Shaken

Monstrous

I look at what is left of her, the darkened bruises that cover her body, and wonder at how they fit the contours of my fingers. At how the ripped skin of her face bleeds with the blood that dries on my hands, quickly and thoroughly. As though imbibing on the finest cognac, my hands revel in the sudden availability of the essence of slaughter. I rub distractedly at them, and then with more intensity, slick palms sliding drunkenly over one another. Potent and ineffaceable, the vivid colour refuses to be subdued and I begin to pace. Bloody footsteps are left in my wake, a desolate path that is as ominous as it is unmistakably cautionary. I picture a solitary, miserable signpost at its head reading,

'Lasciate Ogne Speranza, Voi Ch'intrate Quia Monstra Sunt.'

Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here For There Be Monsters.

"No," I mutter, my voice rough and harsh with disuse,

"Just one. Just me."

One monster,

"The very worst of them all." I can't help but smile.

I stand beside the body, beside the lake of blood that surrounds her, its edges lapping languorously at my shoes as it spreads. I have killed her. I have cut her cord, the tangled yarn of her life spools on the floor at my feet, and yet still she lives on in the glistening effervescence and intoxicating scent of her blood, like potent merlot, forever defiant.

A small bleeding cut on my left palm drags me reluctantly from my musings, its significance tugging at my distracted consciousness with a ferociousness certainly not in keeping with its size. The knife must have cut me when I killed her. There is no perceptible difference between her blood and mine, both run red, dancing in harmony along the grooves and ridges of my hand, no distinction, None. At. All. Her blood flows quickly, spry, along the hollows of my palm, infuriatingly alive, bright, and vibrant, its elusive scent clouding my senses.

Anger dictates my erratic heartbeat, leaving me breathless with the brutality of my emotion. I fall to my knees beside her and exhale slowly as I battle myself for control. I hate her; I hate the sight of her, my weakness, my failure lying broken on the filthy floor before me. I must...try... try to control ... to control myself. Anger, regret and failure claw at my throat, my fingers claw at her skin, my sanity crawls from the depths of my mind, and I howl, I scream and I shatter.

"You ... ruined ... everything!" I scream again and again, my hands clutching her body to my chest, cataclysmic in the overwhelming silence of the room. "Everything," I sob, my face pressed to her neck "I was so close, so very, very close" I whisper to her, softly stroking her hair back from her face. I look at her dead eyes, I look into them, and there is no sparkle, no life. She is gone, along with my dreams, along with my sanity. I loved her... but I hated her more. She failed me, and for that she had to suffer, as I suffer with every failed attempt at greatness. Several shaky breaths disperse the red mist that curls around the edges of my vision, and, as I crouch over the ravaged form of revenge incarnated, the smile that spreads over my face is gruesome in its utter carnal joy.