Lies Without Reflections

5. Chapter

Nothing else came except the emails. Concise, pragmatic simply-worded instructions; an address, a date.

That night I stepped through the doorway just as the sunlight was about to caress my heel with its fiery fingertip.

I stood in her doorway watching her sleep. It never gave me peace. The envy I felt for her dreams overwhelmed me instead. Leaning against the white frame I was thinking; see how the devil and an angel could live under the same roof. See how anything was possible?

She awoke to a less foul mood. It wasn't her natural chatty one, she only had that with dad who supported each of her ideas, who saw the potential in her burgeoning creative outbursts. Still, the improvement filled the morning with a dark, depressive novelty. The prospect of her future mediocrity projected a picture I refused to see because it was a picture of my incapability. Truth to be told I wasn't a parent, I have accepted it. What I haven't accepted was the affect it would have on her, that thought yet unknown the bits of them had already been missing from her. That maybe I destined her for a lifelong journey through grief and bitterness. That, made me feel like I swallowed a brick and it pressed against my ribs.

Carefully I drew all the heavy curtains about the windows. She didn't ask why the twilight was necessary in the morning as I combed through her hair to try and imitate one of mum's intricate dos. Hissing and complaining we carried through settling with a ponytail.

On cue the knocker rambled and the familiar rhythm of heartbeat signalled his arrival.

My sister scurried to open the door and threw her arms around him telling him how cute he was before they went to drop her to school. I mumbled a request to him but I couldn't tell what his answer was, his face was inscrutable.

I sat, bundled in a bunch of shadows rewinding the scenes of the night. They already seemed faded, too dreamy to be the cruel stone-cold factual reality. I just perched there listening to the hunger crescendo from a whisper into a roar. The volume of the street turned up from the buzz of the radio into a big band orchestra concert. The only instruments allowed were drums, the erratic beats of an ocean of sticks coalescing into a tuneless noise. I was trapped by the tide of light, driven mad in the company of the bars made of mouth-watering sounds. Lost; so wholly in my crippling prison I barely sensed the knocking above the clamour.

He came back. He said he was here. I sobbed an 'I know'.

I hugged him, I cried, we talked. The whole day went by in the same course. When he became invaluable, I couldn't know.

My phone beeped, the message came. The first assignment. Attached; a warning.

'There will be a day when the door is open. Love him enough, Selfish. Leave it open.' Later, I realized what it meant.

That day I discovered that love is two people so astonished by each other they cannot look away. That we go mad into the things we can't have. That love is an exorable kind of madness, a legal kind of murder.

There wasn't a just situation for me in this life, no more. I became the thief of nows. Stealing other people's last moments to increase the number of mine. A countdown in my head always measured the remaining ones for my sister. I had one for each of the two people I cared about. Contemplating the unfairness of theirs running out relentlessly while mine perpetually multiplied would've chased me down a road that only sloped southbound. So I strained to avoid that path.

As the nights elongated, the darkness stretched further into the early afternoons and I became freer. I needed him— less to carry my sister around and more than ever.

I wished the years would go and arrange themselves into a collage like in the movies. They instead became stupidly slow, welled up pain and heartache and I found myself not knowing whether to run and when I was running whether I was running to or from something. The chain of haunting ghosts shackled to my wrists, ankles, neck; those I was sure of. I dragged them around wherever I ventured; I heard them ring like icy silver bells. Cold, cruel, cunning.

So life went by in a series of sluggish tableaux, scene by scene in painstaking deceleration, always moving on before it came to a full stop.

The highlights like glowing red dots flamed up , marking a certain checkpoint.

The face of my sister when she stopped in the middle of the living room, soundless, speechless shaken for some reason. I saw it. I knew she knew. I knew she knew. She had known, felt it for a long time. The mumble in which she voiced it split my ears like the loudest cry on earth.

“They won't come back”

I couldn't move to shake my head. I couldn't move to extend my arms and gather her against me and apologies for the rest of my life.

The sister, my sister who always wanted to know everything, then only asked one question.

“But they loved us, right?”

I heard it crack, break in two. My heart. I saw it as a ravine opened in the middle of the living room. How I longed to throw myself into it, to join the Devil laughing at me from the pits of Hell.

