Look At Me Now

2020-11-27

Alexandria Christina Leal

CW: Intense violence

Miko Chiyo-ni shuddered as she slid the knife along the man’s sweat drenched throat. She watched, holding her hand so steady that one would be forgiven for at first not even noticing it was moving at all, as the blade passed along his flesh and cut ever so slightly as it traced a thin off colored line across like the touch of God drawing a mountain along the earth.

And right now, she sure as fuck felt like a God. She stared up, past the bristling forest of hairs that would never grow, over the careless scars that marred his swelled chin, and then following the twin diagonal lines that had been carved into his cheeks. Up she moved, past his bruised lips and broken nose, to his absolutely terrified wet brown eyes.

He stared back at her like a deer caught in the headlights. He didn’t say anything, and she thought that was smart of him. She stood there for a while, staring into those deep pools of water. Tracing the bloodshotness and wondering if she should carve up his face in a likeness. Add a line every new one she spotted. See if he could guess the pattern.

“How do you think I should kill you?” She finally asked, and the fear in those eyes turned into a frightened, half broken resolve as he muttered, “Animal scum”. But the words were thrown on the ground. He didn’t have the strength or the heart to hurl them at her. And they both knew it.

She grinned as far as she could, a wicked chesire thing that grew from one corner of her face to another.

“You don’t sound so convinced about that, Overseer Campbell”

For a second, he glared at her, and she thought he would open his mouth to say something more. But instead with a groan of pain he tilted his head so he was looking down at the grey tiles, averting his gaze from her.

She laughed and lay down on the cold floor directly in his vision, setting her knife besides her. Campbell shut his eyes, lacking the strength or the will or perhaps simply deciding it wasn’t worht the effort to move his head to look at the other side of the room. And he was right, she would have just laid there too. “You know, there was a time when you would have told me that you were staring at the ground because even it was above a creature such as myself.” She noticed his face scrunch up even more, his wrinkles drawing inwards and his hands gripping the chair. It was a slight motion, most of his body was too restrained to move enough, but she knew what he was doing. He was involuntarily tensing against the coming blow.

She smirked, eyes grinning with a wicked shine, “Awww.” She teased. “I’m disappointed.” She said, mockingly pushing her lips together in a pout while brandishing the knife for a throw in her right hand. “Whatever happened to ‘I’m going to hunt you for sport’ ?” She asked.

“It won’t bring him back.” Barely audible.

A lightning strike. “What. The Fuck, Was that?”

He looked away not saying anything.

“What. The. Fuck. Did. You. Say?”

He continued to look away. She snarled, and with a flick of her wrist the knife lodged in the side of his face, he was screaming and writhing, trying to move and only hurting himself more. Blood was dripping out of the wound. With inhuman speed she was at his side, gripping his chin and slamming his head against the back of the chair. His face was a bloody mess. She grabbed the knife, and after a few yanks, pulled it free. It slid out and a chunk of his face went with it. She stabbed and stabbed the blood pulp that had become his left eye. “WHAT. THE FUCK. DID. YOU. SAY?!?” YOU DON’T SAY HIS NAME. YOU DON’T GET TO SAY HIS NAME IN FRONT OF ME YOU SON OF A BITCH YOU FUCKING MONSTER.” Blood flew into her face, gore tangled in her hair, her clothes were ruined. He screamed and cried out in pain and desperately struggled until finally the screaming stopped and then, who knows how long after, Miko Chiyo-ni stepped away from the desecrated filthy corpse strapped to the chair and panted, tired and frustrated at her lack of fulfillment. “Don’t you fucking mention his name.” She said to no one in particular.

…

The steam took the weight off of her shoulders, and as the hot water streamed down around her and, soaking her clothes, she realized she was still clutching the knife.