Thick rivers drip from my fingers in burgundy ribbons, splashing among the coarse sand beneath my feet. I should wash it off to remove the evidence of what I’ve done, but all I can do is stare at the pale face slowly sinking further and further out of my sight. Wide open eyes stare blankly into nothing, unblinking, and it unnerves me beyond anything else I’ve seen before in my life. But I can’t look away; my body stands paralysed, wrapped in cold, thick iron chains conjured from my own imagination. They’re not real – I could shake them away with a thought – but the slivers of icy horror caressing my spine have trapped me. With the unmoving hold they have, they might as well be real. 

I keep waiting for the blue and red lights to cascade through the trees and set the leaves ablaze, for the screeching  sirens of my demise to reach my ears, for the orders barked behind a gun pointed right at my criminal chest. Surely they’re coming for me. If I stand here long enough and wait, what I’ve done will be clamped into tight metal cuffs and slammed behind bars. I deserve it. I deserve it. I deserve it.  

Run away. They can’t catch you if you’re not here.  

But I don’t move.  

I don’t listen to the words echoing in the hollow cave of my mind, instead watching the pale skin sink further below the water, down, down, down to lie with the fish. Seeing her vanish sends a sharper quiver down my spine and another wash of realisation hits me. I’m once again terrified at what’s literally staining my hands, and my eyes sink to take in the smears on my skin that the rivulets of red left behind. Evidence of tonight. 

Now she’s out of sight, concealed by the murky water that now laps still again like nothing happened. I see the flash of silver beneath the surface, a passing fish caught in the cold, hazy light of the crescent moon, swimming past as if she wasn’t invading its space. She was an outsider, an object nestled in the depths I can no longer see.  

There’s no red and blue lights, no sirens, no disruption to the uneasy calm around me, and I pull myself back enough to shake away the invisible irons clamping my body still. Swiping my feet over the shore, I brush away the remains of the drag marks that are sure to give me away if, for some reason, nothing else does. I push the red stained clumps of sand into the water, soaking the tips of my old sneakers and almost losing my balance in the process, so I skitter back a few steps.  

What now? There’s a visceral gnawing coming from the morally good part of my conscience, screaming at me to do something, but every cell in my body is frozen beyond further movement. It’s not like I planned this out, not like I’m familiar with the step by step guide of what to do once you’ve finished. The twin flame I once swore by no longer exists. Do I cry, scream, laugh, walk away?  

I choose the latter.