The Chaos Insurgency

Guilt

I awoke in a cold sweat, gasping for oxygen. I was still slumped in the chair behind the desk, the room dark. Looking in the corner of the room was Larry, curled up and deep in a slumber. Taking care not to wake him, I shakily stood on my feet and tiptoed to the door. Inching it open silently and checking the hallway, I slipped into the bathroom just across. Sighing deeply, I used the toilet and inspected my reflection in the stained mirror. My hair was haphazardly styled, bangs swept carelessly to the side, my skin pale as a skeleton and scars etched across my flesh. But what frightened me most lay on the lab coat. A crimson blood stain now darker since it dried. The blood of the fallen. In a panic, I opened the faucet and tried to rinse the stubborn stain under the water, rubbing at it vigorously.

The wretched stain was immune to the cold water and my persistent fingers. Tears choked me as I continued my fruitless endeavour. The water was tinged with red but to me the stain was growing larger. Remorse for my crime felt like an anvil chained around my ankles, dragging me down. How could I have done something like this? I prided myself on being an upstanding citizen, placing value on human life and striving to protect it. Being falsely accused of murdering my best friend had painted me that vile image but now the character was properly representative of me. I had claimed my first victim, his blood on my hands.

Well, not quite your first victim, my sick head reminded me.

The flashback almost sent me to the floor. I could visualise it clearly. The helpless and pleading man calling to be released from the mechanism that imprisoned him. Yet I still stepped toward the lever that would spell the end of his life and pulled it down. The femur breaker. The machine descended on his legs, cracking the bone and encouraging pure screams of terror to leave his lips. His cries of pain were heard across the facility, coming over the intercom. Before I could erase my mistake, Larry had been summoned and cruelly taken the man's life. In a dizzying panic, I closed the cell around him and trapped the creature. What I had done echoed good intentions, capturing a dangerous entity but an innocent life had been lost. While I had not directly killed him, I was the reason why he was gone. I should have set him free but I selfishly sent him to his death just to halt Larry's insistent stalking of me. And here I was, teaming up with the same vile creature that had tried to kill me and had led to my remorseful feelings. I banged a fist against the mirror, crying bitterly. The salty tears found their way on my tongue, my body heaving with the emotional breakdown. Suddenly, the bathroom door swung open to reveal a confused, almost agitated Larry.

"What on earth are you doing?" he hissed. "You can't sneak off like that!"

I just shook my head and distanced myself from him with some backward steps.

"Come on," Larry sighed in annoyance. "Let's go."

He reached out his hand to grab mine but I instinctively backed away, arms wrapped around myself defensively.

"What the hell has gotten into you?" Larry struggled not to yell.

I couldn't answer, the sobs racking my body preventing speech. With an exasperated sigh, he roughly grabbed my hand and dragged me out of the bathroom. Knocking the slightly ajar door with his shoulder, Larry dragged me back into the office and pushed me into the room.

"Okay, explain," Larry sighed, crossing his arms. "What happened?"

"I'm a murderer........" I was barely audible.

"What?!" Larry asked incredulously. "Is this about that one guy you killed?"

"He wasn't just some guy," I reminded him, wiping away tears. "Larry, he could have had a family, a wife.........and kids. And I took him away from them."

"Oh.........." Larry feigned sadness, "who cares? If I were to have an emotional breakdown over every human I've killed, I would have drowned in tears by now."