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dying is an art, like everything else. i do it exceptionally well. - sylvia plath _______________________________________________________________
he’s ten years old and there’s blood seeping across the floor.
he’s hiding under a bed but he doesn’t quite fit as well as he used too. his legs are too long and his elbows dig sharply into his ribs. his fists are curled against his heart and they’re shaking.
he watches as the man’s fingers coil around her neck and squeeze.
he watches as she takes her last breath of air.
he watches as she stills.
after the man has left he crawls out from underneath the wooden frame and presses his hands against her cold skin. her cheeks are damp with tears and her lips are slick with blood and saliva.
his hand falls from her face and reaches out curiously to where her hand lays, twisted and broken and bloody by her naked side.
he unfurls her thin fingers and slides the knife out from between them. he wipes it clean on his shirt and lifts it up, holding it gently with both hands like a medal.
he sees his reflection in the blade. golden eyes, dark skin and black hair. he’s the spitting image of her. the harsh curves of her face. the frown of her lips. the bruises. it’s like he’s her.
he lowers the knife and looks down at her — the real her. she’s beautiful. strong. kind.
his mother was a good person. and that’s something he will never be.
but he can try.
he’s fourteen and there’s blood speckling his boots.
he hasn’t forgotten the promise he made that day. he doesn’t think he ever will.
and yet here he is. standing in the moonlight, his shadow casting over the face of a man whose name he never learnt.
he crouches down and gently closes the man’s eyelids with his blood-drenched hands, accidentally smearing red across his face.
he pulls the hilt of his knife out from the man’s torso with an awkward jerk and more blood spills from the man’s chest and he cringes. the smell is bitter and acrid and his mouth is filled with a thick, metallic tang.
he climbs to his feet with wobbly legs and gags, almost slipping in the pool of blood that drowns the dirty floorboards in red.
he hooks his arms under the man’s armpits and slowly, painfully, drags the man down the corridor and begins the dreaded descent down the stairs.
with each stair comes a heavy thump that makes him grit his teeth.
they had said it would be easy and he hadn’t believed them. how could he? he had seen the all too familiar struggle between predator and prey before.
he had seen a dog snap the neck of a pigeon. he had seen a soldier whip the back of a slave. he had seen a man squeeze the air from his mother’s lungs.
but it was true. it was easy.
it was too easy.
he hasn’t forgotten the promise he made that day. not yet. but even so...
it’s no longer his mother’s hands that are bloody.
it’s his.
he’s eighteen and there’s blood coating his nails.
he still hasn’t forgotten his promise. but he’s cold and he’s hungry and he’s come to learn that this is the only way to survive.
his fingers carefully trace the intricate outline of the man’s throat like it’s worth gold. and, in some twisted sense, he supposes it is.
wide eyes leak tears and cold lips stutter out pleas for mercy. it makes his grip on his knife tighter and his hands tremble dangerously. he grits his teeth and glares down at the man with not hatred, but pity.
cowards. all of them. just how many times must he hear those same words? rich men who had never struggled a day in their life did not understand how this world worked.
where there was grudges there was blood. where there was blood there was money. and where there was money there were people like him.
before the man can choke out another word he cuts his throat. he doesn’t want to hear his pathetic excuses and pleas.
he doesn’t want to hear about his children, his wife, his father, his mother.
he’s learnt that it’s best not to know.
he pulls his hand away from the man’s head and carefully cleans his knife on the inside of his shirt. he rubs it meticulously before bringing it up to eye-level.
his gaze slides along the blade, fastidiously avoiding catching his own reflection, and studies the blood stains that refuse to come off.
he still hasn’t forgotten his promise, but...
his doubts are starting to get to him.
he’s starting to give up.
he’s twenty-two and there’s blood staining his hands.
twelve years have passed now and though his mother’s face is fading, his promise to her remains ingrained in his memory.
he’s still nowhere near as good as her. he’s not kind, or selfless, or strong.
he’s none of those things.
his hands are soaked with red, he knows, even if he can’t see it.
but when they’re wrapped up in warm, delicate hands it’s easy to forget all the blood on his hands, the faces he can’t remember, the tears, the screams, the pleas for mercy...
it all just seems to fade when he’s with her.
he’d come to hate the colour red a long time ago, but now oh how he longed to run his fingers through her hair and weave flowers across her crown...
he had seen her confront armed men double her size and half her wit with a fire in her eyes.
he had seen her risk her life and leap from towers all for the sake of a stranger.
he had seen her stand up to kings, knights, kidnappers, killers...
at first he had thought her nothing but a small, fragile girl who had naively stumbled into a world filled with corruption and crime and cruelty.
but from the very beginning, she had proven herself to be courageous and intelligent and unyielding.
she was beautiful and she was strong and she was kind and she was far, far beyond him.
he was nowhere near a good person.
but when he was with her, somehow just somehow...
it felt like he could be.