Ookami - The Wolf

Sleep was just that, sleep. A necessity, a vulnerability, a liability.

She’d only turned to her side to read the clock on her bedside, she wasn’t one to move a muscle while having a taste of sweet slumber. Expending too much energy before sleeping – a longshot, this one – made it feel like doing it for the sake of not actually sleeping.

It was one of those nights. How many attempts had it been? She’d stopped keeping count after 300. But she wanted to pick up counting again, which made her leisurely choose to start from 333. The number was mildly satanic, if there was a thing such as mildly satanic. The father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit – a pair of three in a pair of three to count from. She’d have chosen 666 if she could, and then it would be actually satanic – if there was a thing such as actually satanic.

Her pupils darted behind her lids as her lashes fluttered, she was signaling to him that she wasn’t deeply asleep. She felt like doing so this time, she would soon be matching the theme she’d chosen with her counting.

The mattress dipped with the weight of the intruder, she heard the almost inaudible sound of one of her most weighted pillows being picked up from her side. People usually didn’t care about making any sounds when they were seconds away from doing the deed.

Soon the mattress rustled, and the tension waned as she felt the oncoming pressure block her breath. The man was hefty strong, entirely comprehensible given her history of staying unscathed after such attempts. The force was skull-crushing, he jabbed harder at the eyes. A normal person would have gotten their eardrums popped out at the sheer force.

She struggled, token effort on her part. Just a little squirming, bated sounds, and flailing of her arms and legs. It didn’t matter if it was half-assed, there was no reason to believe anyone would survive that.

And then she went limp, hurrah for theatrics.

The man held the pillow for a few more seconds before he pulled it away with a sigh. His face was red and his forehead beaded with sweat droplets. He was visibly glad the deed was over so soon.

His jaw, however, dropped as soon as he saw her eyes flutter open, revealing daunting grey irises. He’d lost a lot of water, there was probably sweat trickling at his back by now. He shouldn’t have worn a black suit for something like this. It was nonsensical, it made no sense. Suits weren’t meant for things like this; a rustling suit jacket dropping a gun from your breast pocket is all you need for your plan to go awry.

It made her wonder if the man was actually professional at this. There obviously wasn’t supposed to be any blood. Suffocating with a pillow was too tedious when it was easier to just slash her throat and get it over with.

And, he grabbed her throat in a panic. He couldn’t report back empty-handed after all. His grip was harder than before, now anxious to finish the job and uncertain of why she was still alive. He struggled with his own grip, what would have crushed someone’s throat and rendered their brain without oxygen simply made her blink. Exhausted at his own effort, his face was now flushed, blood rushing to his cheeks.

She’d always been deathly pale, not even milk-white. She wasn’t surprised when people were unable to find the main artery to her throat, crushing the neck itself was an improvement.

She stayed still and reached her arm towards the back of his hand as he choked her. Almost as if cradling her palm into her lover’s touch, she brushed her fingers ever so lightly at his shivering skin.

“Your hands are cold,” she stated, not sounding quite there to the man.

This was insane to him. What was this monstrosity?

Frustrated, he lifted her entire back with the increasing force, latching onto just her throat, choking a lost cause, a limp doll. Her hair splayed at the back as she stayed suspended at his mercy.

It was always like this, yet this time she hadn’t pretended to be dead. It was always like this, whenever she touched one of them while they were doing the job – their hands were always cold.

No wonder.

Doing something that was supposed to set a person on edge; that was supposed to get someone’s blood to a boil, which made every hair on your body stand – somehow made his entire body frigid. Ironically, just like a dead person.

It was almost as if it was an equivalent exchange, it was almost as if you lost your humanity when you killed someone. As if the right to be human is lost, as if the person in you is dead. You killed them.

She gripped at his wrist, “Good,” and twisted it to tell him it was no use latching onto death itself. First, the thumb was bent backward to relinquish his entire hold. With a blood piercing scream that no one was around to hear, flailing of bodies and the crunch of thin bones, he tried to yield himself away from the entity.

He pulled, he pushed, he yelled with a sore jaw that soon went slack, but the entity was a solitary object itself, unmoving, ever-looming. One by one, imminent doom was arriving with every broken finger.

“I’m telling you that you did well, perchance you had a better show,” she gave him an acquired smirk.

She went for the head, not in the way that’d make a tortured person relieved. Pulling at the scalp, holding him against the bed, and ripping his hair out, yet it wasn’t the hair she was going after. The man, being in as much pain as he was, bending, kicking, and thrashing – could still feel the tugs of stretching at his throat.

He’d tried to talk, but all that came out was a pathetic croak. Ever so slowly, his limb stretching, the skin was tearing in layers. Layer after layer, layer after layer, there were too many layers.

The entity pulled harder, and harder with inhumane strength yet gradually enough to make him feel all of it. The skin was red and stretched to the limit, it looked almost charred. And then it happened, all while there was never any sound from her.

Veins popped out as skin and muscles parted, blood sprayed in thin rivulets, and increased as the tear widened. There were no screams anymore, just grunts of pure agony. It was her blood that wasn’t supposed to be spilled, no one said anything about anyone else’s.

The nerves tore, the sickening sound of human innards slurping and a tinge of metallic smell filled the air. The larger veins and the throat muscle itself has pulled apart as the man’s head was separated from his body. The head, now dropped at the floor, looked at the entity– brain activity still apparent. It blinked, eyes bloodshot.

She was speaking to herself, that’s what she told herself as she looked into the nameless man’s bloodied eyes.

“You may have lost your humanity, but you’re not a real monster.”