“It’s me or you. You’re stronger than me, I see it in your eyes. I couldn’t survive…” She looks me over. “This. Kill me, or I’ll do it myself.”
She’s made her choice. She would rather die than let them touch her, rather die than fight. She’s given up and is looking for a way out. She presses herself closer to the blade. I pull it back slightly, trying to stop her, but she’s determined. She wants to kill herself.
“I’m not strong enough,” she whispers. “Please.”
“Do it, do it,” the crowd chants.
“End her!”
“Rip out her heart!”
“Gut her!”
“Fuck her corpse!”
Tears fill my eyes at what awaits us both. She sobs harder, retreating back into herself. She’s weak, too weak to survive. The screams get louder and louder, and she covers her ears, shouting at me to do it. Everything blurs, my heart slows, and my hands shake.
“Do it!” she yells, repeating it over and over, and it gets to be too much.
I snap.
I slice her throat in one move. I move so swiftly, I don’t even have time to think until I’m standing there with the blood-coated knife in my grasp. Her eyes widen, and her mouth opens and closes as her neck squirts blood. Her hands come up to cover the wound, to instinctively save herself, but that will only prolong her death and make her suffer. So even though my heart shrivels and tears drip down my face, I let the knife fall to the dirt, forgotten, staining it forever. I grab her hands and stop her from staunching the flow.
Her eyes lock on me, and I refuse to look away, even while a part of me withers at what I’ve just done. My mind blocks it out, refusing to admit I just killed this innocent little girl.
I took a life, and that will have to stay with me forever.
My eyes remain on her while her blood pumps from her body and covers us both. Slowly, her eyelids begin to shut, and only when she stops moving, stops breathing, do I lower her to the ground. I pull her dress down to try and cover her as much as I can and then sit back.
I stare at my hands, coated in crimson.
My tears drip steadily as I stare at her broken corpse. She looks like a marionette with her strings cut. Did I make the right choice? Am I as much of a monster as them now? I did what it took to survive, but in doing so, did I damn my soul?
I crack. My head tips back with an agony filled bellow.
They’ve done it, they’ve finally broken me. But in those dark, bloodied shards, I find something. I find the depths of my soul and what I’m willing to do.
Anything.