The reality is

Fire arches like a rainbow as the bullet explodes from the chamber. I visually watch it spiraling, cutting through the air like a spaceship jumping to warp speed. If you don't understand this description then I suggest you find a trekky to explain it. Weird I know, how can someone see a 9 mm bullet traverse thirteen hundred mph with the naked eye? I don't have an answer, I just know I see it. Oddly enough I don't hear a thing, now that is strange.

Perhaps the darkness contributed to the shooting, or fear, probably both. However, when intruders enter a home in the middle of the night anything can happen. It was a creaking noise that tweaked my ear. Old floorboards tend to become more talkative during the night. They are the built-in alarm system of an older home, crying out in the dark as you try to sneak a late-night snack or alerting exhausted parents when their teenager creeps in past curfew.

I have broken into many homes and never go in blind, yet for all my preparation I missed one very important detail. I thought they were simply a nice elderly couple that had become too complicit and trusting of their neighborhood, which had always been safe. Yet, now invites criminals like me. If I do my job correctly they are unaware until morning, when the evidence speaks for itself.

Crouching low as to blend with the dark, I feel an urge to run. Yet, flight is not an option because a shadow has just morphed to life in front of me. These spectres waver in and out of existence, hungering for lost souls. They come to life after midnight, which is a fact. I like the dark yet fear the shades that live within the corners.

Suddenly, a burst of light and a harrowing scream shatters the dark.

A bullet will impart incredible force upon a body, because as the bullet exits the barrel of the gun, that same force must be imparted in the opposite direction. This is a basic law.

I instantly became numb the moment hot lead tears through fabric, punching a hole into the chest, which is little more than a depression of the flesh. It is the path the bullet takes inside the body and exits that causes the true damage. Especially if it is a hollow point bullet, which this apparently is.

Surrealism in real time mimics images and thoughts of the mind, creating a strange event into a dream like state of coping with a bizarre situation one finds themselves in. Blood doesn’t just leak from a wound, it explodes outward, like raindrops colliding upon concrete.

The reality is, I am currently standing in a strangers home staring at the lifeless body of an individual who received a bullet meant for me. While her husband, who thought having a weapon in their home would save them, collapses to his knees in anguish.

A smoking gun clenched in his hand.