𝐒𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 {𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐫 𝐑𝐞𝐢𝐝 𝐱 𝐎𝐂}

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏

𝐌𝐲 𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐫 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐤𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐛𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐲 𝐠𝐮𝐧 𝐚𝐬 𝐈 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐦𝐲 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐫.
I raise my head and stare down at the man infront of me as the life slowly slips from his eyes, my arm still extended out with my weapon in hand. I'm still for a moment before i slowly lower my arm and wipe the blood from my nose. My adrenaline quickly wears off, and I swivel on my heel as I begin to walk out of the alleyway. I don't really feel the adrenaline anymore. The first time I killed someone, I remember feeling like my heart would beat out of my chest, my head spinning so fast I could faint. But now, as rain begins to pour from the night sky, all I feel is a slight sense of satisfaction, knowing that that poor little girl can rest in peace now that the man who gave her her wings is finally gone. She can have her justice. I pull my hair into a ponytail to get it out of my face as I stand at the bus stop, letting the rain wash away the blood from my face and hands. When the bus arrives I slump into a seat and sigh, rubbing my eyes out of exhaustion. I pull out my phone and see that it's already 2:33 in the morning. My mind is buzzing as I twirl a lock of hair around my french tipped nail. My heel clacks aggressively on the tiled bus floor as images flash through my head rapidly. I think about the man I just killed, and how he had murdered an innocent 8 year old girl. I think about her, too, and how she can rest easy now in heaven. I think about the gun in my jacket pocket, and how i'm glad I never got a license after yesterday's news report said the FBI was currently looking through gun records in the DC area to try and get a lead on who the public had settled on naming "The Capitol Killer". Not very creative, if you ask me. I would've preferred a name that showed what I actually am, a girl just trying to do the right thing, - which I know sounds a bit insane but it was the truth - And I thought about the police. I thought about how they had only roped the FBI in after the fifth man had been killed, which I thought was strange considering my distinct way of doing so. Each time, I would shoot the man with the number of times correlating to the number of times I had killed. This man, the sixth one, I shot six times. I didn't think I was killing people, honestly. I was killing monsters; men who had abused and killed and assaulted innocent people, because I knew in my heart that the world really would be safer without them there to haunt it. I looked around the bus, which was otherwise empty aside from another woman my age; 23, maybe a bit younger. I watched as she looked out the window and tucked her hair behind her ear, adjusting her headphones. When I got off the bus she looked up and we exchanged a friendly smile, something reassuring that said "from one young woman to another, I hope you'll be safe. I hope you'll be ok".

When I reach my apartment building, I climb up flights and flights of what seem like never ending stairs, and the second i open my door I throw myself onto my bed and scream into my pillow. Six! i've killed six men and there are so many horrible people out there still. 2 months ago when I first started it was so hard to come to terms with the reality that I would never be able to catch them all, but now it truly weighs on me every moment of the day. Everywhere I see women falling victim to these awful disgusting people. My own best friend was assaulted at a party last year in college, when she told me I tried my hardest to not cry as I consoled her, she broke down into tears infront of me and I pulled her into the tightest hug. I see on social media as surviving women share their stories vulnerably, trying to get justice only to be met with hate and insults. I hear men on the street with their "unserious" and "all in good fun" catcalls as if my very existence as a woman in this world repeatedly and inevitably places me in danger. I tell my male friends and they tell me to calm down. They don't hear the undertones of violence and threat in those men's voices. They don't see the implications, they don't feel petrified when a man sits down next to them on an empty subway or follows them for just so long that they fear their lives may be on the line. It drives me crazy that every single woman must be at constant risk just for being alive, and at some point it drove me so crazy that I just couldn't take it anymore, so I found that frat guy who had drugged my friend and probably several other girls too at those stupid parties. I followed him home as he left one and when the coast was clear I shot him and dragged him off into an alley. And that was when it started, but I think it was simply the result of 23 years of experiencing the reality that is for every woman equally terrible and horrific. The reality that if we don't attack first, a man will attack harder.