Her eyes closed. Her chest no longer moved.
I looked up at my best friend.
Pulling at his restraints, the panty snatcher looked down at me. “What are you doing?”
“You don’t think she’s dead, do you?” Anguish crushed my face into rivers of lines. “She’s just sleeping, right?”
“I think she’s pretty dead.”
“No!” I shouted at him. Above me the sky was cracking and falling. Below me the earth was breaking and folding in on itself. “I am a good person!”
My heart thrashed.
My blood rushed.
I’m a good person. I’m a good person. I’m a good…
Air refused to enter my throat, I suffocated right there, gasping, heaving for a breath that never came. Pain seared behind my eyes. I scrunched up my face. Not a single tear fell. Why can’t I cry? What's wrong with me? There was something wrong with me.
“Woah! De Astor!” the panty snatcher called down to me. “What's wrong? Are you hurt?”
I choked. I shook.
“Oh shit, you're going to have a panic attack. Hey! Look at me! Breathe!”
Clutching my chest, I gasped in air. “I don’t want to be a bad person.”
He irked his jaw. “Um…”
“Did I kill her?” My words quivered.
“Well…”
“I want to be a good person!” I clawed at my throat. “Is she dead? Did I kill her?”
“You didn’t kill her! She’s just sleeping!”
“Oh.” My breathing returned to normal. I slapped on a smile and stood up. “Good.”
He eyed me.
I cut his hands loose and offered him the blade from the sleeping woman.
“What the hell just happened?” he asked.
“Hm?” I smiled larger.
“I didn’t think you’d come back for me,” he said. “You really are crazy.”
“I keep my promises. I am a good person.”
“I think you might be mentally unwell.”
“Ah!”
Something sharp punctured into my arm. I toppled into the table, losing a breath from the shock of the assault. A blade stuck out of my arm, rendering my limb useless. A second pierce dug into my side and this time a bellowing huff exhumed from my throat.
Behind me, a man shucked out the blade he had dug into my side and lifted it high, aiming for my throat. Before he managed to make the blow, the panty snatcher pushed me aside, placing himself in the destination of the blade.
