Immortal

Everything leading up to that night was fuzzy, memories fading in and out. Sometimes you could catch tiny snippets, but they were sure to slip out of your grasp in moments. Only one thing was for certain, you would remember that night for the rest of your godforsaken days.

That was the first time you had ever felt regret. The first time you had ever wished that you could go back in time to stop yourself. The hum of hundreds of flies haunt you even after all these years and you can still feel the blood soaked through your clothes and into your bones. At that moment, you had wanted the darkness to swallow you, wanted it to take you in its arms and whisk you away to a never ending ocean of numbness where all of your emotions would be forgotten.

The air had been heavy -- heavy with the stench of something rotten. It had been hard to breathe in that house. Your breath had come in short, small bursts. Shadows crept from every corner. Regret tasted bitter on your tongue.

You had done it hundreds of times before. Why had that time been different? She had pleaded for you to spare the rest of her family, and you had agreed. But when the boy came downstairs for a glass of water and saw you slit his mothers throat, you knew what you had to do. His eyes had gone wide and the moon reflected his death in the glistening blood. Killing the mother had been no problem, but the son... the son had triggered feelings you had never felt before.

When the father, a miner, plunged his pickaxe into your back you didn't feel pain. Instead you felt the anguish resonating from his cries of sorrow and horror. His wife and son lay dead on the floor, their blood pooling at your feet. When the miner pulled his pickaxe from your back, a sickening crunch rippled through the silent room. The tool had fallen to the floor and you followed seconds after.

When your vision dimmed, you saw the miner fall to his knees and shake his wife. He called her name over and over again until her name was burned in your mind, never to be forgotten. When you had finally given up, the sound of your heart desperately trying to keep you alive, you were at peace. You were ready to die. In your last breath, you had wondered what would await you.

But no, you realized that you could never achieve peace. You were going to have to live with the guilt of killing innocent people for the rest of time. Even when the universe wasted away into nothing, you would still be there. Stuck forever with the screams of your victims flowing through your head.

That had been decades ago. Over the years you had continued to kill, but the victims had never been innocent, that night you had vowed to never kill an undeserving person ever again. As you ripped the throat out of a cheating husband, you smiled to yourself. You were making the world a better place.