Burn

Chapter 9:

BURN: CHAPTER 9

I fell back into the chair, my hands tangled into the knotted strings on top of my head. My elbows rested on my knees, strips of hair falling out of my grasp, forming a curtain around my face. The leather of the leggings shimmered in the half-light provided by the crank torch, revealing small dark splotches and scratches. I choked on air again, as my thoughts involuntarily wandered to what the dark, sticky substance was.

Their blood or mine?

I couldn't even bare looking up at Aliyn. I'd hit her, that much was obvious. I must've been acting out my memories, like the sociopath I was, and attacked her in the process. How many people would I have attacked now? How many people died by my bloodstained hands? How many innocents no longer breathe because of me? A dry heave rises from the back of my throat and I try to think of something other than the monster I was.

"Fira?" Aliyn's voice was small, frightened. I wanted to sink into the chair. I wanted the crank-up light to lose all its energy and plunge me into forgiving darkness.

"Yeah?" I whispered. I felt so dirty for hitting her, after everything she's done for me. I felt sick.

"Are you okay?" My immediate thought was no.

"Are you okay?" I asked instead, my voice a throaty whisper.

"Yeah. What happened?" Curiosity killed the cat. No, Fira killed the cat. The murderer, murdered the cat. And liked it.

"I don't know," I all but breathed. How she could hear me with my head on my knees, I don't know. "I'm so sorry," I murmured. I should've been able to control myself. Should've been able to wake up from that nightmare. If I couldn't control myself then, will I be able to if it happens again?

"I'm fine, but I need to know what happened," she shuffles in her chair. I rubbed my forehead hard, trying to ease the headache I could feel forming from all the new information that was re-remembered.

"I remembered something." I looked up, my face a pathetic mix of self-loathing and fear. When Aliyn met my eyes and said nothing, I continued. "I was stalking these people. Then I attacked them. Killing them." Aliyn bit her lip, and nodded.

"I had that sword, and I was cornering this man who pushed me over and I was going to kill him, and I didn't care." It was worse than that. I wasn't just indifferent; I was enjoying myself, enjoying the thrill and adrenalin like some mindless butcherbird.

"Are you sure it actually happened?" she asked, leaning forward in her chair with an inquisitive expression, much like the lady from the hospital.

"I wish it didn't," I murmur in reply. I wish I didn't even know. I'd still think that- I didn't even bother thinking what I could've been. Didn't bother trying to find out.

I should have at least attempted to find out who I was. The only thing any one knows about me is how I look, and what I had when I appeared at the back of the hospital, but material and physical things don't make a anything near the whole picture.

I was being too hard on myself. I had, what? Two days in the hospital, where I was conscious. I didn't have any time to actually bother thinking about anything.

Aliyn stood up and moved to the box, shifting the contents around and inspecting them. I watched her, through lidded eyes torturing my self by thinking of more horrible things that I could've done in the past.

"Do you know why you were," she pauses and picks up one of the morbid bracelets, twirling it around her fingers. "Following those people?" she concludes.

"No." My voice breaks and I cough to relieve it. Aliyn drops the bracelet quickly, retracting her hand. She looks up at me and shakes her head.

"Electric shock." And that's what it all comes down to. An electric shock. Irregular, sporadic and unpredictable. That is who I was.