My head is pounding, throbbing, screaming in wild and uncontrollable pain as I roll over in a large, empty bed. Whatever motel I decided to check myself into for the night is way too generous with its bedding. Not that I mind, however. All this empty space; so much room to toss and turn in no particular direction which should bring me more peace than anything but even with that I can't seem to shake the violent thrashing of my brain against the inside of my skull. My fingers curl tightly around the heavy blanket on top of me, which practically incinerates everything underneath it. Sweat pools up on my skin, and the skull splitting, agonizing pain in my head forces me to once again thrash about on the bed. In the process, dragging my bare back across an exposed bed spring. I rip the blanket off me and toss it off the bed, bringing my hand to my scraped up back and the other hand up to my mouth and scream into my palm. The air escapes out of my mouth rapidly, soon leaving me breathless and gasping in air that isn't there as my hand remains affixed to my lips. I rip my hand from my mouth and lay it back on the bed and gasp in as much air as I can, before sitting up in bed. The pounding somehow finds a way to intensify and I immediately fall over onto my right side, trying my hardest to keep some semblance of control over my shaking, shivering body. In the span of time since I launched the blanket halfway across the damn room, the temperature decided to take a nose dive into a kiddie pool of frostbitten cocks.

Wow, that went Freudian real fast. I think I'm trying to tell myself a thousand different things at once, and I'm not sure which is the least disturbing.

I take another deep breath in and let it out slowly, straightening myself out and laying as stiff as a board horizontally on the bed, my head and feet barely poking out over the ends and hanging almost weightlessly. My body's freezing and with every breath I take I feel my chest expanding less and less and contracting faster and faster. The only warm spot on my entire body is my head and it feels like it's on fire. I place the back of my hand on my forehead and recoil immediately as the heat burns my skin and utter a couple of choice words under my breath. The pounding in my head ceases for a moment as I look upwards at the ceiling, feeling almost at ease in the darkness.

And to think, I used to be afraid of the dark. Now, I'm afraid of the light.

Why?

I close my eyes, only for a couple of seconds but I see it flash in front of me again. Philippe's head smacking off the concrete. The only thing I see every time I close my eyes, unless of course I manage to drink myself pitch black. Then I don't see anything. A raging headache's a small price to pay for a few hours of peace and quiet. Though, it looks like I've run out before I could get to the same state tonight. A shame. I was really not looking forward to this getting to me. Not tonight. Well, never tonight but really, really not tonight in particular. My shaky hands paw all over the bed for the missing blanket, even though I know it's nowhere near me though the likelihood of me actually getting up to get it is on par with Philippe's bloodsoaked head not clouding my vision with one ghastly hand pulling me back into the alley minute by passing minute. I keep my eyes pinned on the ceiling; the only thing keeping me in this room. The alley didn't have a ceiling, unless you count the night sky as one but thankfully I don't. My dry, itching, red eyes bore tiny little pupil sized holes into the ceiling as I try my hardest to put the memory behind me. Which goes about as well as any other attempt at doing that; horribly. With each blink I see his head snap forward as it makes contact with the ground; the blood beginning to leak ever so slightly around the site of impact; hear the crunch of his skull against the loose slabs of cracked concrete; feel my hands gripping him, snuffing out his life and every time I do it's accompanied by a deep, panicked breath. As if it could be my last. As if I'm on the gallows, noose around my neck, waiting and forever anxious for the lever to be pulled and for my neck to snap like a twig. And it never does.

I reach down, off the bed for the bottle, only for it to be out of reach, or worse yet somewhere else entirely. I don't know why, the bottle's empty anyway. Then again, I don't think I know why I do a lot of the things I do. Like killing Philippe--

Christ, I'm worse than I thought. I need to get my mind off of him. It was a spur of the moment thing. A mistake, yes. But he was a creep, a lowlife, scum. I was doing the world a favor but still. I can't shake it. From the neck down, I start to feel numb. Nothing. Just the inferno I call my head, completely uncooled by the sweat pouring down my face. I feel my heart beating softly in my chest, punching in the inside of my ribcage and reminding me that I'm more than just a decapitated head sewed onto the body of a cadaver. I don't know whether that's better or worse.

I blink twice in rapid succession, shuddering both times and when I open my eyes the second time I start to see a series of blacker dots that stick out even in the near pitch blackness of the room. They swirl and form into shapeless blobs in front of me, before one evens out and becomes a circle. No, a circular shape with a rectangle coming off the end of it. Almost like a sign, or a head. A second blob comes from the head, expanding rapidly and rapidly, like a pool of--

No! No. No no no no no. I need to snap myself out of this. I shouldn't feel bad, I shouldn't. But then I close my eyes and the same wave of mind battering regret crashes over me, weighing me down and making me unable to move an inch. Not like I would if I could; I still can't feel any part of me from the neck down.

"Fuck, that shower's awful," the shapeshifting abomination now adopting Kara's voice and Azrael's body says as it steps out of the bathroom. I tilt my head back and see his/her figure approaching me through the shadows with soundless, weightless footsteps sliding through the carpeted floor.

"Can you just go?"

"Right, and miss your self implosion? I wouldn't miss this for the world."

"Thanks. You're a real pal."

"Hey, I may look like a killer, but at least I'm not one."

"I guess if you wanna get technical; you're a lying, cheating, psychotic cunt with a mean streak six miles wide and you still couldn't deal with a stalker."

"And you took out the trash, huh?"

"Only because you couldn't."

Karazrael finally walks into my field of vision and leans down, over top of me with a smile on his/her face.

"Never asked you to."

"Why are you even here?"

"You haven't even gotten that far? Fuck's sake, are you the hallucination or am I?"

"What?"

Karazrael shakes his/her head and takes a couple steps back, leaning against the wall.

"Go on, Kendall. Tell me what you did, I can take it."

"But, but," I stammer, feeling my mouth lose moisture and hearing my words become gradually scratchier.

"I'm a big girl, Kendall. Just tell me the truth."

"I, killed--"

"Who did you kill?"

"Ph-Philippe."

I feel a knot form in the back of my throat and tears well up in my eyes. I'm not going to cry, I'm not going to cry, I'm not going to fucking cry. Frantically, I take shallow breaths in to try and calm myself but all that does is increase my heart rate. Over and over again my heart pounds, about ready to rip right through my chest and fly into the air.

"Good girl. Now, stop being a coward and tell me for real."

And with that, Karazrael disappears from sight. Again.

Only a matter of time before (s)he's back though. I plan on being drunk by then. Safe, free from the haunting images. Where I can't feel the decaying, skeleton like fingers of Philippe's memory gripping onto me the way I grabbed onto him pulling me further and further into the deep dark abyss that I'm in right now.

That I wish I never have to be in again.

One step at a time, I guess.