44. Him
HIM
THE HOLLOW
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Why would she say something like that? Why did she make us do that? We didn’t want to hurt her again.
A sound tears from our throat—half anguish, half fury—as we stare down at her still body sprawled in the dirt.
Our fingers claw into our scalp, nails digging deep as we yank at our hair until the sting cuts through the chaos in our head.
We circle her like a caged animal, our feet wearing a path in the packed earth.
She’s wrong. I am her Samson. We’re her Samson.
Now we have to punish her. She has to understand that she’s ours, but her behavior can’t stand.
Glancing up at the lightbulb, we know just what to do. We unscrew the bulb from the socket, letting the darkness swallow the room whole.
We don’t need light to navigate this space. It’s our space. We stride to the pallet and sit, prepared to wait for her to wake.
The darkness will fix her.
Just like it fixed us.