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    PUNISHMENT III


    ANESTHESIA


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    This... This was never supposed to happen…


    Unable to calm the frenzied, arrhythmic cadence of his heart, each stuttering beat served Brennan as a visceral reminder of the nightmare he had inadvertently unleashed; ending up suffocated as he stared at the lifeless body sprawled across the floor.


    A small puddle of blood seeped from her head like a faint, morbid halo; the crimson liquid accusingly mocking his stunned disbelief. His trembling hands reached out, clinging to the desperate hope that this was but a cruel trick of his mind —that at any moment, Beverly’s eyes would snap back, and she would soon scold him for overreacting, as she usually did.


    Yet she remained deathly still, his widened eyes fixing on her blank ones, kept in a perpetual, silent rebuke. The icy grip of shock squeezed the breath out of his lungs as the full, leaden gravity of his actions finished settling like an oppressive weight upon his chest.


    “I never… I never meant for it to end this way…” The words tumbled from his trembling lips, a feeble entreaty to the uncaring void that now stretched before him, vast and unforgiving. “God… What have I done?… Bev…”


    The day had transpired like any other, an unremarkable procession of trivial mundanity. As usual, he attended his marketing management lecture at college and paid little attention. Their afternoon date was meant to be a brief respite, a moment of connection on the ever-widening chasm that now divided their once-shared vision.


    Like it was often the case, her frustrations had boiled over at some point or another during their evening, and she started berating him for his failure to secure a part-time job during the winter break —as the two of them had previously agreed. The argument continued escalating when they arrived home with the kind of practiced familiarity that came from countless repetitions. Her voice raised in pitch, and her gestures became increasingly heated and physical.


    Beverly had always possessed a penchant for throwing hands, as quick to strike as her tongue was to lash. Brennan had long since resigned himself to being the recipient of her abuse, convincing himself that enduring her outbursts was a small price to pay for the moments of tranquility that followed in the wake of her apologies.


    Then… Then why? Why did it go so different this time?


    He only wanted her to listen, for them to talk it over once more from the beginning. Lack of strength paired with a shaky emotional state overwhelmed him —that brief, momentary lapse of weakness proving catastrophic.


    When he instinctively pushed her back, relinquishing control just once to the anxiety that so often took hold of him during confrontations, he had never fathomed the horrific consequences that would follow.


    Brennan never meant to hurt her, let alone this badly.


    How could he have guessed that she would trip like that? The sight of her crumpling, her head striking the unforgiving edge of the coffee table with a gruesome thud as her neck twisted in an unnatural direction, replayed behind his eyes in a sickening loop, searing itself into his consciousness.


    This… This wasn’t his fault, was it? It was a feeble mantra, a desperate attempt to absolve himself of culpability, even as the damning evidence lay before him, forever silencing the woman he had dated since high school.


    Yes, it was true that in recent years their paths had diverged at some point, the distance between them growing ever wider as they navigated the uncharted waters of adulthood. Unlike him, Beverly had ambition, a clear design for her life. She was a restless force, a vibrant flash of light cutting through his constant dusk.


    As she began to dress sharper and act in a fiercer fashion, her attempts to shape him into someone worthwhile often ignited fierce arguments that he begrudgingly acquiesced to. He was terrified of losing her —of change. She was his sole tether, his only constant… Yet now…


    He took her hand within his own, squeezing it tightly as if to permanently imprint the still lingering warmth that gradually abandoned her still form. He could have tried to check her pulse, perhaps attempt to reanimate her with clumsy, improvised techniques gleaned from movies… But truth be told, he was so frightened by the repercussions that he didn’t even bother.


    Just a handful of hours ago, all that vexed him were the unremarkable motions with which he carried out his existence —trapped between dreams of luxury while wallowing in complacency. Enrolled in Business Administration at his parents’ behest rather than any genuine desire, the combined weight of their expectations, Beverly’s aspirations, and his own indolence had conspired to keep him shackled to a life he neither wanted nor understood how to escape.