She lunged at me beat me, bit me, kicked me. Screamed like a wild animal and I cried with her. Pain couldn't manifest in other ways but raw cries, such savage agony had no sophisticated manner to burst out into the world.

She calmed after she hollered her voice away and nothing remained but the salty memories scurrying down her round cheeks. We held each other like sisters for the first time since they were gone. They say the pain shared lessens; ours increased tenfold. It was a wound torn afresh.

We fell asleep in the living room as we reminisced between raindrops of tears.

“Mallory” she asked chomping down on her hot dog in the morning “Are you two going to be my mummy and daddy now?”

The notion in itself was so astonishing I couldn't breathe for a moment. We were doing that alright. Played her parents for the last couple of—weeks? Months? Time escaped my grasp. I should've expected her to finalize that conclusion at some point.

“I will always be your sister” I choked out.

She looked at me expectantly over the steaming plate, my mother's eyes boring into mine.

“And he-”I averted my eyes staring down at the knife in my hands shaking “He is nothing to us”

“I thought he was your boyfriend” she said in that disgusting voice that children use when they can't fully understand the depth of something and they simply dismiss their ignorance with mockery.

“I don't have time for that. He's a friend”

“I think you're in love” she teased. My knuckles whitened as I gripped the handle hard.

“It's either you or a boyfriend I don't have energy for both” my voice was calm when I forced my anguish down. There's nothing to be angry about just because I was afraid of this topic and situation.

“Do you want me to choose him instead of you?” I asked with a weak half smile looking back at her above my shoulder.

She made a foul face.

“That's not too nice. You can't say that to me.”

“What you said wasn't too nice either. Mum and dad can't and will never be replaced by anyone. Certainly not by me” I countered and before she could've mouthed back I snapped “Eat your breakfast or we'll be late”

She leaned back in her chair feigning a yawn.

“I'm finished” she announced.

With a sigh I continued preparing her lunch. Passing me on her way to the sink she gave the last jab.

“Doesn't mean he's not into you”

“Oh, don't be fresh” I growled “Smartass”

“Go wash your mouth!” she shot back, hands on her hips like a mock of an authority figure.

“I said nothing wrong” I said running out of patience.

“You said 'ass'. That's a foul word. You should watch your language I might learn it from you. You're a bad influence on me”

Gone was the bonding air of the shared ache. It had lifted the heaviness looming above us, though.

“I see you want me to lick you on the forehead again”

“You won't”

I bent a stare at her. I wasn't bluffing.

“You're not too nice today”

“Right back at you”

She scrunched her little face up and I saw the impertinence well up in her so I went ahead and prevented it.

“Go upstairs, gather your stuff. He'll be here in five. I strongly advise you to be in a more tolerable mode when you get home or I might just not let you in the house if I hear a sound of whinery coming from you. Agreed?”

She stuck her tongue out.

“Never. Nevveer! I'm not going. You can't make me”

Try me, little fiend.

I grabbed her hair and pulled at it in a weird direction.

“Wanna bet?”

“I'm going I'm going, okay, OKAY!”

I had to be a dictator to get her to do stuff. Because she was nasty, so nasty sometimes.

In the afternoon when I took her home and told her we're having a guest she picked up the topic of the breakfast again.

“He's coming right? Why can't I go to Missy's so you two could kiss all you want?”

“Firstly because of how you behave lately. Secondly because I haven't talked to any of the other kids' parents and we can't just pop up out of the blue. And least but not last, we weren't going to be kissing. Where do you have all these ideas from anyway? Have you ever seen us do anything like that? No.”

“But you like him”

“Don't be so blond. He's my friend and I'm grateful because he helped me. Helped us.”

I can't pay for that by breaking his heart.

“I bet he doesn't want you to only be grateful to him”

I stopped in my tracks. The cold December air sprayed her breath snow white. She looked like a little ice queen with her glacial blue eyes and the cool gold shiny locks of hair blinking out from under her pink fluffy hat that used to be mine.

“Don't talk about things you don't understand”

She couldn't refuse now seeing my utter turmoil at this to wind me up further.

“Explain me then if you're so 'superiory' intelligent”

“ 'Superior-ly' "I deadpanned and with a sigh I grabbed her hand anew and resumed walking.

“What he's done for us is right because I know how he sees me”

Her jaw dropped open in a judging-shocked no-you-didn't manner.

