Second Person

Hello. My name is Kallashi:

I have to kill you. But we live on the 1567th earth, and what you don't know cannot hurt you. I don't know how wary you are, how well-versed in weaponry and poison. I haven't decided how to kill you, either. The possibilities are endless.

I could shoot you, slowly cleave a path of bullets up your legs, shattering bone and allowing your blood to flow out of snicked blood vessels. If I hit an artery, you might bleed out before I reach your heart. But that'd be too easy, too risky. What if I do hit your heart? Same for arrows. While I'm very accurate with handguns, bows are not my thing. Don't expect arrows, I guess. I could do the dagger method: carve raw rivers along that soft slip of skin above your gulping throat... you're such a nervous creature... slowly inching deeper, cutting off your oxygen. Or maybe I'll use a rope, thin and sharp. Or thick and smothering. Choke you... oh, the clouds are beautiful. Golden and white and fluffy. See something pretty before I kill you... as I was saying, choke you, winding the rope tightly around your fragile neck until you run out of air. Water, water everywhere, but ne'er a drop to drink? Air, everywhere. But you wouldn't be able to breathe.

Then, there's poison. Do you prefer something subtle and painless, or conspicuous and torturous? Cyanide, sprinkled in your food. You get a headache, then become more confused and fatigued. Your heart slows to a dull stop. Too boring? Try strychnine, where your brain loses control of your body, and you begin to convulse, muscles contracting, then abruptly relaxing. Your backbone arches, then twists sideways. Pain shoots through pulsing neurons. Froth spills out from between your locked jaws. Your face contorts as your airways are blocked by paralyzed nerves. Pain radiates from your abused cells. Your blurry vision fills with a round, blue-eyed face. Sweet, soft lips move sinuously. You hear a soft, feminine voice, "I said I had to kill you. And... what you DO know CAN hurt you."