Looks Can Kill

Trapped Inside

Oh, John! She clutched a fist to her chest and bent over the journal, mouth open in a silent scream of pain. Her name was Reusa, Latin for guilty, and she certainly was stained with the deaths of many. She knew she was guilty and her soul was dark, the same as those she had killed. Dark as her eyes, which had started out white, but with the more people she looked at, the darker her eyes became. They were almost black now, and Reusa was sure she would die when they were an inky, pitch black.

Her past was a horrible pit that she had been shoved into somehow and these dark lenses were just a reminder of that horror. There was one thing she couldn't remember, and that was how she had gotten into the pit in the first place. She remembered the mansion. She remembered the man who played with magic. She remembered his excitement over turning an innocent little girl into a guilty death instrument. She remembered the man's son, who had pretended to love her, but constantly reminded Reusa of the truth. Her shriveled, evil heart. She never got the chance to remind him of his heart. But she did get that chance with his father. Reusa had shown the man who changed her eyes just how effective her eyes were. It was probably her most satisfying kill. The only satisfying kill.

It has been three years since John's death and the police were still not sure whether his death was a suicide or murder. Of course, there were no marks on the body, but his eyes were locked in such a state of fright and horror, that the police had to wonder. Reusa had run that very night. She bought a motorcycle with some of the money she had stolen from the mansion. Reusa was still on the run, unsure of where to go and tired of being homeless and lost.

She had taken to writing, but most of her words, she burned.

I did not want to kill you, John. But I am still guilty. Reusa wrote, tears dripping down her face. So far, words had held the only bit of healing she could get. There was a certain beauty in self-expression that she couldn't find anywhere else.

Reusa had finally written all the words she had bottled up in her head and she stood with a suddenness that scared off the forest animals. She stood over her campfire and glared at the flames. Her eyes were dangerously devoid of sunglasses and she felt as though she was baring her soul for the flickering flames to see. She wondered what it would feel like to burn. Would she experience the kind of horror that her victims felt when she showed them their sin?

It would be sort of ironic to die by fire, she thought. It would be the closest she could get to getting back at herself for the way she killed her victims. Reusa was suddenly aware of her fingernails digging into her palm. She opened her hand, and in a fit of anger, she ripped out the pages she had just written and threw them into the fire as hard as she could. Her lip was curled in disgust as her burning words flickered in her almost-black eyes.

Suicidal thoughts were not a new experience for her. But every time, she somehow couldn't bring herself to do it. She always tried to tell herself that it was because every death she had thought of was not enough to atone for her sin. But she was really just afraid that she wasn't strong enough to remove the monster of herself from the world. But that did not make these thoughts right, and that was just another piece of guilt that she could add to the pile.

Reusa turned from the fire to grab her sunglasses from the seat of her motorcycle. Her reflection in the shiny chrome of the motorcycle caught her eye. She bent closer to stare at her eyes. Her face was beautiful with short black hair and red highlights. She had a pronounced jaw and cheekbones and full lips. But the mirage of beauty was shattered by her eyes. They were still grey, but almost black. The blackness of her own eyes and the disgust from her own inability to kill herself with her own reflection made her turn away and don the sunglasses. Both her prison and her sanctuary. Hiding her emotions and the monster, but also trapping her inside the person she had become.