I Painted Red

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          I felt moist on my left side. My arm was a little sore, and I felt as if a great weight was laying atop me on that side. My eyes were closed, I knew that much, and I felt as if I was in a fog. I tried to recall where I was or what I had been doing but I couldn't. It was as if it wasn't the to begin with. My mind could not recall anything: a black slate.

          Slowly, carefully, I began to open my eyes to the scene in front of me. I saw what seemed to be a room, the cross beams sitting along the flat,wooden ceiling. I glanced down and saw a quilt was covering me. I lifted my right arm and felt around under the covers. My bare skin tingling beneath the covers as my hand revealed what my eyes could not yet see.

          I was slender, but had some muscle definition. I also discovered, upon feeling my bare breast, that I was a woman. "That is good to know", I thought. My hand brushed up upon something solid and warm to the touch resting in the center of my chest. Odd...

          I left the the unknown object alone for the moment and moved my attention to why my left side felt moist and what the weight could be.It didn't move, or even breath, whatever it was. My eyes shifted to the bulk lying atop my arm.

          It looked like a man with gold hair and pale skin. I couldn't see many details though, as his fave was buried in my side. I reached forward with my right hand and felt under him, where the moisture was coming from, then lifted it slowly up from beneath the covers. As I lifted it was sticky and I was acutely aware of a copper-like smell that was accompanying it.

          My fingers were covered in a thick, red liquid. Blood!  I swallowed, then tried to push the man off of me so i could get a better look. He didn't move much until I put a little more force into it. He rolled off the bed and thudded into the floor. The smell hit me hard and I was lost for words and feelings for a while: Blood,Bile, raw meat, and fresh death.

          It became too much for me, and I quickly rolled to the side and had to relearn how to breath, and keep the contents of my stomach. Questions sped through my mind, unable to find the answers they were seeking. Who am I? What happened? Who is this man and why is he dead and not me? One final question caused the flow of questions to stop... Did I kill him?

          I breathed slowly and looked around the rest of the room, trying not to inhale through my nose. The room was a wreck. There was a scattering of clothes, some bloody, some ripped, lying about near  where I had rolled off to collect myself. Claw marks scoured the wooden walls, and the bed, aside from being soaked in blood, was in a state of disrepair.

          The floor was covered in what seemed to be a sensual kind of carpet at one time. There was a dresser on one side of the room, a door with a mirror attached to it directly across from the foot of the bed, and a wide window that was half-open. there was also two pairs of boots sitting near the door

          I decided it was probably a good idea to look around a bit to see if I could find anything about who I was, or about the dead body in the room with me. Slowly, I started to climb out of the bed, calming my quickly beating heart. I placed my feet on the floor and stretched my arms a bit. my right felt fine, but my left was stiff.

          I tried to stand and failed as seared up my left leg. I slumped back to the edge of the and looked down at it. there was a menacing bruise covering the top half of my left calf. I couldn't tell the extent of the damage, but I decided to compare my leg bones to see if something might be out of place.

          By either sheer luck or some miracle, it didn't seem to have anything else wrong about it. Satisfied, I slowly stood, using the end of the bed to help. feeling a need to know about what had happened to a man who had shared a bed with me, I hobbled my way around the foot to look at his body. And was shocked to the site that was before me.

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