An End

She stared up at the darkening sky, shivering as the answer came to her. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t considered in the past. In truth she had given the idea ample thought, but was much too afraid to ever let it journey farther than her imagination. Quivering lips moved, forming a small ‘O’ as the she was forced to bear the burden of realization. “Heaven help them.” She whispered brokenly.
         Her back was aching from long hours of sitting. The dull pain was bothersome, but had never been debilitating. Now she could not keep her mind off it. Agonizingly her shoulders throbbed and pricks of pain blossomed up her spine. She swallowed and took two deep breaths, arching her back in vain attempt to ease the pain while glancing behind at the closed door. She licked her lips and took yet another shuddering breath. “I can’t do this.”
         
                But she laid her fingers on the keys of the typewriter anyway. Her thumb twitched. A few other fingers followed suit as if eager to begin. Click. A letter was typed. Click. Another one followed like advancing soldiers. The symphony soon began. The clicks resounding through the empty room a disharmony she could not tune. Her fingers paused. New line. And began once more. Time lengthened. She felt only the small, smooth squares and the grooves that formed individual letters. She could smell the ink and taste her own blood as she let her broken lip free from where she had trapped it between her teeth. The ending. All the situation lacked was a suitable ending. There had never been closure as she was a fan of fresh, open wounds. As a child she’d picked scabs; she had the scars to prove it. She only knew how to start and complicate things, but now the situation required an answer. There would be no more questions. How did he do it? Where was the evidence? Why her? She was a master at asking questions. Answering questions with more questions. Confusion was like the saint she prayed to. She chanced a glance out the window, twitching fingers barely paused above warm keys. The trees no longer moved. Life waited to see how she would manage what had been denied to her for so long. The solution to end all others. Her masterpiece of gruesome proportions.

                Her fingers moved to begin again, but she held them back while gritting her teeth with indecision. It didn’t have to truly end. No, all she had to do was write one more page. One more unsolved murder for unknown reasons and by unknown causes. She smiled. The curse would end and heaven preserve the soul who ever tried otherwise.

              “The writer paused for a moment to smile at her simple thought. It filled her with a joy she had not known in five very long years. She would finally be able to write as her soul demanded with the repercussions. She would not have to answer the ‘whys’ of her strange situation, but would be content in the fact that there was no answer for something as hellish as her living nightmare. Dramatic, to be sure. The thought only caused her grin to lengthen. And with a deep breath of relief her heart constricted and stopped beating. And he---“

         A sudden breeze pushed through the sheer curtains blowing the forgotten papers about the room, effectively covering the prone form on the dirty floor.