Bury Me Not

Redrum trudged through the woods, his breath ragged as the last dregs of adrenaline pulsed through his veins. His cheek dripped blood, part of the large gash splitting his cheek in a sickly half grin crusted over and clotted. He'd lost the woman, he assumed. He couldn't remember, not fully. He recalled his vision tunneling, his urge for revenge... and the screeching in his ears. But more than that, he still felt an obsessive urge to tear and mangle. He stopped abruptly, claws digging into the earth as he leaned against a broad, weathered tree trunk for a moment. His jaw clenched tight, the muscles in his neck straining as his golden eyes stared both blankly and intensely ahead.

Another tree in front of him became the focus point of his frustration, or at least his anger. Without warning, he lashed out, lunging, claws raking, tearing away strips of bark in jerking motions. Every splintering strike caused him to release guttural sounds, his breath hitching with every swing. Splinters flew, the sound of claws on wood filling the silence. Yet the more he clawed, the less satisfaction it brought, the emptiness inside him refusing to be filled. There was something disturbing about how little in control he felt, and for what? For that woman to toy with him, laughter echoing in his dim memory of the chase.

Redrum's body quaked as his strikes became weaker, less precise, less violent. He leaned heavily against the mutilated tree, his breathing harsh. A low, stuttered growl escaped his throat as he pressed his forehead against the trunk, his long ears pinned back against his skull. Crimson striped shoulders rising and falling with labored breaths, he stilled. Eyes staring, a mutter of curses dripping like the blood from his cheek—bitter and resentful. His frenzy and the following lash out had left him hollow, like his thoughts were whittled down into a dull and disjointed tangle of anger. Of indignity.

For a long moment, he stayed there, pressed against the tree, his mind too clouded to notice anything around him. He closed his eyes, trying to steady his breathing, to anchor himself in the quiet—even if it was the only thing he had left.

"Murder"