Compilation of Short Stories

Sweet As Wine

"Why did you do it, Miss Jones?" the officer asked me. 

I looked at him and smiled, ignoring the sting in my eyes caused by the blinding bright light. "Call me Sharon, please. Miss Jones makes me reminisce in the past way too much."

"As you wish. Why did you assault civilian Gregory Smith, Sharon?" the officer questioned once again.

"My my officer..." I looked up at him from under my eyelashes, waiting for him to supply his name.

"Lang."

"Well, Officer Lang, if you want to know the answer to your question you must first hear an interesting story back from five years ago," I told him as I fixed the skirt from my dress. I had chosen this outfit carefully, knowing how much attention it drew, male attention, to be more exact. It was a strapless short red dress that clang to my body like a second skin. Matching it with black stilettos had been a mistake though; my feet were aching so much I knew blisters would appear, no doubt in that. "Are you willing to accept this small trade?"

"I am, out of courtesy to such a lovely lady as yourself; but just so you know, the others shouldn't know about this since it's prohibited to chit-chat with the accused of anything that isn't case- related." He shrugged at the end and took a sit at the chair opposite me. The small room looked just as the movies portrayed it to be; gray walls surrounded me, only a door and a tinted black window interrupting the gray hue. I was sitting in a chair that sat behind a small desk that had the blinding lamp.

"Don't worry Officer Lang, this is case-related. You see, all of this started five years ago on Christmas Eve..."

 ******************************************************************************************

It was a chilly Christmas Eve and Emily wanted to go shopping for more gifts. Sharon agreed with the condition that they would be home by 9 o'clock. Emily was Sharon's beautiful daughter. She had inherited her mother's auburn locks and forest green eyes; she was a good looking child at the young age of seven years.

"Mom when I grow up, I'll be just like you. I will also help those in need just like you do every day. Just wait and see." Emily gave her a toothy grin and squeezed her mother's hand gently.

"We'll see sweetheart. I'm sure that you'd make an amazing nurse, darling, but also you could do just about anything in the world so don't get ahead of yourself." She looked down and gave her a smile. Sharon was absolutely proud of her gorgeous daughter but she wasn't planning on giving her to any boy anytime soon.

"So what do you want to buy-" Sharon started before a knife came in contact with the smooth skin of her neck.

"Don't make a sound or any sudden movement and both, you and your daughter, will go back home without a single scratch, alright lady?" the man that held her hissed. His breath smelled of liquor and by the way he tumbled a little bit she knew just how drunk he was.

"Mommy?" Emily asked, tears threatening to spill from her big, scared eyes. She refused to let go of her mother's hand even in this kind of situation, squeezing it by far the most she ever had. Her roundish child-like face started getting pinker each minute, if it was by the cold or the strained tears, she did not know.

"Emily, do as this man says, alright, sweetheart? Everything will be fine." Sharon's voice was wavering and even she didn't know if these words were to comfort either her or her daughter.

"Are sure of that, mommy?" the man asked, before running his disgusting tongue along the length of Sharon's face, making her shiver from disgust.

"Please, don't do anything to mommy!" Emily screamed while hugging herself for any reassurance she might found.

"Very well," the man said, before roughly pushing Sharon into a wall, making her fall unconscious but not before she saw the heartbreaking scene of a blade slicing across her beautiful Emily's neck.

  ******************************************************************************************

The room was quiet, only the ticking of Officer Lang's hand watch was heard. "So what you're saying, Miss Jones- I mean, Sharon, what you're saying is that Gregory Smith sliced your daughter's throat so you did the same with him?"

"No, Officer Lang, I didn't slice his throat. No, that wouldn't make him hurt as much as I did. I only repaid the debt we had."

"So you-" he started, wide eyes looking at me.

"Exactly, I sliced his daughter's throat just as he did mine. He was a piece of trash, cheating scum that needed to suffer as much as the ones he has killed. I wore this dress so he could try and have his way with me on his house. Oh, but wait, he never expected for me to knock him out and much less to wake up to the sight of his daughter's throat sliced open and blood dripping down her floral pajamas." My mind knew it was wrong, oh so wrong to have killed an innocent child but my sanity had been lost for years now, for five years.

"She was just a child, Sharon. She wasn't guilty of any of his crimes. You have blood in your hands, the worst kind of blood that you could have. Why? Why would you do that?" Officer Lang asked me as he stood up from his chair.

"Why you ask? Because I wanted revenge." I hissed at him. I was tired of everything, the world felt heavy on top of my sore shoulders. I only wished to rest peacefully and see the smiling face of my beautiful Emily. Closing my eyes, I let myself remember moments we had together before a tear managed to fall over my cheeks.

"You're wrong, Sharon. You chose the wrong approach to this." Officer Lang said as he started walking towards the door. Just as he reached it he turned to look at me with sad eyes and muttered something along the lines of: "An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind."