Story WIPS

blood drips down his chin

It's dark before Sunoo's mind finally begins to clear from the thick, suffocating fog that had overtaken it, his vision following suit. The world slowly comes back into focus, from blurry reds and deep blacks to the deep blue of the night sky and the glaring orange of the streetlights, blinking at Sunoo as if watching him.

The sounds rush back to Sunoo next, a beating drum nearly drowning out the sounds of crickets and cars passing by. A shaky hand reaches up to his chest, gripping his shirt above the spot his chest should be. He sputters for breath, panting as if something is choking him, squeezing him of the life in his lungs.

He raises his hands to his face, shaky eyes widening as he takes in some strange, dark red substance coating his hands.

It's then that he finally renders his sense of smell, a metallic smell, intoxicating as it wafts through the air. His stomach rolls, but with pleasure or terror, he knows not.

He feels his heart pounding harder, harder, harder in his chest as he begins to hyperventilate, not wanting to believe what his mind was beginning to piece together.

Something drips down his chin, and without thinking much of it, he licks it off, surprised at the metallic taste of the liquid. But it's all he needs to solidify his worries.

Slowly, slowly he looks down, his hands flying to his mouth as he gazes upon...

a corpse.

A lifeless corpse sits at his feet, a young girl looking up at him in permanent petrification, her once bright pink eyes dull and nearly gray. Her cheeks are sallow, and her neck looks as if some wild beast had torn into it, taking her life with every ravaged puncture.

A spot on Sunoo's neck burns, dragging him out of his shock. A blood-coated hand reaches for the bandaid on his neck, his fingers grazing over the hidden wound. He lets out something of a choked scream as everything comes together.

This...this is his doing. He's...killed someone.

Sunoo Kim is a murderer.

"no..." he whispers, unwilling to believe what all the evidence points to. Yet it all makes sense. The corpse at his feet. The taste of blood that still lingers in his mouth. The blood that coats his once-pale fingers.

Sunoo Kim is a murderer.

"it wasn't...it wasn't my fault," he says to the corpse, shaking his head. He was just...so hungry. Starving. Desperate for something to satiate the growling in his stomach that had been there all day, all night, keeping him awake as it gnawed at him.So it was an accident. It had to be, he reasons as he fervently tries to wipe the blood off his hands. An accident. The way it had to be.

This girl had probably hurt someone. Someone...someone probably *wanted* her dead. So it was okay. Sunoo had done someone a favor. Sunoo had helped. Sunoo wasn't a murderer.

Sunoo Kim is not a murderer.

He wipes the blood off his hands as best he could before glancing back at the body, shuddering as he gathers himself. They would find the body and find him before long.

He couldn't leave her here.

Feeling as if he were floating, dreaming of a world far from here, he picks up the body with surprising ease, glancing around before walking away.

The light blinks once again, watching the monster carry the body away silently.

- - -

Sunoo wipes the sweat p his brow as he finishes digging the hole by hand, a sort of superhuman energy having filled him since he found himself awake again, hovering over the girl he...relieved of the burden of living.

It's the excuses that keep him digging deeper and deeper, the paranoia that keeps him from stopping if only to glance around and make sure he stays unseen in the graveyard.

"She probably deserved it," Sunoo whispers to himself as he throws another clump of dirt over his shoulder. "She's probably hurt someone before. Probably bullied someone. She..."

His eyes widen. "She looked at Riki strangely those few times," he remembers with a bit too much giddiness. "There. She was going to hurt my friend. I'm just...I'm just protecting him."

He finishes digging his hole and looks over at the body, wanting nothing more than to be rid of it. He picks her up, tossing her inside like a rag doll, stuffing her down and making sure she'll remain unseen.

She looks uncomfortable, he thinks to himself before shaking his head. That's okay. She was mean to Riki. She deserves it.

She deserves it.

She deserves it.

"She deserves it," he mutters to himself as he buries her with handful after handful of soil.

She deserves it. And he had been so...so...hungry...so it was only fair she pay for her misdeeds. And she'd helped Sunoo in the process, so all is forgiven.

Everything is okay.

Sunoo Kim is okay.