Fight Him

As his right arm tightened around me, pinning my arms to my sides, my previously quiescent skin lit on fire once again, feeling like I've been dropped onto a hot skillet and nearly blinding me with pain. Yet, despite the agonized chorus that is my skin, the some small reasonable part of my mind told me that I had to react. And, given my position, there were only three ways to fight back, so I tried them all.

Firstly, I tried to stamp down on his toes. Unfortunately, the relatively low heal of my shoe glanced off what was apparently steel-toed work boots, leaving my ankle throbbing in pain that really didn't add much to my already agonized skin.

Now, more **** than before, I tried swinging my head back in an attempt to hit him in the face and, if I was really lucky, break his nose. But, the back of my head glanced off his and he brought his vice-like left hand up grabbed me by the chin, holding my head back against his shoulder and basically immobile.

My last ditch attempt to fight him off was simple, bite the hand that was holding my head in place and hope that it caused him to let go. And, as I'm sure you can guess based on the fact that I'm here telling you this story, it worked. I managed to get most of his index finger and a bit of his palm between my teeth and bit down like my life depended on it, because, in all likelihood, it did.

While I didn't manage to bite off the finger or anything, my teeth tore through his flesh well enough and he yanked his hand away as best he could, while loosening his grip with his right arm. Seeing my chance to escape, I tried to dash away, but his uninjured hand closed around my wrist and, with a violent yank, pulled me back to him. Tripping on my now injured ankle, I fell into him, sending us both to the ground.

Now, God only knows why I chose the path I did, but it definitely had an impact on my life from there out.

Struggling together on the ground, his right hand, still grasping my left wrist in an unbreakable hold, I decided to use my free hand to reach up and grab my assailant by the hair, pulling his head back against the hard packed dirt, where we struggled and he thrashed beneath me. It was when he brought his bloody left hand up to try and pull my grip free from his hair that I decided to once again use my only real weapon, my teeth.

At the time I didn't really know about the position of things like the sternocleidomastoid or scalene muscles, just that the jugular and carotid were somewhere in the neck and that they carried a lot of blood to and from the brain.

My ignorance didn't matter. My teeth bit deeply into the side of his neck as I bit down with all my strength. When I couldn't close my mouth any further, I thrashed my head back and forth, trying to tear at the flesh like some sort of wild animal. Having done all I could with the first bite, I released the mangled flesh and moved in for the next bite. Though he left go of my hands and wrapped his fingers in my hair, he couldn't pull me away before I bit into his neck a second and final time.

As I said, in his panic, he help pull me away this second time and, as I pulled, his flesh parted in spectacular fashion. I don't really like to admit how beautiful it was to watch the rhythmic spurts of blood spraying forth from the severed arteries, despite his **** fingers trying to clamp it in. Maybe it's just the natural response to a life and **** struggle. Maybe it's because of what I am. Whatever the cause, I just stayed there, straddling my assailant, watching as his vita sanguinis spilled forth. Panting, aching, exhausted, but victorious, I watched the light in his eyes fade.

It was only after that reality hit me like a fucking bulldozer, smashing through the fog of my mind.

I had killed someone.

Sure, it was in self defense. Sure, he had every advantage and was no innocent taken by surprised, as I had been. But regardless of circumstances, a corpse lay beneath me; a man who I had spoken to just a minute or two before lay dead by my hand.

I know some soldiers say that they can kill without compunction or remorse, just doing a job and moving on with life. Those people are either liers or totally fucking insane. I'll remember that first time I killed, like it happened ten seconds ago, for as long as I walk this world. I'll never forget the others, either, but there's nothing I've experienced that is anywhere near as profound as discovering that you're a killer. Maybe giving birth is similarly profound, but I've never even conceived, let alone given birth, so I can't compare the two.

"Oh, Alex," Cathy says, reaching for my hand, undoubtedly in an attempt to comfort me.

I pull my hand back and hold it up forestalling the attempt. "Please, Cathy, now that I've finally decided to tell my story, I don't want to leave it here."

The inquisitive gleam in her eyes was joined by a true and abiding sense of empathy in a devastatingly cute expression that could put the cutest puppy dog to shame.

I averted my eyes as part of me wondered why people thought regular old humans couldn't work a magic all their own.

Anyway, there I sat, covered in the blood of the man who lay dead beneath me and my first instinct was to lick my lips and wipe the blood from my face. That done, I stood up on my shaky, wounded ankle and took a look around. Just to be sure, I walked to the back of the back of the lot and looked along the fence; there were no doors leading to underground dance clubs either way. Duh, of course he was lying. He just wanted a chance to grab me from behind so that he could... what, rob me, **** me, take me somewhere? When I saw the car parked in the corner of the lot, I decided it was probably the last one, not that the first two wouldn't come later.