Five seconds. It had taken me five seconds to become a monster.

There's a woman laying in front of me face down, her neck twisted at an odd angle. Blonde hair strewn about covers a portion of her face, but I can still see one eye twisted up towards the sky in fear. Her yellow blazer is covered in blood along with her hands, the right one bent backwards and gripping a handheld camera. Down near her torn pants lays a mustard yellow heel, the other one hanging off her foot. I had complimented those very same heels earlier.

The crowd around me is still screaming, chanting something incomprehensible. I can hear sirens in the distance, but I know they're not for her. It smells like smoke, sweat, and blood. My picket sign is still gripped in my left hand, and the microphone that had been attached to her was still in my right. It had came off so easily, so quickly.

I don't even remember what the protest had been for. All I know is I wanted to be apart of something, to scream and be heard. I wanted to be angry for a purpose, to let my otherwise insignificant presence be known.

When the media showed up, the woman in the yellow heels had made a beeline for me. I was excited to speak with a journalist, and I couldn't contain my excitement as she flashed her press badge with a big grin.

She greeted me, her name and affiliation going in one ear and out the other. I waved my sign for her camera, passionately sharing my opinion as if I was some soapbox preacher. She'd eaten it up, not taking her eyes off of me for a second. I stopped to take a breath.

"I like your heels." I'd said.

She grinned at me even wider, lowering her camera. "Thanks."

Not too long after that she'd moved on to someone else and I rejoined the crowd which had seemingly gotten bigger. Police had arrived by this point, barricading us. The crowd was surging against the panels like a wave, their chanting growing louder. It smelled of anger and desperation. I had began waving my sign even harder, screaming until my throat was sore.

Someone threw a rock. In response a cop maced the front of the crowd. The crowd surged at the barricades, and objects began to fly. Rubber bullets began striking people next to me, and I followed the push of the crowd. I picked up a brick and joined my fellow comrades in the assault, fighting through clouds of tear gas.

At one point I was shoved, stumbling out to the side. Catching my bearings I glanced up, and there she was--yellow heels. She looked panicked, trying to stay hidden at the side of the crowd and pushing her way towards the barricade. I don't know what came over me, but I made my way towards her.

Sweat rolled down my face, eyes burning from the tear gas and clothes torn from the insurgency. The crowd was still screaming and pushing, the police slowly loosing ground. She turned and caught my eye, her own widening as she began to try and move faster from me.

A few steps and I was right behind her, reaching a bloody hand out and grabbing her by the hair. I yanked her back, her cry of pain drowned out by the crowd. Her hands reached back and grabbed my own, digging her nails into my wrist trying to pry loose. I hissed and let go of her, watching her wobble on her heels and fall backwards. She quickly rolled onto her knees and stood, and I lunged forward and grabbed her by the blazer. Her microphone came loose and into my hand as she tried to twist away, screaming for me to stop. I shoved her once more, watching as she once again rolled over and tried to crawl away. Without a second thought I raised my foot and stomped down near the base of her head, feeling the crunch at my heel.

Her body fell, going limp instantly. Blood began to pool out of her mouth and around her. I stood there, breathless and heaving, as the crowd continued to roar around me. No one seemed to notice, or care. Many stepped near or on her, fighting to get to the front.

My throat and hands began to feel numb. It had happened so fast--so casually. My head swam with feelings I cannot describe. All I know is that I am here now, in this moment, staring at a woman I have just murdered.

Five seconds. It had taken me five seconds to become a monster.

I used to have vivid dreams. Hallucinated landscapes where I could feel sensations so real there were times I was unable to tell what was a dream and what was reality. If I pricked my finger, the pain was sharp and dull, throbbing as the blood warmed my broken skin. Rarely did I have nightmares, and I considered myself lucky to have such lucid dreams.

Then I got sick. Really sick. The kind of sick an eighteen-year-old doesn't and shouldn't get. A sickness had manifested itself into a vital pair of my organs, and suddenly I was popping twenty pills a day just to keep my body going. Leashed to a machine during the night to keep me alive. I swelled, gained weight. Stopped swelling, lost weight. Veins busted, body scarred. Filled out, hollowed out.

