Warnings: Gore. Stream of consciousness. Dreamlike.

Hot, dark room submerged in soil. Quiet. Whisper. The heat of desert air on her skin. She undressed herself. The sink, full of grimy rags and dripping rust; lukewarm water in the fingerprint. Muffled moans. A clatter. Fallen chair and broken bones. She pulled the trigger. Air compressed. Bullet struck. Kneecap shattered.

She apologized, naked form itchy in the arid dust. The grit clung to moisture. Any moisture. It burned. "My condolences," she whispered to the hazy figure, broken, bloody, half-bound to an old rotting chair resting on its side. It was ageless. No gender. An it. She congratulated her aim. "I am so sorry for your pain."

Shot her-him-it again, carpal, tarsal, mandible, cranium, until the soggy splintered corpse creaked under the weight of its own flesh. Every wound a wound by her hand, a wound gifted to child, infant, man, and wife. She did not discriminate. A noble lady indeed.

She felt strong arms wrap around her waist. The scent of metal, rot, oily hair. Those hands steadied her grip. Improved her accuracy. Whispered encouragement in her pretty ears. "Why do you always hold yourself back?" Kimbley said. "Your lips say no but your eyes say yes, yes, yes. You like to watch them drop like flies. You like that rush and that boom and that drop, that thump, that squish of a body emptying."

She blinked at the captive figure, watching as it morphed (inhuman, it was not human-she was no murderer) into the faceless, racist caricatures of middle-eastern flesh. These were not people, no, no; they were bags of blood and teeth. She shot it in the mouth and the hole left by close-contact bullet was darker than black, blood so thick-so-thick-so-thick it must have been a monster.

"Beautiful soldier," Kimbley rasped, smirking in the half-light of nuclear winter, "why the hell do you think it matters if you're sorry you killed someone? No matter what your intentions, they're still dead and you'll never stop killing. Gets much easier after bullet one, doesn't it?"

Bullet one.

Eleven-year-old. Could have been a brilliant man some day. Hiding books in the basement of an old house. Looked up, unafraid; who would kill a child? Papa said splat. Riza Hawkeye had teared up (in the shadows, in privacy) out of grief for her lack of remorse.

A different culture, a different face, a difference skin color, a different religion, a different language; alien. Not human.

When did he change faces?

"You tell me if it hurts," Roy said to her from behind, licking his lips as a nervous sweat beaded. He was a virgin and clumsy and tired and so horrified by his nights asleep that he would do anything for the tingle of human pleasure. Touching yourself was good, good, good, so being with someone real must have been ten times better. Yes?

She had volunteered for this. She had volunteered to pull this trigger, and get him off. That was her role as woman, as protector, as the wife of carnal sin. "It doesn't hurt," she said, his fingers inside her; the blood on his fingers had not congealed, not yet. She sat astride the corpse's lap (its body hot, and dry, and composed of primal ash; her darling Mustang had gotten to him as she prepared for this night) and spread her legs wide.

Her hole black, black, black, just as the wound in her victim's skull. She saw Roy avert his eyes, and knew he was thinking the same thing; all that blood. "It's okay," she said. "I can feel nothing." She had gone numb all over, chilled gooseflesh rising. She felt like a plucked bird, skin cold, wet, smelling of death and meat.

"Burn me."

He obeyed, and there was a liquid flash, like sunlight through the ocean, scattered by a trillion salty droplets, and she was breathing hard and hot and blood streaked her hair her legs her back he groaned (so good so good so good). And she thought: sex and death are not so very different. We breathe, we struggle, we give in, we are primal, we are vulnerable. And then there is a final rush, a damp chill, and then nothing; almost as if there was nothing to start with.

That first bullet was always the easiest.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.