Valkyrie stares, eyes wide. Blood, everywhere. Peering out from her hiding place she can see it on the carpet, her bed, a pool of it spilling over the edge of her desk onto the chair. On her, arms, neck, legs, between her toes and blurring her vision. Some flow, some is crusty and stale smelling.
The door handle – with finger-shaped blood marks – turns, and a crimson red skeleton in a suit. She doesn't move from her position under the bed.
His jaw moves, but only blood comes out.
Still she doesn't move.
Complete silence ensues until-
Splat.
Silence.
Splat.
Silence.
Splat, splat, splat.
Suddenly, there is a thundering noise, and the white walls turn to a waterfall of crimson life.
She muffles her cry of alarm, but the skeleton is already gone, so she screams, leaping from under the bed, scrubbing at her arms, trying to scrub the blood, peel off her skin.
Half a second later, the blood is lapping at her ankles, and there is a knife in her hand. Somehow knowing what is going to happen, she tries to scream again, but realises that she has not yet stopped.
A mixture of warmth, pain and agony spreads from her elbow to the base of her hand, but she focuses on the headache. She can't think, blood whirles around her waist. She wishes, screams for the noise to stop. More agony.
And then, blissfully, it does. She falls back, and the last taste on her lips is blood, which she sees as both fitting and ironic.
When the skeleton comes back, all that's left is a small girl in black, curled into the foetal position, in a puddle of her own blood.