Schizophrenia, she'd laughed, the disease rolling from her tongue as if it was nothing more than the punch line to some innocent joke, Is that what they told you? Oh hun, sorry to disappoint, but I'm no figment of your imagination, I'm real. Her fingers wrapped web-like around his throat, squeezing until he gasped for breathe, But let's not tell anyone else, okay? They wouldn't like us hanging out together. It was a memory he'd been more than surprised she'd let him keep. He knew she was sadistic. Something she'd tried to hide many more times than he could count though he didn't understand why. She was his master, she could behave however she pleased and he'd still respond to her. And yet, she tried. She wiped away moments of her worst. When she shred away at him, when her sanity left her, and something dark consumed whatever was left. She wanted him to see her as a friend, though he considered her anything but.
But that moment, less than two months before back in some suburb he couldn't place. She'd kept. And yet, she'd almost killed him, right there as they stood his hand holding the key inches away from unlocking the door to his apartment. He couldn't remember why she stopped, she just did. But he'd stopped going to therapists and doctors after that. Whatever was going on inside him, attempting to control his thoughts, feelings, and actions, couldn't be stopped. She was her own disease, growing and feeding off his guilt for the actions she alone caused him to do.
And now here he was, about to do yet another.
Kill, she taunted, her tongue clucking like a disproving parent, kill now, hun. Come on sweetheart, I'm starving. And he feels her beside him. His heart pounds, as his fingertips trace the barrel and then four silver bullets. 'I'll get caught,' he whispers, 'I'll die too.' She's silent for a moment. Part of him wants to look at her face and ask, would you care? Or would you find another host to live off of and torment?
Don't worry baby, I'm here to protect you. I'm always here for you.
'Then why do you make me do this?' he wonders aloud, fiddling with the bullets, slipping them into the slots one at a time. Time seems to slow as she answers, he watches as other workers hurry down the steps, not bothering to notice the young man fiddling with his briefcase. If only someone would stop, see what he was doing, and tell everyone to run.
You scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours, she snorts, placing a hand on his shoulder, and then we're off to a new town. New faces, new names.
'New memories?'
Always.
He claps his hands around the handle, and pulls it from the briefcase. Slowly he scans the crowd, looking for his first victim. No ones paying him any attention, and why should they? 'Look up,' he whispers, a warning, soft. He doesn't know why he says it; maybe it's his sanity, trying to make one last attempt at redemption.
Hmm?
'Nothing. That one, over there.'
A stocky man, ordering a pretzel from one of the many food carts lining the busy streets. His back is turned, he'd never expect it and hopefully it would be death on impact. 'Please don't have a family.'
He doesn't, look at him. Who'd marry that guy? He's already greying and he can't be much older than thirty, maybe thirty-five and that's pushing it.
And he laughs. Funny, he used to be more nervous before killing. But, he's used to it now, though he still resents doing it. His index slides down to the trigger and quickly he access the area for the following victim. 'Do I get to pick my name this time?'
Do you ever? But her attention's somewhere else, as she lowers to the ground, one arm forward, and one leg back, the crouch of a hunter stalking it's prey.
There's the tension as the pistol readies and releases. For a blissful moment, the man take a breathe and then he begins his descend to the ground below. His head hitting the pavement with a sickening crack.
He staggers back, nausea rising in him, but he knows he has to continue, before anyone notices it was him who killed this other man. People are already starting to rush towards the fallen stock, so he aims for his next target and then another and the following.
She knows she's feeding. He can feel her bliss. And the calm that comes after as she's fills up. And then he hears it, her comment and he's so out of it at that moment that he laughs again, because it's so ridiculous.
I was thinking something along the lines of Edward.
