My Killer

The Key

Michael, as promised, gave me fifteen minutes to clean myself up. I was done in ten. I would have been a lot quicker about it had it not been for all of the blood caked underneath my fingernails.

I almost broke down in the shower as I tore my own nails down to stubs trying to get the damned blood out. I was actually closing in on not being able to function at all when I couldn't get all of the blood out, but I didn't. Somehow my mind forced me to keep moving my limbs, forced me to continue washing the ugly stains away. I just could not allow myself to fall apart, not yet, not ever, not around this twisted monster, not around him.

I was actually more than done by the time Michael came back. Nothing like the terror of a killer to rush you along it seems. I washed in ten minutes, and used the remaining five minutes to change into a fresh set of clothes and to clean up after myself, all the while I was deathly afraid that he would make me clean up another one of his messes if I didn't do as he had specified.

I couldn't handle being put through something even remotely close to what he had made me do because I made that mess yesterday. I wasn't really handling it now, I was just barely coping. In fact, I was just waiting for my mind to shut down, to fall to pieces. How could it not, how could I not? How could I not fall apart after witnessing what he did, after helping him against my own will, after washing away the stains. How do you even begin to work through the trauma when you are still stuck in the midst of it? The short answer would be that you don't. You don't because you can't. There wasn't any room, any space or time left to fall apart or process what I had just been through.

Michael was playing his cruel games, games I ended up losing even as I won. His choices were laced with poison, killing me off from within. I guess I knew why Joy had stopped fighting back now. How could she not?

She had sampled the cruel taste of Michael's poison, learned a wicked lesson from his games.

How long before I become her?

How long until I share Joy's fate?

How long until I stand frozen in Michaels arms as he kills me off like he did her?

How long until he broke me to the point that I would let him kill me? How long until I tried to please the man with my unwilling consent in the hopes that appeasing him would keep me safe when in all actuality it apparently never truly mattered. Joy had listened to him, followed his words to the grave. She had become his mindless puppet, and he had still killed her.

I won't be Joy. I will never let myself become Joy!

I will scratch his fucking eyes out if I have too. I will never allow myself to become his victi...

The sound of the door to the bathroom opening up pulled me out of my own rebellious thoughts, yet the daunting sound of him coming back did nothing to quench the thirst to survive, to fight, to win.

Be smart...

whatever that entails...

be ready to figh...

"I see that you cleaned up after yourself, good."

His dark voice sounded less gruff, almost soft in a way as he left the lingering praise for me to overanalyze.

I... I...

A sense of relief soaked in the distinct essence of disgust made my shoulders sink like a broken ship. He was satisfied, he wouldn't teach me another twisted lesson while he placed his bets on the outcome, I hoped.

Then...

No!

The relief was short lived through. My feet moved on their own accord as the towering man started to walk towards me, his stride determined. My wide eyes were glued to his hands as they worked on the buttons of his blood soaked shirt. He was undressing.