“You b***h”

“Hey, HEY!” Not like I didn't deserve to be called that but still, coming from a nine year old's mouth it sounded profoundly harsh—and true.

“Don't you dare judge me. Understand you little spoilt brat there's not always a sunshiny option that you can choose from, alright? I don't use him because I like it but because I had to, okay? As soon as he becomes redundant I'll let him go”

“You're lying! You like it alright! You want him wrapped around your finger, don't you? Will you do the same to me when you had enough of me? When you don't want me anymore?” she was sobbing, her face red, the cold and the anger painting it with blood. Lots of blood. Blood.

“I would've got rid of you long ago if that was my policy!”

Of course I regretted it the minute the last sound left my lips. Her face swam in tears and I saw the disappointment, the delusion on her. At that moment I knew I abandoned her with that sentence even if for just a fleeting second. She'll remember it forever somewhere deep down, buried in that heap of pain that was left behind by our previous life, where we had a mother and a father.

“I hate you! You're not my sister! They left us because of you! It's all your fault! Your fault! You love your little boyfriend more than you love me!”

She screamed wanting to run away. I held her firm by the arm feeling her racing pulse that befogged my mind. I was angrier than the hunger raising its head. Angrier.

“He's not my boyfriend!” I yelled back into her ruddy face.

She wrenched her arm free.

“I want Mum and Dad! I want mum and dad! I want—”

“You can't have them!” I felt the tears stinging my eyes soaking with rage “They're not here! They're gone! They’re not here!”

“You wanted them gone! Didn't you? So you could have the house and your boyfriend here all you want. You wanted them to die!”

“Shut up! Shut up! How can you even say that! How can you even think that!” I was sobbing “I would die for them! Do you understand? I would die for them just so you could have them back! If I could bring them back, I would”

But I…I can’t.

I grabbed her by both arms looked into her red rimmed eyes so she would believe me.

“I have nothing but you. Nothing to give that is worth both their lives. I have—” I took a deep breath “I have sold my soul already. I have nothing left. Nothing” My rage ebbed and I was glad I could cry as I sank to my knees in front of her “Nothing but you…”

The cold white light of the street lamp locked us in a bright circle as the rare snow fell past us at a lazy pace.

She sniffed and sniffed but said nothing just slid her short arms around me. I squeezed her tight. We despaired. We despaired until our fingers were stiff with the chill and the snow soaked the hood of our jackets and settled in our unbound hair. I watched as the little flakes crusted a white fringe on her lashes then melted away. I let myself notice and smile a faint smile at the spring in her gait that was so funny and familiar.

Beyond the doorway we never apologized. That long silent embrace was a very long way of saying sorry. An appropriate way of communicating what we had absolutely no words for, because of its profoundness.

When the knock came she didn't even mock me just moved upstairs.

I didn't feel like murdering anyone that night.

“She knows, right?”

We sat down in the dining room kind of close, kind of far apart. She ate upstairs because she wanted to and I lacked the spirit to object.

I nodded. The food smelled good. Of course I heard nothing but the appetizing beating, the scent of a lot sweater meal.

“Did you tell her, then?”

“No. She just came downstairs and told me clear and straight”

“I'm sorry” was all he said and had a mouthful.

“She knew it already. Now it crystallized and came to the surface. I'm glad though that it's out”

I listened to his heartbeat, steady, steady, not a catch, a glitch anywhere that would signal our theories, my sister's and mine. I guessed I wasn't that sure of the effect I had.

“She'll never forgive me”

He frowned.

“What are you talking about? Forgive you for what? Have I missed something?”

“Look, she has to put the blame on someone. It might as well be me”

He gave me a wary look.

“You don't-don't blame yourself do you?”

I munched on a piece of roasted vegetable that tasted like toothpaste and orange juice —as in lousy.

“Jesus” he leaned closer over the table “You can't do that. It's wasn't your fault”

“It was. It really was—” my voice sounded as dead as a roadkill.

“Holy s**t. No, listen to me. Mallory it was not your fault”

“But it was—” the bloody tears never came just a dry croak.

“No. If anyone is to blame is the bastard who drove the other car, okay? Not you. Not in any ways you. Why would you even think that?”

“We have to blame someone in order not to go insane” I bit down on my lower lip to keep the trembling at bay.

