I stare down into the icy clear water, a person who was once me looks back. The reflection’s eyes are blank, the face is emotionless, merely a hallow frame and a ghost in her own life. Her past is written all over her body. The scars are a constant reminder that what happened was real and there is no escaping it. Those dead grey eyes long for a numbness that they can no longer achieve, they long for the ice in her heart to put out the raging fire that fuels her destruction. Nothing seems to end this pain, nothing can make the nightmares leave her alone, nothing can change what happened had happened that dreary night.





It had started just like any other night. The cold air nips at my nose turning it to a pale pink and then into crimson. The icy air is not uncommon for this time of year but for someone who grew up in the south this is mind boggling. The streets are crowded, noisy and neon glows off the freshly dampened pavement from the signs above. Nameless faces pass by with dreary, helpless, eyes that were filled with the wear-and-tear of the thing we call life. I hold my keys in my left hand; each finger straddling a piece of silver metal to protect themselves from a tall dark stranger. Dark muggy alley ways are polluted with rubble, garbage, and the people who have been drowned in life’s misfortunes and torments as they decorate the streets in holes of black hopelessness. I pass a man in a suit of black velvet with vacant emerald eyes as he whispers to his love dressed in a ball gown of red silk. The couple pays me no mind as hookers and exotic dancers solicit on the corners of Life Avenue and Death Boulevard who swat at the rats that cover their heels.





“It is dangerous to travel these streets at night alone,” a honey sweet voice whispers into my ear. Reflexively, I turn to go the other way see the woman in red silk in front of me, her makeup running and smeared. A mark in the shape of a hand decorates her once rosy cheeks. I swerve to avoid her but she steps in my way, I turn, in vain, to back out onto the mud filled streets. I am grabbed by the nape of my neck and shoved into a scarlet red sports car of an unknown model from an unknown year. Blinded, restrained, and utterly helpless my days of what seemed like joy end forever.





Ocean spray wakes me from my realistic nightmare as It holds me close. I look down at the thing wrapped around my leg, smiling and innocent. I created a monster, one I must destroy. I gag in disgust as It says, “I love you,” catching what will be It’s last moments of sun. Here, in the middle of the Atlantic, I will end what the Devil and I created. Here It’s screams cannot be heard and here It will be shark bait; disappearing without a glorious witness. This ends here and now. The Devil smiles over my shoulder as I pick It up and brush It’s hair of fire out of It’s demonic eyes. The blade hidden in my sleeve will not be merciful as he bites chunks out of It’s flesh, and throwing them into the water. The water turns to shades of crimson purple as It shouts out pleas of helplessness, and I laugh with triumph. It loses consciousness, choking on It’s blood that once gave It life. I throw the mutilated carcass into the putrid depths, and drive away, never giving It a single look of regret.