Hello! I was amazed at the reaction to 'Alone'. I kept on going back and reading it to check you were actually reading the same story I was! And…you were. Yay!

I wrote fluff? I NEVER write fluff! But apparently…I did. I'm more of an angst person… (Evil grin)

Um…something longer than one-shots? Quite possible in the near future, I suppose. When I'm in a happy mood these holidays, I could write some…perhaps LOTS!

Thank you to all who reviewed, are reviewed and will ever review 'Knives' and 'Alone'. They are truly appreciated :D)

Disclaimer: I do not own V for Vendetta any more than I own V's delightful aprons …APRONS! …Occasionally I repeat things for emphasis…EMPHASIS!

Monster

She is gone.

She is gone and she has ripped my heart into bloody shreds.

The mirror shatters when the mask spins into it, delicate fragments twirling to the ground, an ethereal dance of lethal shards. That hateful grin becomes broader in the face of my agony. Hatred distorts my vision and the Gallery disappears in a haze of red-hued tears.

What was done to me was monstrous. My entire vendetta is founded on that statement. But my resolve crumbles in the face of her onslaught, her fierce eyes.

Monster… I have never denied it. But I never truly believed it either, until a mere girl acknowledged it beyond all doubt. 'Then they created a monster.'

Truly Evey, even verily. Only unnatural things are born from flame. Eternal damnation is my birthright and the rage that emanated from your emaciated form did not deny it.

Thank your God, Evey Hammond, that you left this night. God forbid you should have to confront the monster, the murderer that surfaces in me tonight. For once, music cannot soothe my trouble soul. I cannot stay here and prove her wrong, prove that I can be human. At the end of the day, after all the quoting of long-dead poets, all the banter which makes her smile, under the walls I have erected, I am still a killer.

The wind howls outside and calls to me until I pace restlessly. Even from the rooftop, surrounded by the splintering power of lightning and the dull throbbing boom of thunder, the elements are not catastrophic enough for my inner shrieking whirlwind to be satisfied. I snatch up the belt of knives with impatient hands, blinded by their icy glow.

Whoever is on the streets tonight beware, exercise caution lest my wrath fall upon you. Tonight I deal death with a ready hand, mercilessly even, to exorcise my own demons.

'Disdaining fortune with his brandish'd steel….'

Rain slashes downward, teardrops flicking from the point of my knives. Darkness parts before me and draws closed in a smothering curtain. Throat after throat is slashed, with no grace, no finesse, no skilful dance that I am accustomed to.

'Which smok'd with bloody retribution.'

But tonight I have no audience and death was not meant to be beautiful. The spark of life is snuffed in their wide eyes, life-blood oozing down the shining badges of Norsefire that could not save them. Not tonight.

The knives I hold are cleansed by the rain, the telltale red purged from the cool steel as though it had never been. If only my soul could be cleansed likewise. If only she could forgive me…

But she never will. She will never come back. Acceptance comes in a ring of corpses, when I am aware once more of my wet cloak wrapping around my boots, of the shaking in my arms which still clench the weapons in a fanatical grip, of the death rattles rising from the filthy street.

'God is in the rain.'

Her voice floats to me out of the storm. What a shining web of lies Valerie spins, even from beyond the grave. The hope she clung to as disease and death consumed her is wasted on me. I have no faith in mankind or in spirituality, all as gossamer-thin as cobwebs.

It was violence that set me free and peace that let her be destroyed.

Two droplets roll down the cold steel of the mask. How ironic that these dead eyes can weep while the true eyes behind them are dry as dust. That an idea could shed tears while the man behind it is incapable.

I turn away from the rain.

There is no God.

Only vengeance.

Okay, yes, it's short when I promised to go longer. But this fic needed to be short for emphasis (EMPHASIS!) and to convey the brutal mood V happened to be in. Please review me!

Also, would you guys be able to help me out? There was a Vendetta fic, I think around 5 chapters long, one of those 'V is amazingly resurrected by escaping certain death' ones but really well-written. It disappeared a while ago and I can't find it. In it Evey had to do an operation on V to get out the bullets? And they were organizing to take over the government?

Has it been taken off or have I just overlooked it when I was searching for it? Could someone give me the title or better still the author? Someone out there's gotta know what I'm babbling about!

Thanks :)