Excerpt: The Inherent Absence of Light

It’s instinct, drilled in by millions of years of evolution, that causes you to fling an arm up, shielding the delicate facial skin and important organs, and shielding your eyes from the truth in front of you: that you are about to die because a man with a knife made a choice on a whim. His fingers clench around your wrist, nearly grinding the small bones of your wrist. The crease of your lips let loose a small sound, something between a proper whimper and a squeak made by a terrified squirrel.

His hand, long-fingered like a pianist’s, slows and loosens. Between your own fingers, you watch him with sight muddled by myopia as he turns your wrist, fingertips gentle on the sensitive skin there. The change in attitude does nothing to stop your heart from beating rabbit-fast.

He traces down the line, the pad of his thumb disturbingly gentle in contrast to the knife in your shoulder - it’s burning now, like all the times you took a sip of hot chocolate before it was cool enough, all thrown together into one single instance.

You think it burns now, but it ratchets up another notch when, one hand still on your scarred forearm, he grasps the handle of the knife again - what kind is it, you wonder. Not a kitchen knife, not a Swiss Army knife, but is that really what your mind wants to contemplate now? Or have you already reached that delirious point of nausea and dizziness and the slow slide down the hill of consciousness into the black that comes when you lose too much blood? - and he pulls it out, your severed parts screaming as they are freed.

The shadow lifts from your sight. He’s leaving. You don’t bother to sit up, it would be stupid to get up just to faint because of the sudden decrease in blood pressure and then die from exposure. You turn your head, and you can see that he’s crouching a few feet away. Squinting tells you that he’s picking something up off of the ground, and he pockets it, before glancing back over his shoulder at you. His face is blurred, like someone threw water on a portrait.

You find your voice for the first time. “Why?”

One syllable, three letters, and a multitude of meaning.

You can’t tell what he’s thinking about, that featureless face over there, topped off by dark blonde hair. He stands up.

“It’s no fun if you want it,” he says, and leaves.