{T H I R D} Degree {Kay}

She lay in a dark room, coated in her sins and diving into her euphoric fantasies.

Next to her was the body of a man whose secrets were darker than her own, and his life was the winter coat she wore. The scarlet jacket was peculiar; the blood of her enemies usually wasn’t worn in victory. For her murder was always a twist of a knife and a passing thought.

But tonight she could not settle just for the act, tonight she would bathe in her winnings and fanaticize of victory. Tonight was her birthday, and she would not accept anything less than euphoria.

Seconds… minutes… hours… later she peeled her self from the crimson floor. The body had gone colder than her soul, and the coat of victory no longer felt like justice, but, rather, a sticky annoyance. It would not be easy to clean up all the evidence, but with a bottle of bleach and the strong arms of her butler, it would disappear faster than her patience for stupidity.

The marble floors of her home caused her heels to click, click, click while the blood coating her arms caused any movement to make a soft squeak. With a sigh she tossed her dress and shoes into the furnace, and, careful to avoid the maids, she marched her naked, bloody body to the bathroom. The shower burned away her past acts, rebirthing her for the acts of the future. Steam wafted throughout the room, accompanied by the sweet smell of cake. Her father’s cooks were obviously prepping for the party to take place later, the sugar and yeast mixing into an intoxicating aroma of past birthdays. But Cyra knew she would not enjoy it; since birth she had become tainted. She was no longer the girl who would cry with joy at every little gift handed to her. A heart of stone and dead eyes has replaced the girl with pigtails. Cyra Tully did not care for cake.

She emerges from the burning rain with new skin as her sins disappear down the drain. After drying herself with a dark, fluffy towel she changes into a large shirt that could double as a dress, the loose cotton hiding her curves of appeal and figure of desire.

She lay upon the bed sinking into the springs and feathers, hoping to suffocate beneath the comfort before returning to the world she hates. Her long dead eyes stare up upon the beige landscape, ears death to the commotion below. Perhaps if she hadn’t been so lost in the world of her own she would’ve noticed the intruders destroying it.

They grabbed her quickly, and when she tried to scream, she was silenced by the almighty stick of justice.

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Sound cannot exist in a vacuum.

She supposes that’s why she heard nothing, because she was a vacuum. With hands of red and heart of stone, she had stolen the life of others, sweeping them into herself in a feeble attempt at cleansing. Her attempt at vigilantism had failed… miserably she might add.

So, as she lay in the soundless vacuum of her own creation, Cyra knew that death would come. They had proven her guilt that much she was sure, but how? The question nagging in the back of her mind, she desperately tried to remove the bag over her head. She could no longer take the midnight, something she had long loved for cover now hindered her from seeing her death approaching.

When the brutal arm yanked her up, forcing her to sit upon cool medal, she imagined a crowd up ahead, staring upon he murderess with a mixture of fear and awe, and Cyra could not help but smile. She would die a legend, known for justice, not hate.

But the bag was removed, and Cyra was not on a pedestal as she had fantasized, she was in a room of silver, mirror displaying a wild animal staring back at her. Movement brought the realization of reflection, and observation brought the panic. She had heard whispers of something like this existing.

Interrogation.

She would not be a public figure; she would die the darkness, never known nor cared for. But a lone thought caused swift recalculations, Why interrogate a woman proven guilty?

So when the door creaked open and the peacekeeper strolled in, Cyra Tully was not in the panic that she was in just moments ago. Her cheeks had relaxed, her arms carefully folded, and her feet steady on the ground. Cyra Tully was calm and collected.

And her dead, dead, dead eyes were locked forward.