So Hide Your Eyes

Chapter NINE - Fishy Old Men

Chapter TEN

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  I SNATCHED UP THE knife and, holding the knife away at arm's length, I squeezed my eyes shut. I dashed at wife, knife held far away at arms' length.

    A moment later, I crashed and fell hard on a prickly pile. I opened my eyes. Part of the fence lay in a broken heap below me. And as I stood, I heard the sound of sticks cracking pleasantly below my feet.

    My face flushed. I couldn't believe I'd forgotten about it. It was just right in front of me.

    I winced at the sting of pain from my knee where a twig had probably scraped it.

The scrape was as agonizing as getting chewed by a fish, but the metal knife grew hot in my palm like my cheeks had with Demon and I stood, reminded of my goal. Eternal friendship and devotion: to save Wife, and follow Demon. Forever.

    A hum creeped about in my chest, and I managed to shake off the pain. I looked up.

    Wife was prowling around Demon's body and I could see saliva gleaming on her glossy lips.

    I shuddered.

    I took up the knife again and charged until I was behind her and could see her bony spine through the dress. So she wasn't excluded from the hunger and starvation that plagued all the villages either.

    But that didn't mean she could eat her husband.

    "Get! Away! From! Him!" I swiped the knife at only the air behind her and intentionally missed her because I didn't want to hurt her. Only shoo her.

    A thought struck me and I hesitated. She probably had enough of this inhumane treatment with the villagers. Guilt immediately gnawed on my chest. She wouldn't want this from her friend.

    I stopped my wild swings. I let my arm fall to my side.

    "Wife?" I called tentatively.

    "Wife?"

    She sniffed at Demon's hair. Still ignoring me.

   I fisted my hands. My chest stung with a heavy, hurt feeling. It was Khoel all over again.

  "Don't ignore me!" I screeched and resumed my swiping.

    A swing came too close and shaved off a finger's breadth of hair. I instantly regretted it. My breathing quickened and I stepped back.

  Wife lifted her head for a second, then whirled around. She pounced.

  I fell, shrieking. I instinctively lifted the knife to her throat. I gasped.

  Mama and her bleeding neck flashed on my eyelids, too raw, too real, and too vivid.

  'Away,' I begged for it to end. 'Away.'

   I exhaled when my body began numbing. The knife jerked away from her neck, and Wife finally noticed it. She batted it away and crawled closer. Her black hair tickled my face.

"Wife?" I pleaded, scrambling backwards. "You don't want to do this. Please."

  Her arms padded to the ground. She was on all four limbs, and her implacable and filthy innocence somehow reminded me of a pig. I realised why Demon found them so gross now.

  "Please!" I wailed when her mouth opened and I saw her red gums unveiled, her nostrils inhaling sharply before her gums' dreaded descent. I launched myself backwards in desperation.