“Then let it be him. The driver” he put a reassuring arm on mine sending the vibrations of his pounding heart through me. I stared at it like a starved, crazed madman, an addict to a drug.

Did the alcohol and the amphetamine sing to the dopers and the drunk, like the blood called to me?

“He's faceless. Faceless...I need something more tangible, substantial. I don't know— a picture, a name...Anything other than flailing for the criminal and grasping thin air instead”

The reason why murdering was so easy was that every victim wore the mask of the driver who killed my parents. Every. Last. One of them. Revenge needed a release it was set free in blood, death-cries and rage.

I understood my sister then. Her suffering, her blaming me, the only valid bringer of relief in a wide range. I had to take the blame for her. In this, we were true sisters.

“Then choose anyone. Me, a random person on the street but not yourself. Never yourself” his fingers clamped down on mine and squeezed it. Such a friendly human gesture made millions of ravenous monsters curse through my veins droning need. NEED.

I gulped down on some of the voracity.

“I'll try. I promise” I wiped the tears from my face.

He fumbled around for a tissue.

“It’s alright, I'm fine. I don't need one, thanks”

Stopping he ran his stare over me, scanning for another leak where the hysteria could access the outer world.

“So anyways...” I sniffed “How's life?”

“I don't care. You really don't care either” he kept regarding me with that piercing cautious look as if I might fell apart any moment.

“No, no. Please. I could use a little distraction. It's nice knowing life is relatively normal elsewhere from time to time”

I sipped the wine out of politeness and flipped my hair out of the way.

“How's work?”

“It's alright”

“Are you going out enough? Drinking enough?”

“Yep, I'm glad to report that I'm living my life to its fullest”

“Have you asked that cute colleague of yours out yet? Cause you should. You really ought to”

“No. No? Why are we talking about this?” he cleared his throat, utterly fazed by the topic.

“It's as good a topic as any other”

“In that case what about you?” he shot back “f*****g around much?”

As if on cue my sister waltzed in and chimed.

“She doesn't have time for both me and men”

“Go to your room”

Stuck out tongue as an answer and the cheerful clatter of the dishes in the sink as she let her dirty one fly.

“She's right. I don't have time” I flashed my eyes at him.

He just chuckled. I looked black at him.

“What?”

He shook his head trying to cover his mouth to conceal the grin but couldn't hide it behind his palm. It was too adamant on his face.

“Nothing” he coughed.

“Indulge me. Please” I c****d my head to the side. Remotely I was aware of what I was doing, that I never intentionally used that on him. Decoying came to me unconsciously as it seemed.

“Nothing…I mean I always thought that you just had to step out of the house and at least three men would lodge themselves onto you. I thought that's how it worked. I mean that you didn't have to have time for men. They just” he shrugged “happened”

“They just happened, huh?” That made me smile too.

He just shrugged again to indicate the simplicity.

“What sort of a monster do you think I am?”

Ladies and gentleman I confess; I grinned. One of those toothies.

“Not a monster. A heartbreaker, maybe. Definitely not a monster” he leaned in to emphasize his words. If only he had known.

My chest twisted. My grin froze to my face, it hurt at the edges.

I buried my face in my palms, nuzzling the texture of my skin. I immediately felt his palm on my shoulder.

“What is it? What's wrong?” his concerned voice struck that string in me and it all became so horribly comical.

I laughed.

“What am I even doing?” my whole body shook into it. It was one of those empty sounds that you couldn't hear with your ears but felt under your skin.

“This whole thing is a godforsaken— can you not see what we're doing?” I had enough of pretending. I had enough of blindness “God knows I close my eyes against so many things these days, too but...”

He just regarded me with a shocked-confused frown opening then closing his mouth.

“Remember when I told you that there are two things you have to know in life; who and what you want. I never was bereft of knowing either. But you know - you know what's...excruciating? That even though I know what I want; it is the only, the only thing I cannot have...”my voice trailed off at the end, my throat felt tight around the words I was holding for so long.

I dared myself to look at him. Against all those ridiculous doubts I said it finally. Even if all of it wasn't true.

“What are you on about? Why are you so— I don't know. You changed. I know you did. No wonder you did. But we've always been like this. We're friends”

“We're not friends” my voice had that tone that threatened with madness“ We're worse. This. This is a tightrope. We are the f*****g teeterers”

My vision blurred. The realization was so sharp I had to blunt the view.

