Jigsaw of Reality

Each sense gradually locks itself in place, like the slow assemblage of a familiar puzzle that was scattered long ago. Each piece serves as a connection, the destruction of a barrier that isolates her from the world. The strings of experience interweave as nerve connections fire, interpreting the billions of fragments of incoming data and thus illuminating the darkness of nothing. Of death.
The sense of touch is the first to find itself in the depths, saturating its owner in the damp heat of the atmosphere that clings to trembling skin. Joints take the weight of the body, of tissue and bone as fabric and rubber covered feet feel the solidity beneath them. An unknown, ubiquitous filth seeps in and takes root, choking the pores.
Slowly, so slowly, this tattered sheet of grime acquires a scent; a pungent reeking that may not have been smelt before, but is unmistakable. The smell of dead flesh. It battles the moist rawness of rotting timbre, seeking to engulf it yet only serving to intensify both. These intermingle with the stench of coagulating blood laced with the sulphuric sting of spent gunpowder.
In turgid waves they lap the back of her throat, triggering the acidic twang of gall. The searing taste of stomach fluids goads more to rise but a laboured swallow holds it back. A second gulps attempts to relieve the sticky dryness that clogs her mouth and tastes of last nights canned spaghetti and contamination. Stale air nests on the tongue, which paws at chapped lips flavoured with encrusted saliva.
Doof doof
Such tastes are given little time to be pondered as her focus is tripped by the dull thud that sounds so distant yet feels so close. As if it’s coming from within herself.
Doof doof
The beat of her own heart.
Ear drums quiver in excitement as the shuddered sucking of air harmonises with this as she breathes the thick defiled atmosphere in awkward gasps. Beyond this internal symphony lies a distant hum. Machinery perhaps? No, more natural than that. Its drone fluctuates like a myriad of small wings diving in frenzied hunger. Flies feasting close to her? If so, she thinks she knows what is for dinner. Though it is the last sound before sight that demands her attention most fiercely as the muffled bellow of twin gunshots assault her eardrums.
The thudding quickens and drowns out all other noise.
The final piece of the jigsaw is slid into place and the mist thins; its drawn curtains peeled back to reveal the first shreds of vision. This window into existence, fogged with the winter’s morning of first sight clears with time and shapes begin to assemble and separate themselves as defined edges are established. The dulled glimmer of metal tabletops bordering a long workbench is illuminated by the weak flicker of a single overhead light bulb.
It’s a kitchen.
As the world is fully experienced and her existence in it is realised a sense of dread settles as a heavy weight on the shoulders and the feeling of exposure and vulnerability take hold.
Though, she resists the initial, impetuous urge to claim the first versatile object she sees as a weapon, one of the cooking appliances from the festooned ensemble above the workbench, and merely observes the room. Crimson brushstrokes slash the cupboard doors and coat the sink bowls in smudged recollections of fatal struggles. Darkness drinks the light insatiably as the small bulb dangling from the roof like a noose flickers in weak desperation, unable to hold the shadows and their thirst at bay forever. A heap of bloodied cloth and battered flesh lay crumbled over in the left corner of the room and she moves to inspect it with neither hesitation nor repulsion. Gutted bullet casings litter the ground but there’s no sign of the weapon. Nimble fingers check them like a body’s pulse. Still warm from the chamber. She strokes the engraving.
.45.
So, there’s a revolver out there somewhere.
  She moves closer to the corpse where flies, seemingly birthed from the filth-ridden air itself, have gathered at the inch thick lesions which dapple the chest and flanks. She kneels beside the body, hands cast out not to check for life as they did with the casings but to end the sightless eyes bold stare at Death. Soft palms sweep slowly downwards, signalling the man’s surrender. The curly brown hair of a man perhaps in his late adolescence is clumped with dried blood. She approaches the mess first as a scavenger, relieving a bulging shirt pocket of a box of revolver rounds and a numb thigh of its knife-fitted scabbard. It is only after this that she scans the body with the acquired skill of a mortician, eliciting the bloodstained memories of past events.
Arts such as these have proven their worth many times over.
Shallow punctures, numerous and diffused, to the torso signify the initial shock and consequential panic of the wielder. It is only once they have calmed down and accessed the situation that strategy is introduced and the fatal shot is taken. This is indicated by the small indent where the skull has collapsed on the left side of the cranium just above the cheekbone. This may have only been taken once the victim was incapacitated from the numerous wounds and was done as a final blow of mercy. So, the wielder is capable of killing, but has yet to develop the reflexes to think clearly and strategically when caught off guard. She observes the piercing wounds in comparison to the bludgeoning of the temple; pointed on one side, blunt on the other…a hammer perhaps?
She smiles, this should be very interesting.
