You sink to the floor the second you lock it behind you. You watched a man die. You watched the creature that called itself your best friend eat his head. You watched his giant gaping maw unhinge like a cartoonish depiction of a snake, so hilariously unnatural that would have been comical if it wasn't horrifying to watch. And watch you did. You watched the creature that called itself Laughing Jack rip the gas station manager's head off with a sickening crunch, and you watched as the headless corpse collapsed to the ground, where it lay motionless. Of course, you watched, what else could you do? You didn't know that was going to happen; how could you have known? You were careless; you don't know how you could have forgotten the nature of the sunglasses on your head, but you did. Somehow, you did, and a man is dead because of it. You shiver. You run your bare arms in an attempt to generate some warmth, and they come aware sticky. You look down and realize that you have splatters of the dead man's blood running down the length of the left side of your body. No longer fresh but still tacky, sticking to your skin like drying lash glue. You stifle a sob and crawl across the floor to the bathroom. You don't have the energy to stand. You collapse into the bathtub and turn the water on as hot as it will go. You're still wearing your dress, but you don't care; it doesn't matter. You scrub yourself so hard you draw your own blood in your desperate attempt to rid yourself of his. It wasn't your teeth that separated the man's head from his body, but you killed him all the same. It was your carelessness that did him in. You were the catalyst. You killed him. You're a murderer. A killer. The thought swirls in your head as you sob. You're delirious and exhausted, and every time you close your eyes, all you can see is the deep, dark red pooling on the ground beneath the headless gas station manager. You vomit. Bile mixing with blood and grime as it disappears down the drain of the tub. You grip the edges of the bathtub. The man died because you stole a hotdog and a slushy, and what good did they do for you? Now, your ill-gotten gains ran down the drain, and the man died for nothing. You hear laughter somewhere in the distance, and you can't tell if you're hallucinating or simply being mocked. You hope it is the latter. You hope this is all some sick joke the universe is playing on you; you hope none of this is actually real. You take some comfort in the thought that no, surely it couldn't be. None of this could possibly be real. This is all just a hallucination. It must be. It has to be. You hear the laughter getting closer and closer. You see the dead man's blood running down the drain. Your heartbeat hammers in your ears as some small, quiet, condemning voice repeats, 'killer, killer, killer.' Somewhere in the haze of madness, your broken, exhausted, malnourished body, and your shattered mind drift into some semblance of sleep, as the water runs on, cleansing your body of the evidence of your sin.