I knew that I had to say the words. I felt them in my mouth, blades cutting my tongue.

I couldn't remember the last word he said to me. Or the last word I said to him.

I'm not sure we even said goodbye in words.

I remember how it felt, a dive into an ocean of new sensations, tastes, textures, smells. The musky scent of his skin under the heady, clean perfume, the roughness of the stubble on his jaw, the rustle of his shirt as it creased against mine, the double catch of breath and heartbeat entwined in dissonance I hated how it made my empty chest ache. I tried so hard to engrave the little details into the clangorous void between my ribs so I could retread them again when it was lost to even remembrance.

It was a mistake. We both felt that it was as much a hello as a goodbye, a wave of a hand in greeting or in farewell; undecided.

Life and love...they were all alike. They were all slow murders.

Life passed on relentlessly throwing me not a crumb of mercy to digest and reconcile.

The emails arrived, on time, precisely, giving me enough detail keeping me busy. Distracted. I enjoyed my new job. I don't know how I dealt with my conscience. I assumed I didn't have one.

One day I felt horribly theatrical and purchased a suit. All white, pearlescent in the moonshine. Clear-cut , custom made , excellent tailoring. It was the perfect battle gear. It also gave me a sense of ceremony. I put it on at the beginning of dusk ,combed my hair into an immaculate high whip, rouged my lips with the exact shade of blood, kissed my sister on the forehead saying 'sister has errands to run', double-locked the door, the windows, the gate ,strapped on the stilettos and set off to merge with the shadows of the night.

Wherever I went eyes followed. As much as I despised them the centre of attention meant the most inconspicuous hideout.

People were scared shitless when they saw me. I usually poured myself a drink, made myself comfortable in a sofa or armchair, welcomed them politely with a 'Good evening' every time.

In their eyes, like twin mirrors I saw myself reflected as fear. They all came up with ridiculous excuses. Words were powerless against me because I was deaf to their pleas. Concentrating on the pumping liquid in their veins blocked out whatever I wished not to hear, my ears were tuned to a fine tone, the tone of blood, a rondeau of life and death.

One night I perched on a nightstand staring at the dark haired woman sound asleep inches from me. The jealousy would ceaselessly follow me around I longed for sleep so desperately so I gloated and leered and gawked. Pushing the glass off the nightstand with a swift mood woke her when I had enough of smoldering like a factory chimney deep fried in my misery of dream-deprived darkness.

The woman's eyes widened in shock and fear, her dark hair gleamed bluish in the moonlight tiding through the glass wall to the left of me. Alert and alarmed she backed away, in such haste she fell off the bed. I almost laughed. The smell of sweat and poignant adrenaline filled the room. The characteristic fragrance of fear. She slept in a silk came and shorts, barefoot ,folded in sheets. Alone. Waiting for a cheating husband to get home. The hell he would get home to a neat little present. A despairing wife crusted in red velvet. He'd instantly plummet into a spiral of guilt and regret, collapsing in on himself. Not for long.

I heard the kid stir in the other room. Not yet.

“Who are you?” the woman croaked, her voice hoarse from fear and the night’s sleep that hadn't quite left her limbs yet “What do you want?”

I rolled my eyes.

“Always the same questions…Can't you be a little more creative?”

Her eyes darted frantically all over the room looking for an escape, a sheen of perspiration beaded on her chest already, her hair damp and limp around her aesthetic face.

“How did you get in here?”

“Eeer…Wrong. Try again”

I refused to move and just stared out the huge glass wall into the soft blue velvet night.

“Please” her voice mixed with a high sob“ take what you want. Take our money”

I nodded in approval.

“As I will” I looked at her imploringly “Keep going. You're getting there”

“Please. We're good people. If it's about my husband, I-I uhg he's coming home in the morning—”

“Not if you call him now” I suggested readjusting the cuff of my suit.

The almost invisible spark of hope. The most painful in seeing it is knowing well enough that it is false hope. The second most painful is that they think I couldn't see it.

“Let me just get my cell”

“No, no. Here, use mine” I threw mine at her.

She looked at me still wild, savage slyness and hope in her eyes.

“He won't pick up if it's an unknown number” she objected.

