(I originally wrote this based on a writing prompt)
Heartbeat, heartbeat.
Beat after beat after beat.
Almost inaudible, nothing more than a whisper. An echo of what could have been. Of what we could have been. All the possibilities the rest of the world had already left behind.
She looked up at me, nothing but innocence in her light-blue eyes.
If only I didn’t have to kill her. But alas, work was work, and I was already far past my second chance.
I thought I felt something when I checked the knife was still in place. Maybe I just imagined it. Did I have any right to feelings anymore? Or were those part of the deal when I gave away the rest of me?
What part had the feelings gone with? My brain? My heart? My soul?
Who cared? None of them were mine anymore.
We kissed.
I wanted to think of her. To prove there had been some sort of value to… Whatever this was. Whatever we were. I prayed there would be someone to remember her.
I drew it out for as long as I could. Until there was no excuse anymore, until all the excuses that ever had existed were washed away in blood.
Half an hour later I found myself at a bus stop half a city away, cleaned up and waiting for the next assignment.
She had fought back. Most of them didn’t. I dropped the knife when we struggled. It wasn’t what killed her. Would someone find it? Uncover an edge wet with blood, a lifeless body, freeze up in terror and scream?
Call the police, describe the horrific scene they had encountered while still shaking in panic.
The cops would go over the place with a fine-toothed comb. Find piece after piece of incriminating evidence. All as it should be.
There had to be at least one. One piece of evidence. My fingerprints were on it. The knife. Sloppier than I usually would be. The whole thing was.
I wiggled my bare fingers in front of my face. I giggled. Glanced down.
I could faintly make out traces of the blood I had tried to clean off my skirt, but not to the point anyone would realise what it was. Nothing…