    Everything was a tapestry of wasted potential and unfulfilled dreams, his aimless drift through experiences leaving him unprepared for the soul-crushing reality that now confronted him. Beverly’s life abandoned her soft lips in the shape of a streak of blood, plunging Brennan into a nightmarish trip of guilt and consequence with no return.


    The deafening silence that enveloped the room acted as witness to Brennan’s feeble pleas, and the weight of Beverly’s lifeless hand in his own anchored him to this grim development. He envied himself from merely one day prior —blissfully ignorant and content to bask in the illusion of safety that mediocrity afforded him. A false sanctuary, now breached by the trudging funeral dirge of fate.


    “So is this… Goodbye, Bev?” The words felt alien on his tongue, as he spoke to her lifeless form. The only way he found to cope with this gut-wrenching devastation as the clock kept on ticking, uncaring and unbothered. “Please, tell me… What should I do now?”


    There was no need to double-check. No need to futilely search for a pulse that he knew, had already fled her broken body. Brennan was certain of her death, but even if some faint sparks of life yet flickered within her, calling the police or an ambulance remained an unthinkable proposition.


    Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    He was only twenty years old, far too young to resign himself to the unforgiving confines of a prison cell. He would never survive in there.


    But then… What other options remained? Was simply ending it all a preferable resolution? The call of oblivion beckoned, a tempting invitation to submit entirely to the rapture born within loss, to relinquish his very soul rather than face the consequences.


    Was there truly no other way?


    Morbid notions crept unbidden into his consciousness, a serpentine whisper that coiled around his fraying sanity.


    Dispose of the body. Erase the evidence.


    Their apartment, rented out Brennan’s father, was certainly a nice one, but security often lacked. He was sure that there was no one watching by the reception hall to bear witness to his and Beverly’s arrival, no prying eyes to offer damning testimony.


    Yes, if someone asked, all that he needed to do was to spin a tale —claim that the two of them had separated after quarreling on the streets. Then, it was just a matter of playing dumb, to start anew unburdened by the weight of this transgression, left only to tightrope atop the moral abyss that this macabre solution teetered him upon.


    But could he truly bring himself to such depravity? To desecrate the woman he once loved, no matter how strained the threads of that affection had become?


    What other choice did he have left? Truth of the matter was… He was too afraid to take his own life, and confessing to the crime would be too harsh, for he was a victim in this whole ordeal as well, was he not?


    Perhaps… Perhaps he had stopped loving Beverly long ago, their relationship devolving into a mere performance of domesticity —a hollow pantomime of connection that had faded out since the carefree days of their youth abandoned them.


    The thought struck him like a physical blow, leaving him reeling still. Had his feelings really eroded to such an extent? Or was this another attempt to find an escape from the inescapable, to anesthetize himself against the anguish that threatened to devour him whole?


    Indecision gripped him, each potential course of action carrying consequences too terrible to fully digest. The dead weight of his existence was quickly crystallizing into a singularity of despair, every breath bringing more regret and self-pity —a part of him even envied his dead girlfriend, for she was spared from this mind-rending torture.


    Beverly’s brother and his best friend —Oscar, would undoubtedly come knocking on their door to check on them sooner rather than later. So whatever the fuck he ultimately decided on doing… It couldn’t wait even a single day.


    Brennan’s gaze flickered between her still form and the countertops that lined the kitchen, his mind already mapping out potential implements to aid in his macabre task.


    He brought himself back to his feet and approached the butcher knife, its blade honed to a razor’s edge, shining with a perverse promise. Or perhaps the hacksaw tucked beneath the sink, now calling for him —its teeth tailor-made to separate flesh from bone with brutal efficiency.


    Moving frantically, Brennan couldn’t help but to be drawn by his own gaze, reflected in the mirror at the end of the kitchen counter. Tremors ran through him as his stomach rolled with sickened revulsion at what he saw looking back.


    Despite considering himself nothing but a mere husk of a man even from beforehand, the eyes that stared back at him from beneath the chaos of his untamed brown curls were not the usual half-lidded ones glazed with disinterest that Brennan usually carried.


    Instead, they were eyes fed with insanity, replacing the characteristic lethargy that his paper-pale countenance usually carried —indeed, it was as if the devil itself had risen from the pits of hell to stare at him from the windows to his soul.


