Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
⋆♱✮♱⋆
────── &&. 𝕳𝑬𝑺𝑻𝑨𝑵𝑫𝑺𝑶𝑽𝑬𝑹 THE BLEEDING CORPSE, GENEROUS DROPS OF BLOOD DRIPPING FROM HIS KNIFE. It had been over in seconds. The knife slid across the throat like butter. The man was barely able to get halfway through a plea before a pocket of air emptied out of his now smiling throat, sentenced to a silent death. All was quiet in the old, run-down apartment once more.
He stands there a moment longer, staring into the permanently open eyes of a dead man; a sight all too familiar. Blood continues to flow like a river from his neck, a red halo encircling his head: Hell's own version of an angel.
It's the closest humans are ever going to get to heaven now.
Bending down, he places his knife off to the side and begins to rummage through the corpse's pockets: spare bullets, traded cigarettes, a handkerchief that used to be white but is now dulled to a dirty grey, and —
His fleshy fingers grasp onto the rough leather of a wallet — exactly what he's looking for — and opens it casually to see its contents. He's met with smiling faces in a worn, browning photo.
The man bleeding out from below him is embracing a little girl no older than six, both of them wearing cheesy grins for the camera. A woman on his right is kissing his cheek, the arm around his shoulder proudly displaying a costly wedding and engagement ring. The little girl shares a multitude of their features, her eyes the same colour as her dad's while her hair is dark like her mother's. Her dad's hair is grey now, soaking up the crimson waters below.
There's a date scribbled out in the corner of the photo: September 1st, 2003.
Figures, he thought.
Ignoring the photo, he empties the wallet until he successfully stumbles across a folded lump of ration cards. He flicks through the pile with his left thumb, smoothly gliding across the paper like fine silk. His left arm faces the gauzy curtains, barely blocking out the sunlight as metal glimmers and shines into the reflection of the congealed blood glazing the mouldy floors.
Silver fingers stash the cards away in his pocket, satisfied with the space it fills. He just hoped it would be enough to later fill his stomach.
Distant blue eyes flicker down to the lifeless body lying beside him, silently scanning up and down in a routine fashion. A flash of gold exposes itself to the sun, a golden wedding band wrapped tightly around cold, rigid fingers.