I looked at her from the corner of my eyes.

“Do try anyway”

I saw her reluctance as the prospect of escaping her bedroom became a distant possibility. Pity she was not a half-wit. That husband had it coming.

She found his husband's number on my list. She dialled.

I heard every word. Disappointment like a rock fell from her face into her stomach where it weighed a hundred trillion tons.

The phone dropped out of her hand, landed with a loud knock. The baby shifted and sighed in the other room coming to her waking. I clicked my tongue. I preferred them asleep, the looked more plastic-dollish, less alive.

A remote part of me stuck in the bounds of humanity felt compassion for her. That annoying part that made me collapse in on myself curl up into a ball and feel infinitely sorry for myself every time after a bloody email landed in my inbox. I wondered every time when it would end, when would cruelty become second nature, as easy as breathing, a switch to turn on and off.

I still went into shock. The peril of that had been that I couldn't have predicted when I was intending to snap back into it. Not once had I found myself in my bed dripping red, clad in white, staining all the sheets that had had to be burnt.

I would rather have done it with a cool head. Less risk.

That light, the single white spot that signalled the last bit of faith in the woman's eyes flickered then fizzled out.

A narration fit for a motion picture raced through my head. The script of a well-written movie. The woman realizes that her husband was cheating on her, all her accusations justify but she cannot enjoy it because her victory as these sort of triumphs is bitter-sweet. For more than one reasons. It isn't just the disappointment, the heart breaking reality of him not loving her anymore, the man she counted on, respected on top of all condemned an appropriate father for her children. It is that the lover was there sitting on her nightstand intruding her home. It is that because of her husband's infidelity her life is at stake. It is on account of his husband that she is the woman that has to die tonight facing the lover, the ruined of her life.

She couldn't say a word. In her place I'd be dumbfounded out of my right mind too.

“May I have that back, please?” I asked, extending my hand, palm up. She slid the phone towards me. Picking it up I dropped it in my pocket.

“Now” I said, my voice ringing in the silence of the night. That odd eerie quiet seemed to follow me around like an obedient puppy. Except animals avoided me. They felt it in their gut that I was trouble.

“Don't worry. He'll get his share in time, too”

The woman let out a heaving sob that must've been something intelligible.

“Say that again?”

“Why are you doing this to us?”

Ah.

“It's nothing personal. It is an obligation of a sort. I sold my soul, you see”

“Please, please, ple-e-ease. Don't kill me. I have to- I have to—”

“Take care of a thing or two? Don't break your neck over that. I'll take good care of them”

Another tide of desperate hollering on her part. She woke the baby too and she started screaming for her shrieking mother. I felt cold all over. I wasn't wielding my body, something else was. An ancient creature steered by rationality and logic that wasn't distantly acquainted with emotions inhabited me, took control and only let go after the job was executed. Nothing I ever conceived compared in kin to that steel grip on my mind ever.

Pushing myself off the nightstand I strolled over to her, the heels of my stiletto clicking on the floor. Try as she might she failed to stifle her erupting sobs.

“Tell me one more thing before this ends. Be truthful and I promise I'll try and be quick”

I leaned down then succumbed to a crouch watching her, transfixing her as she gulped on the last burst of hysteria.

Reaching under her chin I raised her stare right into mine. The ivory figure replaced the glow of hope in her dark eyes. Before I could be disgusted by my own tiny reflection I asked.

“Are you devastated?”

She blinked in confusion. Her face was dipped in dread. A single salty tear travelled down her cheek to gather on her chin arrive and dissolve on the tip of my finger. Feverish hot on the icy chill.

I waited for her answer staring into the face of terror. Huge eyes, beading sweat, the panic of heartbeat, bassed by the wailing of the infant. Say it. Just say it damn it.

“III-I-I” she stuttered “III-I am. I a-a-am”

“Good”

She didn't say a word of the infant though it was I who could only hear her cries. The hope in her, the last of the falling stars I welcomed with a familiarity. It would be easier for us without hope. But would that be life?

I hated the smart ones. I took fancy in killing the stereotypical obtuse villains, millionaires sitting on the riches they got from the skins they had sold off other backs. This woman here had no other flaw than marrying the wrong man. But I couldn't think of her as a woman. She was a lifeless vase I was about to break.

