I walk into the shadows, I use the shadows. Ducking my head avoiding eye contact. I live in the rainy city, a city most never even heard of. So there is no point in telling you where I am. I pulled my hood close against my face allowing myself to sink into my own world. My demons following me as I walk. My shoulders slump hair covering my face. I know it’s following me and I don’t care. The burden, the guilt and the terror of the day. What if someone sees my face? What if someone recognizes me? What then? What would happen to me? My feet made loud splashing noises in the rain puddles on the cobblestone sidewalk. All I’m left with, is the weight on my shoulders, and the demon crawling at my back. My husband doesn’t know what I do, and why I can’t sleep. You think you really know someone until their demons show. I tell him I love him every night before he drifts to sleep. I stay awake listening to the sound of his breathing until I know he’s fast asleep. Then I get up, put my hoodie on, my black jeans and black shoes and I walk. I walk in our rainy city…and I let my demons roam with me. They’re quiet most nights, and then there are nights like tonight…where I can’t control them. But they control me, and when I look into someone’s eyes while my demons are by my side, they see them too. That’s when I take my clever and I smile. I smile as they stare into my eyes, and I strike. When my clever hits their throats and the blood spurts, landing on my face…I open my mouth and I can taste them. Taste what they were like, I can see flashes of who they were. Someone I couldn’t be.
When I was younger I never had a name. I was left at an orphanage, it was a horrid place. Everyone smelling of their own s**t. I was called nobody. And no one wanted to be my friend. No one wanted to talk to me, be near me or even wanted to try to be civil. It hurt me at first but I had grown to love it. Love being alone. I loved being casted to the side. Why? Because no one saw what I saw. No one wanted to believe that’s, where I met my very first friend. My pet demon. Which later in life I have become its pet. It love to tease me, the one escape it does allow, is my husband whom believes I’m cheating on him. But I’m doing something much much worse. I take sutors, and I chop their bloody feet off. I work my way up. My favorite is the tongue. And believe me, most of them never ever last when I get to their face. Either from pain or blood loss they die. One man however, lasted to the very end. Where I took his eyelids and sliced them off. I was covered head to toe in his crimson beauty. But you know what? The rain washes away all evidence, and to this day I have never been caught. What caused me to take on this demon? Because it treated me like I wasn’t nobody. It even gave me a name. Gwenivere. How beautiful is that? My husband and babies are the only two that are allowed to live. The rest of world, we want to see be burnt to the ground.
And there is no evidence when the demon has taken over. There is no emotions there is no nothing. Nevertheless, when I finish seeing red I can’t remember anything. I’m back to walking through the streets at night, covered head to toe the rain washing away everything that I’ve done. I’ll admit, committing murder when no one knows who you are. What you are. Are the best. Because it makes me, want to try…even harder. Have you ever stuck a meat clever inside someone’s gut and disembowl them? Just don’t hit that lower intestine, that reeks. I made that mistake and I vomited all over the body. It wasn’t too thrilled, beat me up a bit that night but he forgave me.
I try to come home before six, that way my husband wouldn’t smell it on me. Then I’d crawl into bed, just as he was waking. There was one time. I came home and he was waiting for me. And wasn’t shocked when he saw the blood on me. He just asked: how many?
i was scared at first, that he would report me. I placed my cleaver to his gut and threatened him. He looked at me, with cold dead eyes and said “you can’t kill what’s been with you, your entire life. Do you wish to become a nobody again?”
I was stunned, I was dumbfound, I couldn’t move from the spot I stood at. He grasped my wrist and placed the blade to my throat.
“You my little Gwenivere…don’t understand the half of what I have planned for you.” The blade pushed and I felt that familiar bite against my skin, and I felt the very first prickle of anxiety in my stomach.
“With me around, you can’t even die. You’ll become the most prolific serial killer in the world…you’ve given me your life…give me your soul.”
I watched as my husbands face faded, I saw myself those dead eyes. Sunken from weeks of no sleep, my lips were cracked face covered in dried blood. Tears filled, it was behind me.
“do it.” He whispered.
“I can’t…” I replied.
“yes you can. Do it or I’ll do it for you and you won’t have the immortality that I have granted you.”
my hand trembling, i did it. It hurt for just a moment. My limbs went cold, I watched the river flow down my chest. A horrified look crossed the mans face behind me.
“gwenivere!”