My Killer

A Taste Of Poison

"Was all of this just a part of your fucked up guessing game..."

I didn't look up at Michael as I spoke. The tone of my voice was unnaturally steady yet sounded off at the same time.

My hands were busy with trying to make a secure knot on the garbage bag in front of me. My eyes were focused on the movements the muscles underneath the pale skin of my hands were making as I worked relentlessly on the knot. I might have stared at the rusty crimson paint that clung to my hands like a second skin, yet I didn't actually see it. I didn't see the blood smeared across the pale skin of my hands anymore, or rather I refused to acknowledge the blood altogether, even though it looked like my hands had literally been dipped in it. To give the blood a second thought, to give it a name, to make it real, would have made the task I had just finished impossible to accomplish in the first place. You didn't just clean up a dead girl without falling apart, without breaking down. So I didn't, I cleaned up Michael's mess instead. Joy had for a brief moment in time ceased to exist, at least for me she had.

I felt numb, yet the reality of it all was slowly starting to seep back in, to become real.

"No, I wouldn't call it that. This here was all part of your punishment, merely a tool to teach you a lesson."

His cold words cut me from across the room and drew my eyes to him.

Just a lesson... you fucker...

"Merely a tool... She had a name you know, Joy."

I wanted to rage at him, to scream, but my numb voice sounded dead even to my own ears.

I cared, or at least I knew that I should care, I should rage, but I found it so hard to hold onto any sort of emotion. It was like trying to contain water in a broken container, whatever emotions spiked within me, drained away again before they could even begin to fill me up, before they could make an impact. I was numb, hollow, barely even there at all.

"Don't sound so damn judgmental princess, it doesn't suit you. After all, I'm not the one who just finished erasing all the traces of her existence. I'm not the one who mopped the floor and put her remains in the trash like she was yesterdays garbage. You did that Sophie. All I did was kill her..."

His crude words hit me in the face like a slap, a wakeup call if you will. Because I really needed to wake the fuck up.

My eyes dropped from his face, from his cold eyes, and fell to my hands. I let go of the black trash bag almost as if it had burned me. My hands were coated in crimson.

Blood...

Her blood...

I'm soaked in her blood...

Joy... I'm soaked in... Joy...

What I had been trying to keep at bay for the last few hours finally broke through the dam, through the giant barrier I had erected in a desperate attempt to deal with the situation at hand.

I helped him...

I fucking helped him...

I have her blood all over me...

I might not have taken her life, but the fucked up bastard got me to help him...

He got me to mop away her blood, pick up pieces of her flesh, remove the stains, erase her from existence...

He made me an accomplice to her murder...

I helped him...

I fucking helped him...