But where is the murder weapon? With bench tops previously searched she turns to the floor, icy tiles coated with all manners of grime are clutched under anxious hands as she searches under the benches for anything that suits the description. Time is sparse and adjusted eyes cut through the shadows with relative ease. It isn’t long before they pause on a suspicious layer of darkness, long and thin under the stove halfway across the room. She crawls towards it with uncanny speed and reaches in after it, clenching it in determined fingertips and dragging it out despite its recalcitrant, metallic scrape. Held up in the wounded light she admires her prize with a newly obtained alacrity. Gotcha.
A bloodstained crowbar.
  A series of trial swings not only adjust her body to the heavy metal and awkward shaping of the bar but spark the small embers of bloodlust which spatter and flicker with impatience. Not as clean as a revolver, she decides, but just as efficient. It’s better than nothing. With the bullet box in the side pocket of her jeans and scabbard strapped to her own thigh she turns towards the kitchen door and the world that lives on the other side of it and smiles.   
She moves off to find her own victim.
Peeking around the kitchen doorway and down either hallway branch she finds both to be clear. With crowbar clutched tightly in both hands she hops across to the opposite hallway wall, sinking into the conveniently placed shadows. The gunshots came from the right branch, at least fifty feet or so from where she now stands. At first she wades through the coagulated air, suffocated with the dense fumes of death that disperse only slightly as distance is put between herself and the corpse in the kitchen.
  As she moves further along, her muscles adjusting and the air slightly thinner, she floats on nimble feet through the hall towards the first doorway on her right, ears absorbing the smallest of sounds and eyes constantly scanning, never caught on one object. Traumatised walls hunch and bleed with past battles, moulting their painted skin in ragged shreds. These litter the ground to accompany the dribblings of both fresh and old blood that lend the wooden floor the appearance of a festering wound.
She wonders how many others have fallen so far and thus triggers the bloodlust fire to flare and a sadistic ardour that creeps into her muscles, fuelling her desire to hurry and find another living soul. Yet every action is carried out with the utmost prudence, executed like rehearsed choreography that is moulded to the environment. Blood and water moistened floorboards sag under her weight and a disobedient floorboard threatens to squeal when she applies the slightest pressure, but is quickly hushed with a swift change of footing. 
A glance into the right hand room, an empty bedroom, assures her of no immediate threat and she launches herself across the doorway and back into the shadows. She approaches the next door on her left. The muffled sounds of struggle echo from up ahead, growing louder as the doorway draws closer.
Her pace quickens.
Her grip on the bar tightens.
With back firmly against the wall, inches from the doorframe, she strains her ears, using them to create a mental image of the situation inside the room. Tracings of harsh whispers and gasps struggle to get airborne and those that do are caught and interpreted.
“Please.”
“Why…doing this?”
“…bullshit.” 
Floorboards groan under redistributed weight and small grunts tell of strenuous confrontation. She assumes there is some sort of stalemate in progress inside and, in a worthwhile gambit, glances around the frame’s edge.
  The knife is no more than a centimetre from the boy’s chest and gradually moves closer. Arm muscles shudder and bulge as the woman uses her weight to drive the long carving knife lower and lower, pinning him to the ground with straddled legs. Blonde hair falls over her bowed head like straw as she bares neat white teeth and presses harder. Her back faces the woman at the doorway and the revolver lay discarded and alone in the farthest corner of the room. His own arms, with hands clasped around hers, fight against both muscle and body weight in a desperate attempt to stop the descent of the blade. Vein and muscle stand proud but the escaped moan as the point touches flesh tells of his undeterred fate. One millimetre, two, half a centimetre, like an ink stained quill dipped into a fresh pot. The blade slides deeper between the ribs, soon to puncture a lung and run him through entirely. The first drops are soaked up greedily, drenching the frayed edges of the torn shirt. Perspiration gathers at every pore on his body and thick beads of sweat dribble down the boy’s cheeks.
Or perhaps they were tears.
“P-ple-” his cries for clemency melt to whimpers as the pain severs his ability to form words.
During these tortured moments the woman at the door has slipped in silently, and is now making her way towards the revolver with single intent. The boy’s pleas are bound and gagged in her subconscious. The boy’s eyes, wide in terror, darting between the knife and his assailant’s eyes, never see her move through his field of vision. Perhaps it is the shadows that hide her form, or perhaps it’s the hot fear that grips his body with such intensity. Either way, so far, so good, she thinks as she draws closer and closer to the gun. With a long range weapon she will hold the advantage over many of the others.
She needs that revolver.
With crowbar held at chest height, ready to swing if needed, she reaches out a slender arm for the gun. Closer, closer, so close. It is only when she is a mere few feet away from her gun that a voice, twisted with cruel mockery, wakes her from her focus.
“You would not be thinking of going for that gun now would you dear?”
