Fever Dream Red

35

A hollow scream left my mouth as I stood there, heart racing, too disgusted and upset to say anything.

In the distance mutterings of confusion and "Are you okay?"s rang out, but I didn't hear them. All that was left of the world was me and the dying corpse.

I wished I could put it out of its misery, but I was too much of a coward.

I began to tumble down the stairs. My legs didn't seem to work anymore. The shock had made me a robot.

A gang of concerned faces met me at the bottom. I simply pointed up the stairs and said "Corpse."

That seemed to do the trick.

Further worry melted across their faces. They looked at each other in surprise and shock. They just stood there whilst someone was in a world of agony above.

"What are we gonna do? We have to do something! They're in pain up there! Please! We have to do- We have to do something! Please.....please."

Nobody listened to me. They were too caught up in their world of slight inconvenience. Too caught up too pay mind to them.

They couldn't see it. It wasn't bothering them. Why should they care?

I ran to the kitchen. I had to take matters into my own hands.

There was a knife board on the counter. I considered for a moment but realised that I really didn't want to get close to the body.

I rifled around the drawers in the house, womdering if they had a gun. It was a gated community. They could have done.

I was just about normalising the idea of stabbing them when I opened a living room drawer and found a gun. It was perfect. It would have to do.

I stepped slowly upstairs, shaking and clutching the gun in my hands. I was about to end somebody's life.

I faced the person, and as they saw the gun I saw what I thought to be relief spread across their face.

"I'll make it quick." I said to them cleary and with teary eyes.
"I'm sorry." Tears spilt over to my cheeks amd refused to come home. They ran and ran and ran.

I checked: the gun was loaded.

I stepped up to them, as close as I could. The person leaned forward, begging to be killed.

I held the gun up to their head, or what I supposed was. The skin wasn't solid, it was squidgy. The flesh was red and swollen. It was terrible.

I released the safety trigger. The person lifted their eyes up at me, pleading me to make it quick. I was dragging it on a bit.

So I took a deep breath and I pulled the trigger. The bang of the life ending mirrored the pulling of a champagne bottle during a celebration. Perhaps it was a celebration of the end of a suffering. I thought that was a nice way fo thinking about it.

The tears clouded my vision and they ran like an evil waterfall down my face. I could see clearly enough to see that brains and blood were splashed onto my clothes.

Perhaps I really did need those new clothes from the store.

Sunny came running up the stairs, and I broke in her arms. She dragged me along to the bathroom and shut the door, leaving herself out of the situation, but not really.

I knew what she was getting at. She wanted me to have a shower. She didn't want me to become infected. I didn't want to become infected.

I peeled my bloody clothes off and went into the unfamiliar shower. This felt wrong. It felt as if I was intruding on someone. I was not sure who this someone was. I had just killed this someone.

I was not a good guest.

I used this vanilla body wash. It was very nice. It made me forget that I had just killed someone.

I got out and used one of the nice towels that hang on the rack. It was soft, like a cloud.

When I got out I had nothing to change into, so I changed back into the outfit that stunk of sweat and blood. The dirty, sinful sweatpants. Last time I had climbed into them I had little cares, now I felt I was a sin myself.

I came out of the shower to Doug, who muttered some useless thing about the place being cleared of...people.

"You did the right thing."
"Any one of us would've done the same."
"Don't beat yourself up about it, really."
"You were just putting them out of their misery."

That was all good and well, but it didn't stop the pit of guilt building in my stomach.

I thought about Addie, who I had tried to block out thought of. That could've been her for all I knew. What would she think of her little Finny being a murderer?

What would any of the people I knew think about me murdering someone?

Inez would be dissatisfied. She would think me a monster. She would tell me it wasn't right. She would tell me what I knew was right.

Danny would say he understood. He would still never look at me in the same way again. There would always be, in the back of his mind, an image of me pulling the trigger of a gun. That would never change.

So, yes. Anyone else would've done the same. Anyone else would feel the same. Anyone else would never be looked at in the same way again.

If I didn't feel guilty then what kind of human was I? A psychopath, probably.

Thinking about it, I didn't understand how the people on TV did it with such ease.

But then they were actors. It wasn't realistic. In real life, the ending of one is much louder. Even after the blow, it causes deafening silence. Silence that would remain in my head for ages.