    Even his typical adornments seemed to have taken on a sinister aspect —a full array of black piercings studding his lips, nose and eyebrows. Their metallic glints mocking the gravity of his circumstance as a reminder of his immature acts of rebelliousness.


    Was this truly the path he was willing to tread? To dismember and discard Beverly like trash? All in a desperate bid to evade justice?


    Despite his conscience recoiling at the prospect, a deeper, more primal part of him recognized the brutal logic behind this course of action. Better to endure the anguish of mutilating her corporeal form than to surrender himself to an existence defined by interminable suffering and confines of cold steel and concrete.


    Yes… Beverly loved him, didn’t she? Maybe… This is what she would have liked for him to do if things spiraled so thoroughly out of control.


    The decision cemented itself before him, an inescapable inevitability borne of the most primitive instincts for self-preservation. He didn’t know if he had ever truly loved Beverly, not in the way she deserved… But in that moment, bereft of all other options, his regard for her became an afterthought, a mere footnote in the increasingly twisted annals of his desperation.


    “God-fucking-dammit…” He cursed to himself, his fingers trembling as he grabbed wads of paper towels to contain the spreading blood, while the other hand gripped the hacksaw with white-knuckled intensity. “This is exactly why I don''t like taking responsibility for shit!”


    Beneath the veneer of indifference he had so carefully cultivated, a simmering resentment festered within Brennan’s heart, fueled by the taunting laughter of his friends at his expense while they completely ignored the deep-seated traumas he still grappled with. They had always said he was inherently incapable of caring for anything or anyone, teasing that he could kill a plant just by standing beside it for too long —a self-fulfilling prophecy of negligence that he would have never imagined manifesting itself in such a horrible manner.


    But these were not mere jests any longer, Brennan concluded as he began wiping at the blood pooling around Beverly’s ebony hair, realizing then with a sinking sense of dread that the thin paper towels would prove woefully inadequate for the task at hand. The metallic scent of her life’s essence assailed his senses as it dripped through the sodden handful clenched in his trembling right hand, reaching his nose in a revolting manner.


    Did he need full towels then? Would he need to flush the blood down the drain? Was that even safe? And what would he do once he had completely serrated her flesh? Surfing the web for answers was untenable now —what if the police made a connection when inevitably investigating Beverly’s disappearance?


    He had never done so much as pick apart a chicken before… And now he had to think of what the fuck he would do with a human brain, heart and intestines.


    Questions invaded his mind one after another, in a never-ending myriad of post-apocalyptic notions. They never seemed to reach a resolution, each new query stemming from the last to drive him deeper into the depths of madness.


    “Goodness gracious, Brennan. You appear on the brink of unravelment!” Remarked a voice in impeccable crispness, the words uttered with a sophisticated and gentlemanly tone, immediately sending a shiver down his spine. No way, there shouldn’t be anyone else in the apartment to see him, jittering with a hacksaw in hand beside his motionless girlfriend. “Are you finding yourself adrift in the tumult of your mind, my dear boy?”


    They had no roommates, and Oscar didn’t possess a key to gain entry by himself. So who was the one speaking?! Who was the one who saw?! The queries blared through his crumbling psyche like wailing sirens as he frantically darted his eyes around the small apartment, desperately seeking the source of that disembodied utterance.


    A cold sweat broke out across his brow as the silence that answered his panicked search seemed to mock him with its stark emptiness. Had he truly begun hallucinating, his tenuous grasp on reality slipping through his fingers like grains of sand?


    “Oh, come on now…” The refined voice chided, laced with an undercurrent of dark amusement. “Can it actually be that your perception has been rendered so profoundly skewed just at the glimpse of a little blood? Merely lower your gaze ever so slightly…”


    Following the instructions, Brennan’s disbelieving eyes finally landed upon that… Abomination. A creature that should have never been allowed to walk on earth, now crawling atop of Beverly’s corpse to present itself before him in all of its unholy glory.


    Was it that after embracing immorality, he had opened the gates of hell itself for demons to cross over?