The blade’s descent had come to a halt and the boy’s breathing had steadied. Silence drowns the room as the woman pauses in her claiming of the revolver. The assailant rises slowly from the boy’s waist, head down, blade by her side weeping scarlet tears from its tip.
“-Because that would be very, very rude.”
“As a matter of fact Faull,” she began with a smile, “I was. I didn’t want to ruin your intimate moment so I thought id just take it off your hands and move on.” She stood up straight, forgetting the gun and instead focusing on the woman in front of her. She had known the woman’s identity as soon as she had seen the messy blond hair, though in her opinion, settling old scores came second to obtaining a long range weapon of the revolver’s magnitude. Though, that mock sneer does lay pasted a little too securely to her face.
Perhaps the gun can wait.
She swings she crowbar up and rests it on her shoulder in a gesture of challenge. With a delicate blood stained hand Faull sweeps her hair from her face and looks up, deep blue eyes locking onto the one who tried to claim her winnings. Her mouth parts into a large grin, full red lips bordering those perfect teeth.   
“Oh did you now?”
Faull wipes the knife blade on her jeans and steps forward with confidence, leaving the boy to clutch his wound in the ambivalence of disbelief and sheer terror.
“I would have thought someone like you would have grabbed the gun and shot me in the back of the head and then-” she tips her head in the direction of the boy “-shot him.-” She pauses with a questioning frown, “-Or have we finally grown some balls Kaz?”
The crowbar bounces lightly on her shoulder and hides her anticipation no better than the excitement that squirms in her voice.
“Why don’t you come and find out?” retorts Kaz with an innocent smile.
  With an impetuousness that takes even Kaz off guard Faull steals three quick steps in, lashing out with her knife in a fury of sinuous jabs and slashes. Kaz sweeps herself backwards, gracefully dancing around the blade’s thirsty point. With a slight tilt of her head she evades a thrust for her face, then ducks backward to watch the blades path change and be brought widely along where her neck was moments earlier. Kaz leaps back in her crouched position and, standing at full height, she parries the final stroke with the shaft of her crowbar with a sturdy swing and retreats a further few steps back towards the door.
  “Leaving so soon Kaz dear?” Faull asks between gasped breathes.  “That is a tad rude isn’t it?” With a flick of her head she removes the hair from her eyes, revealing eyes cased in malicious intent. 
“Why Faull my darling, I’ve barely begun this tea party,” explains Kaz, miming Faull’s pompous tone as she raises her crowbar.
  Its her turn to fall into an offensive and with wide swinging arcs of the crowbar she pushes Faull backward. More precisely, backward into a corner. Faull observes the holes the heavy bar leaves in her opponent’s defence and stoically awaits her moment, moving back in temporary acquiesce. The moment is found when her back is a foot or so from the wall and thus she reverses her grip on the blade. Using the wall as a spring board for her back foot Faull launches herself across the room, knife poised. Kaz holds her ground, her arcs grow slightly smaller but none the less enticing to Faull, as she waits patiently for her own predetermined moment. It presents its meek self as Faull commits herself to the final assault, placing her left hand on the bottom of the handle for extra pressure and aiming to slip between the crowbar’s swing and pierce the chest. Faull closes in, gaining speed as gravity weighs down…
At the last instant the crowbar’s arcs collapse and Kaz sidesteps and twirls out of Faull’s line of attack. Faull is left to stumble awkwardly in front of her, unprotected and with her back turned.
Perfect.
She is granted a moment to realise her folly before Kaz takes a step forward and swings the crowbar with as much force as possible at Faull’s neckline. Its malevolent hook catches Faull cleanly around the neck, dislocating her upper vertebrae and puncturing the wind pipe. With the crowbar firmly clamped, Kaz wretches backward, using Faull’s own momentum as an extra opposing force on her windpipe. A scarlet scarf of blood unfurls from her neck as her feet are swept off the ground and she is hauled backward. Faull hits the floor with a solid thud, raising decades of dust from the floorboards to mingle with the air that she tries so furiously to suck in with mouth agape.
Much to no avail.
The crowbar has torn out a large section of her already damaged windpipe thus the best she can muster is a soft gurgle as bubbles of blood form around the large hole spanning her throat. Limbs twitch spasmodically and eyes flit back and forward as the last of her energy drains away with her life blood and oxygen. Her head rolls from side to side before freezing, eyes coming to rest on the boy. With her last skerrick of energy those beautiful lips purse and curl into a warm smile. Eyes glaze over and she takes the appearance of a porcelain doll a young girl would call her best friend. Muscles relax and the smile fades. The boy will come to wonder whether it had ever existed or whether the fear had caused him to imagine it. Kaz smiles and swings the crowbar back onto her shoulder as a farmer or a miner would when standing back to admire their work.
“Prissy bitch never knows when to pick her fights and when to run.”
