Being a writer, you’d think Mark would be very excited about going out and exploring new areas, going on adventures and meeting new people. Well you’d be wrong. Didn’t didn’t like any of that. Mark was always a quiet and somewhat lonely person, he never really made many friends at school or in the jobs he had when he was younger. He never really spent much time with family, unless they came over to his house.

He orders all his shopping to be delivered to his house so he doesn’t have to go out into the busy shops and be around people. The only truly sociable thing Mark does is when he makes his way down to the pub and has a few pints.

It’s not like Mark couldn’t make friends or relationships. He was tall, blonde hair, blue eyes, average build and very well spoken. The only downfall he had to his social ability was that he didn’t like people. Now a lot of people say the my don’t like people and don’t like being in crowds, but Mark really hated people. It was something about their mannerisms and false happiness that got under Marks skin even when he was a child.

Mark was thankful that people bought and read his books, but he would rather jump off a bridge than attend a book signing due to his distane for the general public.

However, one night whilst Mark was trying to come up with an idea for a new book series he wanted to write, something happened that would shake Mark to his very core.

It was 21:30pm on a chilly spring evening and Mark was sat at his desk trying to think. He was pretty well known in the writing world for his latest book series which had garnered him wide spread praise, his book series was basically Thundercats meets Transformers. However, he wanted to go into a different genre now, he was thinking of going into the horror genre although that was easier said than done.

Mark was very well known for being a sort of ‘cover artist’ amongst writers, he’d take beloved characters and combine them, such as his Thundercats meets Transformers crossover and his Scooby Doo meets Poirot crossover. However, Mark now wanted to focus on one character and his idea be original.

As he sat there, absorbed in a cloud of thoughts, his door bell rang. The noise woke Mark up from his almost catatonic state of thought and he made his way over to his front door. As he got within a few steps of the front door, his door bell rang again and again and again. He could hear the ferocity with which the door bell was being pressed and he felt a slight hint of hesitation as his hand reached for the door handle.

Opening the door slowly, Mark peering round and saw a average height man standing on his front porch. He opened the door fully, and enquired what the man wanted. The stranger met Marks gaze and explained his situation. He said that his car had broken down and tried calling a repair company but because of how late it was, no-one was able to come out and help him. He said he walked all the way down the road for a good half and hour until he saw the lights of Marks home and decided to ask for help. The strange requested shelter for the night until he could contact a repair company in the morning and he’d be on his way.

Mark didn’t have any patience for people like this but thinking about the danger this could have to his reputation if he left this guy subjected to the elements, he caved in and allowed the stranger to come inside his house. Marks immediately set some ground rules though, no shoes, socks or slippers only, no touching his writing equipment and no distracting him from his work.

After the stranger agreed to Marks terms, Mark turned around and went back to his exciting task of writers block. Mark thought about the stranger during his writers block period, there wasn’t anything remarkable or outstanding about him. He was average height (about 5ft10), dark brown hair, light brown eyes with an unbranded tracksuit on. He had manners which Mark respected and a certain calmness that gave Mark a slight feeling of unease.

An hour later, Mark got up from his blank word document to get a drink and to check up on his unwanted guest. However when he stepped foot in his kitchen, he saw his cupboards had been ransacked, everything was all over the floor and his cupboards torn off their hinges. Looking over the complete annihilation of his kitchen, he saw that the only things missing were his knives.

Noticing this, he stepped out of the kitchen peered round his hallway. No-one was there, grabbing a meat tenderising hammer from the floor, he made his way through the ground floor of his house. Mark wasn’t J.K Rowling or Charles Dickens famous so he didn’t live in a mansion, but he was popular enough to have a home that was far nicer than most, so he made his way through it.

He carefully went up the stairs, trying not to make a sound, meat tenderiser in hand, he cleared each room, turning on the light and making sure nothing was out of the ordinary. As he came to his own room, he heard what sounded like someone rummaging round in there.

