one: the day of my murder

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© 2022 Kimber Lee WHEN WE WERE HUMAN

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ON THE DAY of my murder, I had actually almost killed someone myself

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ON THE DAY of my murder, I had actually almost killed someone myself.

"I don't think this suits your body type," a saleswoman had said to me earlier that day, the expression on her face that of a wounded puppy.

Humans. They always had to put things into boxes and label them neatly, in calligraphic script, if possible. Body type? Clothes were clothes, and bodies were just that. Bodies. That hourglass, and rectangle, and pear crap that everyone talked about? Total bullshit.

I liked the dress. I bought the dress.

But that didn't mean that I hadn't wanted to murder Leona, as her nametag proudly proclaimed, in that Zara store's changing room.

I know what you're thinking. What the hell does that have to do with the fact that you were murdered?  See, the thing is, if I hadn't gotten home in such a mood because Leona had pretty much called me fat, therefore prompting me to make some comfort food, I would've heard the intruder in my house.

When I woke up again, I was tied to a chair, in some dingy motel, probably in some dingy little town – and he was sitting across from me. Oh, how I despised him. How I longed to bury my nails in his chocolatey- brown – or were they green? – eyes and rip them out, and probably eat them, as if they were chocolate. I could do that. I had done that once, back in the 1800s when we had crossed paths before. It was sickening, but I'd had a point to prove, and oh, how I'd proven it.

Anyway, so there he was, sitting on the edge of a tiny bed, watching me. Waiting for me to wake up from the death that he had so unceremoniously dealt me. It had been one of the crueler deaths – a throat-slashing – not as quick and painless as I would've liked. The futility of clutching at a torn throat and gurgling your own blood? Knowing that no matter how much you pressed down on the wound, no matter how much you fought to stave the bleeding, nothing would stop the inevitable? There was nothing like it, and as I'd stumbled away from him, gasping for air that just wouldn't come, I'd twisted my ankle. The asshole had simply stood and watched me fall to the floor, and before I'd closed my eyes and succumbed to my fate, I saw him wipe the stained blade on his suit jacket.

Like it was just another day at the office.

I knew that I had probably been out for an hour, or two, give or take. You just never knew with these things. Either way, I wanted to kill him – just to return the favor. As always, after awakening from a death, I was thirsty. It always felt like my body had been neglected for a long time, and everything was still creaky and needed lubricating to work properly again. He threw me a bottle of water, and it landed in my lap, the plastic icy-cold against my bare thighs. My skirt had ridden up in obscene way, and foolishly, I wondered if I'd flashed him. The indignity of it all made my blood boil.

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