A/N: I don't like this piece. It's good writing, but bad fanfiction. Thought I'd post it anyway, see what you guys say.
It is the one thing I thought I would never understand. The one thing I never wanted to understand.
But then, I have never considered the situation I am in. And you never really know what you are capable of until you face a situation that forces you into the hard place: the place where culture, upbringing and all that makes you who are you are meets up with the deepest, darkest pits that humanity has to offer. At that point you have a choice: make or break.
I break. I break spectacularly, into a million little pieces that glisten red in the darkness. In this moment I am actually insane, insane enough to know of my insanity and not care.
Maybe it is his laughter. Maybe it is the strain of the false life I lead. Or maybe it is the way her lifeless corpse lays at my feet, blood pooling around my shoes.
I have seen a lot of death, an almost uncountable number of bodies, without ever losing myself. But this is her. And he is her killer.
No one tells you that in the moment you are capable of killing someone they cease to be a person. They don't have a past, family, friends. They are nothing in the face of the beast we so carefully keep concealed within. In this moment I know only one emotion, a burning hatred that uses my soul as its fuel. The other emotions will probably come later. I don't know. And I don't care.
I have no idea how I got the gun, it seems to have appeared in answer to my need, though logic tells me that it is probably the same gun he used to kill her. My arms lift of their own accord, the barrel pointing steadily at him. I will not miss.
He is laughing even harder now, despite the bullets in his legs that prevent him from moving, despite the imminent threat to his life. "Give this up, boy. You don't have what it takes to be a killer."
"Is that so?" I ask, my voice icy in spite of the burning happening inside of me. It is one of my gifts, to be so cool in the face of whatever comes my way. Except when it comes . . . came . . . to her.
There are shouts, voices screaming at me not to do this, that this isn't me. But they are too far away. They won't get here in time to stop me.
"Killing her was a mistake," I tell him conversationally, and for the first time am rewarded with a spark of fear and uncertainty.
The voices are getting closer, if I am going to do this, now is the time. My finger tightens on the trigger.
"She wouldn't want you to do this," he says, causing me to pause. He said it to save his life, but that does not make him wrong. No, she wouldn't want this, would be frightened by what I am right now. But she isn't here. And the beast is still demanding vengeance.
It seems, however, that my hesitation is enough to allow the owners of the voices to reach our position. People whose features I do not comprehend flow past me, surrounding him and someone carefully pries the gun from my grip, while a familiar voice talks.
That voice is calling me by my name, by my real name and not the lie. I am too far withdrawn into myself to answer it, though one thing its says filters through my conscious, "It was the right choice not to shoot."
Ah, really?
I am not so sure.