Sea Breeze

When had the shadows turned quite so dark? It felt as though she'd been fighting for hours, but surely it couldn't have been more than fifteen minutes since she'd been first jumped. The alcohol admittedly made it hard to keep accurate track of time, and she was pretty sure all the adrenaline was clouding her vision.

Instinctively, she snapped her head backwards, avoiding the glint of silver that seemed to come arcing towards her neck out of the shadows. A muffled grunt told her that her answering kick had found its mark, and she took the opportunity to grab at the knife in front of her. Her hand slipped on the blade as she fought to wrest it out of the man's arms - he had recovered from the kick already and was attempting to grab ahold of her. Fortunately, it wasn't just her grip that was slick with blood.

It was hard to think at a time like this, indeed, it was better not to have to think at all--

The rage took back full control, throwing itself at the man with what felt like the force of a hundred boulders. It carried her forward with it, as she smashed her head into his forehead, snatched the knife away, and--

The muted hoots and jeers that had surrounded her seemed to come briefly back into sharp clarity, dying down and immediately transforming into sheer fury. Fury that almost seemed to rival her own, she reflected, blinking away the tears as she pulled the knife out of the dead man's neck and turned to face the onrushing group of onlookers.

Time... Time seemed to bend and snap. Memories seemed to flash and flicker, carried away and on by the almost disconnected movements of her body. The knife swooped in and out, and then there was one in her other hand as well, and someone was grabbing her by the leg, trying to pull her backwards even as she felt a knife score her ribs from the front. She let her weapon drop and reached out, out to the person who had gotten ahold of her leg --

It was a wrench, she later reflected. It was like trying to twist someone's head off, and only half succeeding. It required a suspension of everything that made up who you were. And she couldn't say whether the tears were for the lives that seemed to fall mute at her hands, or the fact that they had chosen to set their feet on a path that had led them to her. The knives seemed to pass through flesh as though through butter. It shouldn't have been so easy but it was - as easy as grabbing a shoulder and pulling it, pulling at it forever, or until the crack, whichever came first.

At some point she became aware that she was attempting to crack a coconut with a knife that wasn't well suited to the job at all. All she had managed to do was score shallow ridges on the white bone; a futile effort, just like everything else. There was no more sound.

She rose up and staggered away, away from the smell of rust. Beach sand slipped under her toes, grimy, gritty and damp. She wondered whether this was pain she felt, but it couldn't be, it was everywhere, it was in the knives they had managed to bury in her back and thigh, it was booming just behind her eyes... Her eyes, she just wanted to close her eyes for a while, they felt tired, as though she'd been crying all night, and yet there was nothing, nothing to cry about, it was all quiet now.

Slipping in and out as though through butter...

She curled up a little distance away, resting her head on a rock, eyes closing. Her thoughts told her that somewhere sound must still exist, but she was damned if she knew where it was. How long she lay there she didn't know, but she could feel her heart rate slow, she could feel pain closing in at the edges of consciousness.

Like butter, it had felt like butter. 

One hand was still clenched around a knife, she realized. What an ugly, stubby little thing, blood drying on its reproachful lack of elegance. And the longer she waited, the closer the pain got, and the harder this would get. It was best not to leave anything to chance, best not to trust this worthless body to do what it did best, which was fail.

Her vision was still blurred, and she wondered what it was she was mourning. The death of evil that slid out of the shadows on a dark night on a beach? The harsh taste of victory at the back of her throat?

It should have been harder than this. Harder to snatch life away from even the hands of those that seemed to not deserve it.

She turned towards the pain she had spent all her life keeping at bay. There it was, the most reliable part of her life, straining against the walls she had so painstakingly built. She breathed in deeply, and then embraced it all, even as she exhaled. The pain and the darkness rushed in with the force of a dam exploding, and it was time, it was time to do what she had always known she must.

She raised the knife one last time, and like butter, it sank into the side of her neck. She felt the little sigh of relief as it escaped her lips, and the world around her seemed to glitch for a second. There, now, she had done her part. Now all that remained was to wait.