The Inner Truth

Death and I stand together, side by side, looming over the couch in the den. The blood trail from the kitchen stops here, at the remains of a young girl barely in her twenties. Her head, nearly cut from her shoulders, hangs limply -almost upside down- to the left. Her face contorted in tortured pain and fright. Her shirt soaked with blood, outlining her delicate features with macabre elegance. She is propped up, with the remote in her hand, as if watching television. Death glides closer, greasy fog rolling out from under it's cloak covering the floor around us. It reaches out with one skeletal arm, barely touching the dead girl, sending a small, blue spark between it's finger and her head. With out turning, Death speaks, "You did this."

I shudder at the thought as a chill passes over me. A mad man had to have done this! I could never.....

"You did this," Death's words fall flat in the putrid silence of the house, unlike the ringing it possessed in the woods. None of this registers. I hear nothing but silence, I feel nothing but the hollow beating of my heart. How could I have done this? I have never fought in my life, how could I murder? How could I end someones life? I don't even know this girl, do I? I take a small step back, but Death wills me forward, closer to the body. That familiar, sticky aroma fills my nose as cold blood gushes between my toes. "You took her by surprise.... She didn't even know who you were."

"You're lying!" The words, which squeak out like a pubescent boy, sounded more brave in my head. I try to protest, to bargain, to reason with Death that I could not have done this, that there must be some mistake.