I've always been a strong person, unfazed by most things. I used to stand tall and flip my thick mess of tight curls behind my shoulder. My favorite feature. When I realized the disease was taking that too, evident by the clump of hair staring back at me from my palm, I threw up.

I used to love to dance with ballerina legs in the secrecy of my room, an impossibly painful feat now. Muscles destroyed from the medication, my body dangerously skeleton like. I stumble and fall, rueful at my newfound clumsiness.

I have never experienced depression, but suddenly its bitter aftertaste filled my throat like saltwater, drowning me. I was a cup, brimming with liquid but never quite spilling.

My precious dreams manifested themselves into dark apparitions after my diagnosis. Fitful nightmares where my doctor curls his fingers around my throat, squeezing as I turn red and gasp for air.

“You’re killing me,” I choke out, clawing at his hands.

“You’re doing it to yourself,” he responds with a frighteningly blank expression, his eyes devoid of emotion.

Now I no longer dream. With the acceptance of what happened to me came a blackness that I cannot describe. My mind is empty with consciousness.

Many nights I do not sleep at all. These nights I feel my chest constrict and my eyes well with tears. A gasping comes deep within my throat, and then I am reaching out with trembling hands into the darkness of my room, grasping at the air uselessly trying to ground myself.

“What are you doing?” I choke out, pulling my heart out of my chest and crushing it in my hands. “Stop.”

Some nights, when the world is silent, my room begins to suffocate me. My tears fall in large glistening drops onto the carpet, and my throat feels like I've swallowed cotton. Stifling sobs, I stumble out the door and down the stairs, the night air filling my lungs.

I run through the darkness, barefoot and thinking of nothing. It is bitterly cold and entirely dangerous at this time of night, but all rationale is gone as my feet slap the asphalt.

I’m racing against my emotions, lungs squeezing painfully as I’m determined to be the victor. I run from the sadness and the self-pity, sprinting across the street, ignoring the traffic lights. I hurl past buildings, away from the questions of “why me?” and empty wishes to undo time. If I’m fast enough, I can even outrun the anger which reaches for me, trying to crawl up my neck in a whisper of heat. I reach the outskirts of the street, just barely escaping the feelings of denial, heaving and gasping for oxygen.

I stand in the empty street for a moment, listlessly staring at the ground. The silence is deafening. I turn, walking back through the darkness.

I think back to when I was not leashed, not relying on others to bathe me, not a fall risk, not a statistic. I wonder if I will ever dream again, dancing through my mind with ballerina legs once more. This time, I have no tears left to shed.

“Hah-” I huffed, clutching a hand over my green sweater. I could feel myself grinning. “You got me. Right in the side.”

José and his lady friend stepped back with visible shock written over their faces. Her little red purse lay at my feet, the smell of burning leather rising from the hole blown into the side of it. It swirled in my senses, lingering with the heavy scent of blood.

“You got me.” I repeated, a sudden wave of fear rushing over me. I suddenly felt sick with realization of what just transpired. I spoke again, voice cracking, “You got me.”

The pair turned and ran, José shouting obscenities at his friend who stumbled in her stiletto heels around the corner and into his beat up junk car. I stumbled back right as the vehicle spun out and around the street, tires squealing.

“Oh yikes.” I breathed, feeling the sudden warmth oozing from my fingers and down my thigh. Wasn’t this supposed to be the part where I went into shock? Where a sudden wave of adrenaline motivated me forward? Wasn’t my survival instincts supposed to kick in? I was grossly aware of the gaping wound in my left side. So disgustingly aware I felt like gagging at the sensation of my open skin. This had been too quick. Far too quick.

José had been struggling with his drug payments--I had known that. Everyone working downtown knew that. When him and his blonde bimbo had appeared behind the video store I was resting behind, arguing about how he’d meet his next deadline, I had wanted to help. José had been a decent man to me, he’d always been respectful of my area. So when I walked around the corner and grabbed a hold of his arm to tell him to quiet down before security came outside the last thing I had expected was a swinging purse with a hidden gun inside that had the safety off. I don’t think she expected it either. Stupid whore, carrying a weapon like that so blase, she was asking for an accident to happen--and it did.

