The only response I got was a blue-lipped smile and a cackle. I pulled out my knife and cut the loop on the noose. "I'm not going to kill myself. If you want me dead so badly you're going to have to do it yourself," I said. He lunged at me. I was so used to him trying to attack me that I didn't react. What surprised me was the pain in my arm. I looked down and saw three of his fingers had stabbed into me. The pain in my arm was augmented by how cold the skinny man's fingers were.
I thrust out with my knife and caught him between the ribs. If that hurt him he didn't show it. He pulled his fingers out of my arm and pulled the knife from his ribs. He dropped the knife to the forest floor and cackled while he slowly shook his head from side to side. He pointed up to cut noose above him and cackled. "I'm not killing myself!"
I turned and ran, when the town came into sight I felt something around my neck. I was yanked off of my feet and fell to the ground. I grabbed at my neck and felt rope. I looked up and saw the skinny man holding the other end. Between the two of us the rope went up to a tree branch.
The skinny man pulled on the rope, which caused me to be pulled up. Before my feet left the ground I had gotten a hand into the noose. I was hanging there, swinging my feet. With my hand in the noose I was able to suck in a little air, but I felt my consciousness slipping. I swung my whole body side to side. After a few swings I reached the tree. I grabbed on with my free hand and pulled myself up enough so that the noose loosened. I was able to get out of it and fell to the ground gasping for air. My neck was on fire, as were my lungs. My head pounded as if there was hammer being slammed into my skull.
The skinny man was stalking towards me, noose in hand. I ran at him and tackled him to the ground. Somehow in the struggle I was able to get on top of him. I tied the noose around his neck and grabbed the rope. I swung it over a branch and begun to pull with all my strength. As the skinny man left the ground he began to screech. He clawed at the rope around his neck and swung his legs, like I did only moments earlier. After a few moments the swinging of legs turned into a full body thrashing. I tied off the rope on another tree and stood there staring at him.
I realized that he wasn't heavy enough to break his own neck, so I would have to help him. I grabbed a hold onto his swinging legs and lifted my legs from the ground. The combined weight of both of us was enough to cause his neck to release a sickening crack. He hung there motionless.
As I stared at the lifeless body of the skinny man I noticed words forming on his naked chest. The words "GAME OVER! Congratulations!" appeared on his chest. The words looked like blackened burns. I couldn't help but laugh at that. The laughing hurt terribly.
I saw a few more words appear on his chest. I searched the ground and found my knife. I carefully stabbed it into him at the precise place. I left that forest and that island, never to return.
At work I was questioned about the scars on my neck and arm. I was sent to a therapist because they thought I had tried to hang myself. I wasn't going to correct them.
I'll never forgot the image of the skinny man hanging there in forest. With the words "GAME OVER! Congratulations! Would you like to play again?" burnt into his chest, and a knife stabbed into the box labeled "No."
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