Page 75 of Fallen: Darkness Ascending, Vol.1

EDDIE

I hiss through clenched teeth as I peel back the soaked makeshift bandage from my side.

The stolen kitchen dish towel clings to the torn flesh, ripped half-open by her final act of disobedience.

A shard from a soup bowl, wasn’t it? Shoved deep enough to taste muscle.

Sloppy, but spirited. I almost admire the aim.

Blood beads fresh along the harsh wound, dark and slow, it pools.

Copious amounts of blood poured from the initial gash, barely missing vital organs.

It isn’t close to fatal, but it’s a constant burning reminder when I move in the wrong position.

I grab a half-empty bottle of rubbing alcohol and drench it over the wound without hesitation.

The bite is immediate. My body lurches forward, fingers digging around the edge of the bathroom sink, my knuckles whitening.

The pain encases the torn flesh in white-hot splinters.

I don’t scream, I laugh.

It bubbles up low, feral, echoing off the cracked motel tiles. I look up, catch my reflection in the smeared mirror. Gaunt, blood-flecked, a smear of crimson crawling down my side. My smile spread wider.

“She tried,” I mutter to myself. “God, she really tried.”

I press a clean piece of gauze over the wound and tape it down in haphazard strips of medical tape stolen from a gas station first-aid kit.

It’ll scar, of course. They always do. My ribs are now an archive of memories.

Scratches from claws, broken bottle punctures, and healed stab wounds, both shallow and deep, mar my skin.

Hers, however, will be different. I can already tell.

The motel bathroom smells of bleach and decay. Mold curls at the corners of the ceiling and fills the cracks connecting to the shower. Buzzing from the overhead bulb stutters every few seconds, trying to blink out of existence.

I step back into the main room, body aching but intact, and collapse onto the bed like a king atop his throne. The notebook waits for me where I left it—on the nightstand, pristine and eager. I don’t want to open it yet, I want to savor the silence.

I’m disappointed in my little rabbit. She hasn’t haunted me once in the days since her glorious demise.

Not one whisper in the dark, or a single shadow twitch in the corners of my vision.

I expected blood-drenched visions and torture-wrapped nightmares clawing their way into my slumber. I awaited her, I craved her.

My thoughts have all been consumed by the way her eyes screamed and her blood pooled on the floor. I half-hoped for it, desired more, simply to savor the fleeting moments of life fading from her face.

I have been gifted nothing .

No ghosts behind my eyelids or echoes made from false promises—just silence. Which can only mean one thing: I won.

I stretch out on the dingy, stiff motel bed, arms resting behind my head, smirking as the ceiling fan whirs.

It churns, crooked and whining with every slow rotation.

This place is an absolute shithole, stinking of mildew and cigarette ash.

The wallpaper curls off like old scabs, yet it’s still mine, for now.

A place to lay low while the cops search for the brutal killer terrorizing women.

They’ll never be able to trace it back to me.

I should probably pack my shit and skip town except the excitement knowing I’ll never be caught roots me to this town of little significance.

There’s a special high that comes from daring the world to find you, knowing they won’t.

They’ll find her eventually, what’s left anyway.

My beautiful mess I left behind. Who knows, maybe they already have.

I imagine her corpse on the news while some weeping neighbor is telling the reporter, “She was always so quiet. Kept to herself.” They always do.

It’s the same old regurgitated lines fed to the media for a quick fifteen seconds of fame. I like to call that performative grief.

I lick my thumb and flip through the notebook now resting atop my chest. Pages of sketches, scribbled names, and trophies from those I’ve claimed decorate each page, tightly bound in ritualistic ink. One could call it an unholy ledger of my undoings.

However, her section is still blank. I couldn’t bring myself to sketch it, not yet, not for her.

She was unlike any other target. There was such uniqueness about her that one page wouldn’t be enough to immortalize her in this book.

Her body has long since gone cold by now and probably stuffed into some black bag with a case number tied to her toe.

Dust-to-dust, evidence to archive. The world will continue to spin as it always does.

The desperation in her eyes, no matter how deeply I carved, held a secret I was not fortunate enough to reveal.

Oh well, her rotting existence doesn’t matter now.

The important thing is, I saw her for what she was, a crack in the world.

She was beautifully broken in a way only I understand.

An existence meant to be unmade, and I was undoing.

Lightning flashes outside the window, making way for thunder to roll in seconds later. It rumbles low, promising a downpour to follow. The odds grant me a final blessing from above, to cleanse my trail and bury the blood. Perfect.

The room shudders slightly, just the wind, I tell myself. Uneasiness settles low in my spine, coiling like a bad omen.

I toss the notebook aside and sit up, eyes scanning the room for any disturbance. The room hasn’t changed, although now I feel as if I am being watched.

I cross the room and part the curtains with two fingers.

The parking lot is deserted and draped in darkness, just how I like it.

No one is out there except wet asphalt and empty cars.

I let out a breath and rest my forehead on the glass.

No one is looking for me, and if they are, they’ll never find me.

Yanking the curtains closed, I pause midway.

A faint glow, distant on the horizon, catches my attention.

It’s subtle, barely noticeable. At first, I think it’s just lightning; however, the illumination is off.

It isn’t a bright white glow. This is deeper, redder—a slow, seething pulse of crimson bleeding from the split-open sky.

Its thrum is sluggish and furious, painting the edges of the clouds in a bruised shade of red.

The hairs on my arms stand at attention.

I tell myself it’s nothing, a simple trick of the eye, a chemical imbalance, or reflection from the next town over.

This is a hallucination born of stress. Right?

The longer I stand at the window, the more sinister it feels. The vermilion flare isn’t on the horizon; it’s coming from above it. Suddenly, the silence I basked in—the ghostless calm I thought proved her defeat—hums with warning.

She hasn’t haunted me. Not once.

What if she didn’t need to?

My hand drops from the curtain, but the image burns in my mind.

Seared behind my eyes is the unmistakable color of consequence.

I try to shake it off, pacing the room back and forth, marking worry lines into the carpet.

Apprehension tugs at the back of my skull, a hook in soft meat.

I shouldn’t still be thinking about her.

I finished her. I saw her chest cave under my hands, felt her life extinguish.

And yet…

The notebook lies open on the bed where I left it.

Her blank page silently mocks me. I didn’t forget to include her.

It’s blank because I didn’t know how to capture what I saw residing in her eyes at the end.

I basked in what I thought was fear, but what if I’ve mistaken it for defiance? Did she know something I didn’t?