Shattered

What scares him most isn’t her savage attack, but the fact that he doesn’t recognize her. He has forgotten who she used to be and it makes her assault all the more painful. He clutches his face, blood seeping between his fingers.

What did I do, he wonders.

She attacks him again and sends him to the ground.

Get up, get up, get up, he tells himself.

But he doesn’t have to.  She pulls him to his feet and he notices for the first time how dark her eyes are – blind with rage. Have they always been that way?

What happened to you, he thinks.

“What happened to you, Katherine?”

Suddenly her eyes begin to water and the rage dissipates for a moment. He seizes his chance. He thinks he hears her whimper as he pins her against the wall, his battered body crushing into hers. She breathes labouredly, her own body shaking, eyes lost in a feverish daze.

“Where have you gone?” he asks her, his voice quiet with desperation. She hesitates, studying the angry red trails flowing freely from his broken nose and when her eyes meet his again, it’s almost as if things had never changed between them.

But then the moment is gone.

“I’m sorry,” she tells him.  A drop of blood falls off his chin and imprints itself above her heart. Her eyes are empty. “But she died a long time ago.”