Scarlet Liquid

Murder

🥀

"Something bad is about to happen to me," Hunter thought as he stared at the crimson pools all around him; the scarlet liquid dripping from his hands with a quiet pitter patter.

Distantly, he thought he could hear a wail. Or was it his imagination? Perhaps a trick his mind made up to make him feel bad. None of that mattered right now. Hunter could only focus on one thing.

He was a murderer.

Or was he? Was the corpse lying a few feet away really a dead one? Or was just a mangled body, waiting on the sweet release of death. Hunter didn't know for sure. He ripped his gaze away to something that didn't want to make rip his eyes out. The walls.

Something about the way it stayed so beautifully clean, still its pristine white colour, calmed Hunter.

Then again, should he be calm? He felt like a spotlight was shining down on him and not in a good way.

His mind was so eerily quiet, missing its usual buzzing of voices bouncing off the walls of his brain like a hyperactive bouncy ball.

Even though his mind was blissfully silent, his body felt like it was vibrating with energy. Like how someone would be when they drank one too many cups of coffee.

How Hunter got into this situation, he didn't know. All of it was one fast blur, like someone played a video at 10 times its original speed. Too fast to makes sense of.

He didn't really know the person laying on the floor but he vaguely recognised him. Blonde hair stuck to their forehead with blood and sweat. Sharp cheekbones grazed and bleeding. A large gash over over his chest. Their usually animated body lay perfectly still, like a muse posing for a painting. Only the painting was depicting a crime most would find to be unspeakable.

Their face, so calm for someone would could well and truly be dead, was something else. Like a thousand summer nights. A feeling that could not be described unless you felt it yourself.
It was realm of eternal peace. Hunter could look at that face forever, carefully tracing over every detail of it for the rest of eternity.

But he couldn't. The sharp, metallic scent that hovered in the air was like a slap to the face. Reality was waiting and it was not patient. No, it definitely was not patient nor would it let him catch up with current events.

He looked up to the sky, peeking at it through the window close by. A thick, dark substance covered the entirety of it like a blanket covering a cowering child.

Not even the heavens wanted to deal with him or his situation.

His breathing was heavy. Footsteps? Many. Sirens wailed and screamed in the background. A muffled symphony of sounds that didn't fully reach Hunter. No, he was too busy analysing his situation. Something he didn't think to do before.

The flashing of red and blue shone through. Screaming. Crying. Banging. The sound of clanging metal.

It was easy to come up with an answer.

This was the end.