving, almost like a single frame in a roll of film...
In the midst of all of this, something caught his attention when he headed down a back street.
"Don't freakin' move, or I'll bash your face in so hard you'll be flying across the city. You hear?" someone spat.
Mark swerved his camera toward the voice. Sure enough, there was a man in a huge black hoodie holding a knife in his right hand. Mark's mouth gaped open in awe as he held his camera up to the scene before him.
Another seemingly younger man was kneeling on the ground, pleading: "Please...Come on, Ray, man...You can't do this to me...Please...The whole thing was an accident...You can't..." His voice was cracking, and Mark had to do everything in his power to keep from shouting out in dismay and confusion at the two of them.
"You think I can't?" the hooded man raised the knife in the air. "Just watch me, you piece of shit. Just watch me."
Mark couldn't run away or call out to someone for help—he was frozen. He couldn't move. He squeezed his eyes shut as he listened to blood-churning, terrifying screams coming from the other side of the alleyway. He distinctly heard the thrusting sounds of the knife going in and out of the victim's chest. It made him sick.
There were more screams, more begs of mercy.
And then nothing.
Gulping, he opened one eye and then the other, realizing that he had been filming the entire scene the whole time. He gaped at his camera for a moment as if he'd never seen it before. Then, slowly adjusting his gaze to the hooded man not too far away from him, he saw it all.
The younger man lay sprawled out on the stone-cold ground, his position distorted, and from what Mark could see, his face was, too. The hooded man stood before him, breathing in and out heavily, a bloody knife in his hands.
Mark took a couple of steps backwards in utter disbelief, feeling as if he would faint. He dropped his camera from eye level so that he could see where he was going should he decide to run. But his feet wouldn't let him. His body wouldn't let him.
I need to get out of here...Come, on, Mark, move! But it was too late.
The couple of steps he had taken had managed to echo through the narrow alleyway.
And Mark found himself staring right into the cold-blooded eyes of the killer. Mark's eyes widened, and soon he had control of his body enough again to run. He whirled around and ran as fast as his legs would carry him, sprinting down the sidewalks that had taken him to that forbidden place in the beginning.
"Oh, God," he repeatedly muttered to himself, "Oh, God...This can't be happening..."
By the time he reached his loft again, he did a double take in every direction. It didn't seem like the man had followed him at all. Breathing a sigh of relief, he took the keys out from his pocket and made his way up the stairs in the apartment.
Not even bothering to acknowledge Roger when he entered through the door, Mark blindly made his way to his bedroom, shutting the door quietly behind him.
He put his camera down on the bedside table and flopped down on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. The reality of his situation continued to haunt him.
I just witnessed a murder.