Page 142 of Damsel in Disguise

The path ahead unfolds with an inevitable clarity, as if every moment leading up to this has been a quiet preparation for it. I know what I’m supposed to do, what I am supposed to become.

Alastor—the spirit of vengeance.

The axe hangs on the wall as a cheap decoration. It was meaningless until now.

I take it down, registering the gravity without reacting to it—gravity is just resistance, resistance can be overcome.

He turns too late just to see a smiling boy.

The first strike is messy and imprecise but still manages to hit his spine, lacking refinement but effective enough to establish the pattern.

The second adjusts.

The third improves.

After that, it stops being about him.

It becomes about understanding.

You apply force. You observe the outcome. You refine your technique.

I don’t remember when he stops moving, only that I continue long after he does. Stopping would require looking at her, and looking at her would require understanding something I’ve no interest in processing.

So I don’t look at her at all.

I don’t allow my gaze to settle on the unnatural angle of her body or the way the red has stopped spreading or soaking or glistening.

It’s easier to improve technique than to process what lies a few feet away, easier to reduce the moment into mechanics than to acknowledge the finality of her stillness.

That’s why I focus on him, on the movement, on the repetition, on refining the arc of each strike with increasing precision.

But the radio keeps replaying. “With your smile, turn the world upside down…”

And with that, the smile on my face never falters, even as each imperfectly chopped piece of his body stops twitching too.

Not a single knock at the door, not a voice calling out, not even the careless intrusion of someone expecting her to answer.

The house settles into a silence so complete it feels unnatural, as if the world has quietly decided to forget us and move on.

Days pass.

Maybe more.

Time loses structure inside this space, bending around the slow decay of what remains of the bodies.

The smell worsens before it stops meaning anything, thick and invasive at first, then gradually becomes part of the air itself until I no longer register it as something separate.

Maggots come eventually.

I remember watching them, the sluggish way they move, the way they gather to consume without any judgment.

For a moment, I think they’re moving toward me next, that I’ll simply become part of the same process.

That’s when I understand something important. Rotting alongside the dead feels… inefficient.

So I stand and begin to clean the house all by myself.

It takes me six hours to completely erase their existence.