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"Yes, you can," she replies, and before I know it, she grabs the hand holding the knife, pointing the tip of the blade right under her sternum before pushing with all her might, angling it up toward her heart.

There's a loud gasp.

I don't know if it's from me or from her. Her lips parted, she keeps on pushing the knife into her flesh.

"Finish it," she gently urges me. "Let me be at peace, Vlad. I don't want to hurt anymore."

Those words break something inside of me as I push the knife deeper, reality lagging behind in my mind.

I push and push until I know I've punctured her heart.

And just as I withdraw the knife, blood rushing down and draining from that vital organ, something else happens.

A sob catches in my throat, my cheeks damp as my eyes leak some sort of liquid—tears. I watch the blood slowly leave her body, her good eye stuck in the same position, her body flailing around before it falls, and I feel the worst pain I've ever felt in my life.

I'm not supposed to feel pain.

I'm not supposed to feel.

And yet I do. I feel it to the core of my being. It shatters every corner of what I deem to be the self, until I find myself stripped of what essentially makes me human.

Was I ever?

My eyes hone in on that blood—her life's essence—as it keeps pouring out. Leaking and leaking until there's no more.

"No," I snap. "No." I shake my head, the knife dropping from my hand as I kneel before her, my hands grasping at the blood and trying to put it back inside of her.

"You can't," I mutter incoherently, "you can't leave me, V… No."

There's a craziness inside of me that seems to be unleashed that very moment, my sanity spilling over the normal bounds and flooding every cell in my body withinsanity. Because there's no other explanation for what I'm doing.

Not as I'm trying to stuff the blood into my already dead sister. Not as a pain filled battle cry escapes my lips, my fingers settling on the knife as I hit it against her chest, opening her up and grabbing that organ from her body, cradling it in my hand and trying to get it to work again.

"Please, V," I say as I pump the heart.

Me, who prized logic over everything.

Meet the illogic.

I lose track of everything as I simply push my rational mind as far away as I can, locking it away and throwing the key. I give myself to everything that is irrational, savage, and emotional.

Everything is hazy as I see myself smash her body to pieces in a blood fueled rage.

Blood is everywhere.

My blood. Her blood. Our blood.

It bathes my body as I take comfort in knowing her life's force is on me.

In me.

And as nothing else works, I just bring her heart to my mouth, biting into it, feeling the way her blood fills me.

We're one.

Because she can't be gone. She canneverbe gone.

Red is everywhere. A brilliant red that beckons me. A vivid red that promises to fulfill all of my wishes. A lively red that's her. My Vanya. My twin.