My breath comes in shallow drags, uneven and raw, like I’ve forgotten how to do it properly.
There’s a tremble in my limbs I can’t stop. Not yet. Not while I’m still trying to piece together what I’ve done… and what it will cost me.
I stay kneeling. The knife still in my hand. Blood sticky along my fingers and wrists, soaking into the black fabric clinging to my skin.
My bodysuit feels tighter now—twisted and torn at the shoulder where he ripped it. It sticks to me in patches where his blood soaks through.
The pool beneath him is still spreading and it’s so much. Too much.
I don’t know how long I sit there.
It could be minutes. It could be hours.
Time feels like a thing that belongs to someone else.
Then—a sound.
So soft I almost miss it.
I lift my head, slowly. Every part of me stiff and aching, like I’ve aged a decade in the span of a heartbeat.
There it is again. Something I can hardly hear, but I know it’s the kind of sound that doesn’t belong in a place like this.
I shift, pushing off my knees, turning toward the source.
And that’s when I see him.
In broken doorway, nearly swallowed by the shadows.
Dark brown eyes meet mine—and I know.
He saw.
He saw everything.
I’m not alone.
The moment I move, I feel it.
Not just the ache in my arms or the burn in my thighs—but the weight of it. Thick and sticky, dragging at me like guilt with a heartbeat.
I killed him.
I push up from the cold floor and catch sight of a woman in a shard of reflective metal near the broken doorway.
For a second, I don’t recognize her.
She looks like something out of a horror movie. Not the survivor. No—she looks like Carrie after the pig’s blood came down. A hallucination soaked in crimson and consequence.
Her eyes are wide, whites stark against dark blood. Blonde hair clings to her cheek in wet clumps. Her black Pilates bodysuit is shredded and splattered.
I blink and she blinks back because that’s me.
Now I feel it—the blood drying against my skin, matting my hair, sinking into my nails. It clings to me like shame and something darker I’m not ready to name.
I killed him. And I’ll live with it forever.
My stomach gives out.