I took a hard step forward not quite knowing which direction to go. My clothes were wet against my waist and thigh, revoltingly sticky with blood. I tried to think of what direction the hospital was, or the nearest phone. The video store’s fluorescent light splayed out across the sidewalk, glowing faintly from the back. I pressed my hand against the wall, steadying myself as I attempted to walk around to the front of the store and alert the security guard I needed help.

A wave of vertigo hit me and I hissed, falling to my knees. The pain didn’t even register in my head. I slumped to the side against the dumpster, shakily breathing out. My hand was still pressed hard into my waist, I was too afraid to pull it away. The thought made me dry heave--I had always been squeamish around blood or mortal wounds. Faced with my own I felt as if I could vomit.

“Oh you’ve done it this time Adriana. You really have.” I spoke to the crisp night air, curling deeper around myself. All motivation to stand and seek help was draining out of me at a pace I didn’t care to keep up with. Had I not contemplated ending my own life to spare myself from the streets every day up until this point? A twinge of sadness resonated through me. Perhaps I was upset because this way I hadn’t been prepared for.

With suicide the ending is known. I would’ve had time to say my goodbyes to the strays I fed, or to dress up nicely. I could’ve died on the riverbank, or perhaps even under the bridge just off the highway. I could’ve left some form of identification on myself, so they could’ve at least held a memorial for me. I was at least worthy of that, wasn’t I?

I can’t be too upset. Not with this ending. This is a form of mercy, I suppose. I’ve contributed so very little to this tiny Oklahoma town. I had an alright home life, so for me to throw away my own potential by ending up on the streets as a second-rate prostitute seemed like a waste of existence. I could’ve had an average life if I’d cared more, so maybe this was what I deserved.

“Oh, jeez. Oh man, that hurts.” I hissed, a dull ache resounding throughout my side. I curled deeper into the side of the dumpster, suddenly realizing I was cold. I breathed in deeply, pain crashing into me again and numbing my mouth. A tingling sensation was creeping up into my feet. Anxiety and acceptance battled inside me forcing their way out as tears in my eyes.

This was it. I knew it was. I’d become another cold case statistic. This small town sheriff’s department would probably never piece together what had happened. An unidentified woman laid up against a back alley dumpster, a smoking purse mere feet from her. Had it been a drug deal gone wrong? A lovers quarrel? Maybe even a crime of passion?

I chuckled lowly, and then winced at the pain it caused. The tingling had grown up into my thighs now, intermingling with the warm and cold sensation of wet blood hitting the chilly Midwest air. It would be minutes now, I was sure of it.

“Lord, forgive me.” I breathed, accepting that this was ultimately what I deserved. To be absorbed into the Earth and forgotten among its inhabitants. An uneventful, miserable life that could’ve been more. A deep, wallowing sadness enveloped me. Regret rising like bile in my throat.

Hot tears ran down my face as I realized that I no longer felt pain from my side. The tingling had climbed its way up my face and wrapped around my ears like cold hands. I curled deeper into the dumpster, pressing my face into its cold metal and sighing deeply as a wave of drowsiness hit me. This was it. The finale. Breathing out once more, I swallowed a hiccuping sob and allowed sleep to overcome me for one, final time.

There is no evidence of you here now.

Nothing but a stone and a pile of dust under the soil.

It has been a year since you died.

I let the flowers you planted die too.

My hands were not worthy to touch them.

This ground no longer knows you. Only me.

It has long forgotten the way you used to run barefoot through its tall grass.

I pray for the Earth to forget me as it did you.

I have never liked the sound of my voice in an empty room.

The deafening finality of it is so loud.

There was no one here but us, and that has changed.

The silence is constant now.

I am constantly grasping and letting go of the things that hold onto you.

I am torn between suffering and numbness.

I have never been alone without you.

I wish for the Earth to swallow me, I am the only one left to take.

If I pray to the empty ground of your grave, who will hear?

There is no one.