I stroke her wet face, placing her hair behind her ear, cooing words of soothing that even I didn't understand.

I felt the harsh sound of tearing sinuous skin. My gums were wet in an instant, as my body tensed to hold her thrashing back. I gulped as the blood spasmed into my throat, as the baby's wail became more stubborn and shrill, as her heartbeat lost track, derailed and tumbled, hurdled, rolled aimlessly. A drunken loner at 2a.m, a hope-ridden wanderer strolling into the gloom.

I expected that the frenzy of it would wear off. It never did. Blood was the only drug that kept me addicted. The need above all else. It elevated itself onto a pedestal and glowed in holy sanctity. Calling. Calling. Calling.

Her clothes, my suit, the wall, the disturbingly polished wood-boards from north to south, swam in scarlet. A grotesque painting. Not having my camera on me proved to be a mistake after all.

Like darkened glass beads her eyes shone without a light. Her heart however struggled, fought on beyond its expiration.

She gave me no choice but to amble back to the fireplace at the end of the doorless corridor that lead into the living room, yank out a fairly thin log, break it in an angle that would produce an uneven, sharp though clear fracture, a forearm snapped at midpoint, then return with my fetch.

Gullible, fragile, helpless. She lay, embraced by all three in the puddle of her own blood. What a way to go. Defending her own child. Branded by the knowledge, the disappointment; in her life, husband, herself. It was all very psychological.

The tip slid past her ribs arriving with a squelch in her heart piercing it with a splash. One drumbeat silenced. The night grew quieter, darker with another tune ending, a light put out.

Jerking the weapon free I disposed of it, throwing it back into the flames when I was headed to the other room.

To finish the child.

The little heart made a peculiar sound, an almost continuous revving noise, so fast the flutter of it slurred.

The little thing was covered in a romper speckled with yellow elephants and was discontentedly droning for her mother that would never come. I tried not to think of the irony and the commonness of both of our mother's absence.

Carefully I picked her up. The colourless eyes reminded me of my undead Sin.

Holding her close I felt like one of the Moiras, her strand of destiny in my hand next to her mother's dangling from my palm, severed for eternity.

Don't think I haven't questioned why I had to kill the child too, why I had to eradicate whole families. I, as one, was a believer in the profound innocence of a newborn, the endless repository of possibilities, that anything can become of it therefore it is initially barren of character, pure of good and evil.

I was aware of my chains but I deemed them invisible. I knew of my being a puppet, my strings leading into his hands, a faceless memory's palms. I was the pawn of a ghost. One that needed the unblemished soul of a child. For an unfathomable reason.

My only wish had been that I would possess the emotionless nonchalance of a puppet, too.

The child wriggled in my arms, her instincts signalling what her mind couldn't yet comprehend.

A thousand ways of saving her raced through my mind. A thousand ways of failure. He would come for me if I broke my promise. I was lucky my selfish nature outweighed my empathy if only by the weight of a feather.

I couldn't conjure the will to bite. When it had come to this I opted for the solve of the gun. I purchased a small automatic one that served me right that day and beyond. In these times I was desperate to have been born a psychopath. I didn't want to be crushed under the pain of stealing this life. But it was a job that had to be done.

The cold of the weapon jarred against the warm softness of the baby, weighing no more than a cat, so frail, so abandoned, so helpless. She then was as alone in this world as I was. I tried to fan the thought away since in this case the shot that'll spill her brain would be mine too. I wasn't strong enough to raise a weapon to my skull.

The instant the barrel touched her temple she fell silent. Her undefinable eyes sought mine. The smart thing tried to compel me, convince me of its innocence I was already ensured of.

I imagined. I imagined it was a dream a very bad dream where the infant didn't go limp when I pulled the trigger. Where her blood didn't scar the wall with a pattern of red dots. Where I didn't throw the body into the fireplace to get rid of the evidence. Or even if all this happened—it was all a dream.

Only at home, when I checked in on my sister sleeping safe and sound, unsuspecting of the ruthlessness of this world did I let myself fall apart.

I relived the jerk of the automatic, the harsh, rigorous immobility of the tiny life leaving, evanescing from my arms, the violent hiss of the flames engulfing the body, the heels of my shoes clicking away on the floor, the resuming noise of the house pets around the area, the hum of the cicadas carried through the night air.

He was right. It was an empty life.