In a moment of adrenaline fuelled bravery, he flung open the floor and flicked on the light, to find the stranger rifling through his personal information. In one hand he had Marks’ birth certificate and in the other, he hand his passport. As Mark tried to make sense of the scene, he saw the knives laid out on his bed, almost resembling a butcher kit, with the stranger slowly inching closer to them.

Lunging forward, Mark swung the mallet at the stranger, narrowly missing his head allowing the stranger to roll over the bed, grab the knives and run out of the room. Mark cautiously pursued, even though he knew the layout of his house, he didn’t know what the stranger was capable of or how much he knew about Mark.

The time was now close to 1am and with all the lights off in the house, Mark felt himself getting tired. Knowing this would kill him, he tried to keep himself awake, he slapped his face, bashed himself on the head with the mallet, did anything to remain focussed enough to stay alive.

Suddenly Mark stopped, he realised he’d wondered down stairs, all that time he’d spent trying to keep himself awake , he happened been paying attention to his surroundings. Then, as Mark focused again, he heard footsteps running along the hallway towards him. Turning 180 degrees anti clockwise he saw the stranger hurtling towards him, a large knife in hand and the loon of pure concentration and almost predatory body movements.

Swinging the knife, the stranger cut deep into Marks left arm, just below the shoulder. In pure instinct, Mark swung the mallet back at the stranger and caught him square in the chest. Having knocked the wind out of his aggressor, Mark ran to his mobile and began to dial 911. As his phone rang he heard the stranger clamber to his feet and pick up the knife.

Mark tried to keep the stranger at bay by telling him he was contacting the police, however they had zero effect on the strangers demeanour. As Mark began to tell the police where he lived, the stranger pulled a second knife from his trouser pocket. Now with a large knife in each hand, Mark knew this was something he’d have to sport out personally. Having informed the police of his situation, Mark hung up and put his phone down, but before engaging his opponent, he tried to establish a motive.

Asking why the stranger would want to do this, his reply was a cold and monotone “why not?”

This sent a chill down Marks spine as he realised his opponent clearly had nothing personal against him, he just wanted to kill Mark for shits and giggles. Gripping his mallet in his right hand, Mark reared up to swing, then darted left and ran towards his garage. Mark knew this made him look like a coward, but Mark knew he had some heavy duty equipment in his garage that could help him.

Sprinting into his garage, he quickly looked round searching for something to use to give himself an advantage. Then he saw it, his nail gun, he quickly took it off the wall and through the nails into it. With an new weapon and a new sense of power, he turned round faced out the door and towards his wanna be murderer. Gripping both weapons, he leapt out of the garage and charged towards the stranger shouting “Thundercats hoooooo” and fired his nail gun at the stranger.

Completely bewildered by this change in the battle, the strayer tries to retreat however he only got a few steps back before having his legs turned into pin cushions by Mark and his nail gun. Bringing down the mallet, Mark broke both of the strangers legs to stop him from moving and hit him in the check again.

With his opponent completely dazed and out of breath, Mark took back his knives and threw them to the other side of the room and stood in front of his now battered and beaten aggressor with his nail gun trained on him waiting for the police to arrive.

20 minutes later, the police entered Marks house and found him standing opposite a battered and bruised man, now pale from blood loss. The police secured the area making sure no-one else was around and got an ambulance crew out to their location as well. Mark was overjoyed to see the police and he now truly felt safe, although a slither of his hatred for people still showed.

After they had taken the now seriously injured stranger away and questioned Mark. He sat on his sofa and switched off his nail gun. It was now almost 1:30 in the morning, and Mark having used up all his adrenaline was extremely tired and fatigued. He threw the nail gun onto the floor and went to sleep on the sofa.

The next morning, Mark woke up and immediately got in the shower to clean his knife wound. After doing so and putting on a new shirt, he went downstairs to survey the damage. Looking around, he saw nails in the walls and cushions, blood spatters on the walls and the strangers shoes still sitting by the front door.

As he wandered round his living room, he had a moment of inspiration, this could be his new book. He immediately set to work writing the book, which was a personal rendition of his own experience of the night before and the main character named after himself. He named the book Marked for Murder.