Final.

It was three weeks since Abel had moved to his new house and he was surprised himself that all he had been doing in his spare time was to play the piano in the common instead of playing his video games. He brought his video games for a reason; he loved them and they always filled him with joy. But these days every time he played them they started to become a real bore. He hadn’t even asked his dad to buy him a new one!

Abel’s mother had noticed how her son had grown attached to the piano and even hired him a piano teacher; a twenty-three-year-old man named Rudolph Rui who had been learning the piano since he was eleven. He was a very outgoing person and lived around Abel’s new neighbourhood.

Abel was on his way to Rudolph’s house to start his piano lesson his mother called out to him from the kitchen.

“Be careful, Abel,” she warned, “It’s been mentioned earlier in the news that a kidnapper lives around the area. I don’t want anything to happen to you and it would break my heart if you were kidnapped.”

Abel heaved a sigh. “I can take care of myself, Mum.”

Mrs. Densen nodded. “Yes, I know. I’m just giving you a warning. Well then—off you go.”

Abel made his way towards the door and out, walking along the sidewalk. He stopped dead in his tracks in all of a sudden, having an unfamiliar feeling of being watched. He turned around, but no one was there. He was all alone. Just as he spun around to start walking again a hand grabbed his wrist and pulled him into a nearby bush.

A hand clamped his mouth and that was when Abel started to panic. He struggled to get out of the grip. He felt a slow breathing at the back of his ear. A familiar voice whispered against it, “You’re in one of my rose bushes. If you move the slightest bit you will get a thorn up your rump. Now if I let you go, will you relax a bit?”

Abel nodded quickly and soon the grip loosened up, letting him to turn to face his teacher and breathe out a frustrated, “What are you doing?”

Rudolph flashed him a warm smile and made his way out of the bush, avoiding the thorns. Once he was finally out he reached his hand out to help his student. “Someone was following you,” he explained.

“How did you know?”

“I was looking out the window whilst waiting for your arrival. The man was wearing everything in black and he covered his face with a mask so I couldn’t tell who it was.”

Abel froze. “You don’t reckon it’s the kidnapper, do you?” he questioned.

Rudolph gave a simple shrug. He gestured Abel to start walking inside. “There’s a possibility,” he warned. They finally reached inside Rudolph’s house and closed the door shut. “Should we start class now?”

After class finished Rudolph insisted Abel to stay a little longer because he saw a figure outside his house wearing everything in black and a mask to top it all off. Abel tried his best to make himself at home in his teacher’s house. He stayed quiet all the while staring down at the floor when Rudolph called out to him. He looked up to see him approaching. “Yes?”

Rudolph took a seat next to him. “May I see your hands?” Abel gave him a questioning look before nodding. He watched as his teacher took his hands in his, checking and examining them closely. Rudolph’s thumb brushed against his wrist and them down to examine his fingertips.

But there was something else that Abel noticed as his teacher examined his hands. There was something in his eyes—it was a possessive gleam and Abel didn’t like it.

He started to shift in his seat. “Um… Rudolph? Mr. Rui?”

“You’ve got pretty hands, Abel,” Rudolph replied, finally letting go of his hands. “They’re one of a kind. May I have them?”

The younger narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”

“Your hands are beautiful and I want them. They’d be a great addition to my collection.”

Abel didn’t look convinced. “I still don’t get you, sir.”

Rudolph sighed and reached for Abel’s hands once again. “My other students used to have hands like yours. Then they lost them and immediately stopped taking piano lessons. You’re the only student I taught for this long and still have your hands hanging from your wrists.”

Abel felt a shiver run down his spine. What did he mean, ‘lost them’? More importantly, what about him still having hands?

Rudolph saw how Abel still wasn’t sure about his words and chuckled. “You still don’t get it? Come here. I’ll show you.” He stood up and gestured for Abel to follow him to a door at the back of the room he hadn’t noticed. Rudolph reached inside the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a key. He unlocked the door and opened it wider, ushering Abel inside before turning on the light switch.

Abel paled at the sight that greeted him—hands. There were a display box placed neatly in rows and in each box were hands, cut freshly off from wrists. And Rudolph had a collection of them. Abel turned around to face his teacher, who to his surprise was now wearing an apron with a butcher knife in his hand. Abel couldn’t move, to shell-shocked to even realize that Rudolph was placing his left hand on a wooden cutting board.

At the point where Rudolph was raising the knife up in the air to smash it down was when Abel had finally snapped out of his daze. He let out a loud yell of “no!” and kicked Rudolph’s gut. Without a second glance at his teacher he was already making a run for the door. He ran out of the room and towards the front door, forgetting his bag now that his life was essential at a situation like this. He reached for the doorknob and twisted it, finally making an escape. Just as he set foot outside the house he bumped into something—no, someone.

“Hey kid, are you alright?” A muffled voice asked and Abel turned to look at who he bumped into. The man was wearing black overall and a mask—could it be the kidnapper? Just as Abel opened his mouth to say something the man pulled out a police badge and said that he was a policeman. Turns out the police had been looking for Rudolph for four years for the murder of several children by cutting off their hands. The policeman stated that Abel was lucky to have escaped Rudolph this time.

The policeman told Abel to follow him inside again to search the house for Rudolph but to their surprise, Rudolph was nowhere to be found. Abel insists they search the room where all the hands are collected and took it as an opportunity to check out all the other hands. He walked over to see the rows of hands and something caught his eye. It was an empty display case—in which Abel assumed was where Rudolph planned his hands to be placed—and inside it was a note that said something Abel didn’t want to accept. It was sure to give him the frights in his sleep. The note in his shaky hands read, “I will be back, Abel.”

Sorry, I decided to make this a oneshot.