Killing (And Other Games)

(Prologue)

(Prologue)

I stand in the center of violence. Everything feels like liquid, thick and glue-like as the world sticks to me, and I drift in and out.  

 Things don’t make sense. They haven’t made sense for a long time. Everywhere I look I see black eyes, and sharp teeth, and festering blood. I can’t fathom things before now, or what will come next. I am screaming and screaming and screaming, and nobody can hear a thing.

I watch as a boy with a Cheshire smile drags a long legged girl with pale champagne coloured hair down the stairs. They both laugh, and I think they’re laughing at me.

I watch a man who has no power at all kill a creature that has for all the time we know.

But most of all I watch a fight. How long ago was it that I would reject this situation, call it inhumane and turn my head? But as they spill blood that doesn’t belong to them, as I wait to see who wins and who dies, it all feels so normal. So natural.

The victor holds the head of the loser, eyeing it as he strides towards me, his eyes wide and his coal hair slicked back with blood. I do not flinch as he wraps his arms around me and leans down.

Like someone has grabbed the back of my collar, I am being dragged away so fast that clarity comes back to me and I am disgusted, I am retching, at the thought that this is what I have become part of.

As everything seeps away, I see faces and coins and dark glass, and eventually the only thought I am left with is How did I get here?