Rubbish

Rubbish. All of those wretches in that prison were nothing but rubbish to him. Pawns in his chess game against the Obscurity.
Rubbish. All of those wretches were nothing but rubbish at the foot of that unreal city's sidewalks.
Rubbish. All of those wretches were nothing but rubbish... except for She.
She was the moment before: the silent wince before the screams.
She was the movement before: the placement of a record on the gramophone before the music.

She was the remaining purity in him. Yes, She was pure, yet brittle as crystal and glass, unsteady as candle-flames. She could have run away any minute, but he wouldn't let it happen.

Wisps of smoke out of her blue lips, narrowed eyes even more thinned by her black eyeliner. It was like seeing her soul jailbreaking her chest to escape a reality which had not welcomed her well. It had not received her at all. A welcome of indifference. Reality had chewed her and then spit her out, refused her as if She were a rat. She was different, She was darker, more faded, less bright; it's a matter of fact that diversity turns into badness, badness into crime, then crime becomes cruelty and desire. The Hanged Man knew it well, he had taught She himself.

Now he was staring at her with his head leaned to the side. Outside that white room, insane crying. Inside, their breaths. The Hanged Man approached her, grabbed her face and rudely pressed his chest to her back. They panted.
"Not again..." She groaned.
"Just one more time..." he prayed.
"I can't..."
"You want to."

Crack.
A snap.
A twinge in head's nerves.
The view under the eyelids completely white.
Finally, a thud.

"What is that noise?" from downstairs, then quick steps.

She regained her sight. She saw her hands covered in blood, She saw Emily's warm and wet corpse lying in her arms. She saw Guilt and Sin oppressing her. The Hanged Man smiled from the corner of the room, sneering: he had won again. Damn, he had made her kill again!

The door opened and Mrs Percy freezed, frightened.

She sighed, made her neck's bones crack and slowly got up. She fixed her eyes on the woman's face and breathed in, deeply.
"Oh, Mrs Percy..." She murmured.