Chapter 3

There were sounds outside the door and I looked from the torn corpse and almost wept again. The epiphany, or whatever it was had passed and I could feel my body, numb and vibrating with anguish and sorry, under me, I knew there was little hope in feigning innnocence. And these eyes!

My body buckled and my head hit the small washbasin which splashed beside me; I could feel the dilluted water drip between my fingers, and from my throat an audible moan, one I couldn't stop. I pulled myself up, willing myself to move, despite the fury I could feel with in me, fury I could direct at none, save myself.

Knocking.

I could feel my head spin and I groaned once before I picked the knife up off of the bed. I pressed it against my trouser leg and wiped it off slowly and pressed my head against the cool wood of the door, though how I managed to stumble there, I don't know.

"Yes?" I asked, trying my best not to sound disturbed in any way. It didn't work.

"S-sir?" the voice came across weary and worried at the same time. Like a fathers, and I realized that this must be the Taverns' owner, and she had been his barmaid....

"Yeah?" I said, quietly shifting my weight and putting the knife next to my head, the sweeping feeling gone, I felt initiative take over. Maybe initiative isn't the best word for it. Lusty, it felt, and I could feel more of it pushing at me, deeper and deeper, a force of my own state of affairs that seemed to manifest, driving parts of what would normally be my moral bounds and all other thoughts within. I shivered within, but my body seemed suddently more aware, aroused by the situation, less groggy as I had been, and more....

...Aware.

The cool wood of the door had moistened with the sweat that clung to my brow and I groaned within, one last passing discomfort that signified the final parts of the manifesting awareness.

"N-noises... is everything alright? Is..." his voice started up again, but I know that I couldn't hear it. Every noise in the room had just increased. I had forgotten entirely about him while we stood there, the silence spanning across mountains of mystery, he was there wondering what was going on, and I was still wondering, almost desperate, what I had to do now.

The answer was obvious, desestable though it was.

He was trembeling, or something. still very close to the door, pushing against it, maybe. Not hard enough to affect the way I was against the door, half prone, and half poised. Half...half... I was ready, physically, but mentally? I shuddered inside, and then I threw the door open, and threw my frame into the doorframe, blocking his view. He yelped a little and stepped back, curiously tryign to look around me. I smiled softly and felt myself vaguely aware that the smile was not going to reach my eyes. I kept my hands on the doorframe tightening them softly with every heartbeat, the knife making the faintest of grinding sounds, of the tip being dragged along the wood. Hearing the knife tip like that made my ears feel like twisting up and withering.

"Everything is... fine," he said, my eyes traveling still, unsmiling, up and down his face, I was feeling less and less confident, and I knew that for him to raise an alarm would pull other tenants, though groggy from their bed rest, there would be many and it would make escape inapplicable. It would be a mass of confusion, so I made my choice, without hesitating with anymore moral quandaries, or fears, I grabbed his jaw with my thumb to one side and the rest of my hand wrapping around over his mouth, I pushed him hard, against the door across the hall and pressed down, pulling the knife away from where it was digging under the wood in the room, and brought it down as I could feel pressure building under my hand, his scream bubbling hard against my fingers.

The knife struck his head and didn't stop, the knife, though not driven straight as I had intended, gouged into his skull, his dark, short hair was slick with sweat, and as I drew my hands away, I felt the screams' pressure, still held taut against me, I stood back and leaned on the door beside him, sighing softly.

I hated to watch him die, and every moment of it was an agony I was abhorrent to reproduce.

Within me, I felt a shift, a change in me, one the would not be revoked by any church, or mission. No god seemed, to me, one that would be willing to take me in.

I left after the last of the convulsions left his body, tremors of death consuming him, so violent, and I could be sure that he wouldn't move after retrieving the knife, which I did, with a long noise, similar to boiling eggs, the sizzle that resounded as the knife came free, I stumbled and almost screamed, as I turned and fled, down the stairs, throwing the door open at the bottom, and fleeing through the deserted and unlit bar.