The boy, forgotten amongst the battle, has recovered little since his own struggle but now contains the strength to crawl slowly towards the gun. His eyes never leave those of the woman that had, only minutes ago, been slowly killing him. Six feet. She seems so peaceful now. Four feet. Almost gentle and kind. Two feet-Kaz turns from Faull’s still form to the boy, smile growing with increasing malice.
“Oh no you don’t,” she says with an eager flippancy, walking after him with crowbar held high. His pleas comes out as only a cough as he drags himself with one arm, the other soaked in his own blood as it staunches the wound, towards the gun. Kaz readies the final swing, twisting her upper body like a baseball player would to hit a home run. The boy reaches out for the gun, feels its cool metal beneath his fingers. When he turns the barrel towards the attacker he sees her form hulking over his own, crowbar descending into its deadly centripetal force that would undoubtedly disfigure his face to the point where identification would be impossible. He looks into her eyes which are submerged in bloodlust and a drawn smile, not entirely cruel, slowly sinks as she realises she is just an instant too late. Perhaps she should have taken this boy a little more seriously.
Touché. 
  The gun goes off, the rounds slamming point blank into her stomach and chest with enough force to lift her feet from the ground just as Faull’s were. One, two discharges separate tissue and bone as they drive through her ribcage to puncture the vital organs beneath. A third sounds, plunging into the abdominal muscles, entrails and finally the spinal cord to sever feeling to her legs. Clickclick…click. The revolver smokes and shudders in the boys trembling grip as the crowbar hits the floor with a metallic thump followed closely by her own harsher collision.
For a moment silence makes itself at home in the room once again, this time stretching out and putting its feet up to the point that the entire house seems to have been muted. “Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck,” the boy whispers, shaking his head as if in defiance of the reality of the situation. The gun falls from numb hands to his side, useless and forgotten. He hesitates only a moment before wriggling the few feet towards the woman. A pool of blood creeps out from her back and the boy slips on it as he scrambles to her side.
“Nice shot kiddo,” she murmurs, untying a lace of blood down her cheek.
“I-I”
“Don’t worry about it. You did what you had to.”
His eyes begin to shimmer as tears form.
“Check my pockets.” She gasped. “I picked up the box of shells-” a rough cough seemingly made of blood rattles her chest “-you missed on the kid in the kitchen.”
With careful hands he locates the shells and removes them though by now she cannot feel anything. Even  the smell of sweat and soon the taste of her own blood will have evaporated. He looks back into her eyes with an expression of awe.
A gentle smile graces her lips. “You’ll need them kiddo.”
“This isn’t fair,” he complained, his eyebrows furrowed, the tears welling up in the corners of his eyes threatening to spill.
“Oh it’s alright.” She lays back her head and looks up at the ceiling, supine in both position and expression. He begins to say something but she cannot make it out. She realises her hearing has sunk back into the abyss and thus it wont be long now. She goes on as if the whole world is silent.
“Don’t worry. Ill get you next time.” 
And, just as with Faull, the light which once burned so bright in her eyes is smothered and extinguished, the curtains are re-drawn and the darkness creeps in. The jigsaw pieces break their grip, tumbling away into the dark.
The boy is left all alone.
The tears he had tried so hard to keep back break through and deep, painful sobs wreck his body. He does not understand any of this. What meaning is there to be taken from this bloodshed? Where is the motive? Hopes and dreams are erased in an instant, and for what? Both of these women, these girls, each undoubtedly only an adolescent like himself, had tried to kill him and yet he mourns their deaths with such fervour. Such confusion only evokes more sobs and he holds his head in his bloody hands and wishes he was anywhere but in this dank hole of senseless violence and murder.
It is some time before he finds the strength to wipe away the tears and stumble to his feet and even longer to look upon the two bodies without flinching and with dry eyes. When the time does come he leaves the room on numb feet clutching a dazed expression, only to return a short time later with a shovel in tow. The cracked, wooden end has been sharpened to a point and both ends look as if they have been dipped in red paint. The metal tip drags along the wooden floor behind him, leaving a trail that will later help him find the girl’s room in the labyrinth of hallways.   

He will encounter not a living soul during this burial process though will stumble upon an elderly oak tree in the backyard that, despite the deep root system which jars his shovel, will make a perfect burial site for the two girls. His dam of emotion which staunched the tears will be broken once more during this process and he will fear his tears will drown him in his shovel-made puddle before he can finish it. As the tree and its twin graves are bathed in the last golden light of the day his exhaustion will reach its peak as the final shovel-fulls of earth are laid to rest on Kaz’s grave. The thought of digging another for the unfortunate boy he relinquished the gun from will be forgotten with the coming of darkness. Instead he will stagger and fall against the hulking tree, sliding to the ground and losing consciousness from fatigue and lack of blood.