A Good Night in Hell

Sometimes the night can play tricks on the senses. You lie awake in bed and see shadows creeping across the balcony outside. You hear the snick of a lock being picked with quick efficiency. You smell the stink of hot sweaty bodies on the breeze created from an opening door. If you close your eyes, you can almost feel the sweet caress of a bullet gliding across your cheek - and the hot sting of fire blooming in it wake. It's a good thing the night swallows the screams of pain that erupt, like a lovers kiss in the heat of ecstasy.

Reality set in when Carl realized that his arm had already grabbed the gun under his pillow. Firing in quick repetitions, he was vaguely aware that the screams were not his own. The weeping coming from the corner of the room was not his inner child crying to be heard in a world without ears. The blood splattered on his bed was not his life spilling forth in a gruesome effigy.

They were all dead. Why hadn’t the weeping stopped?