Soledad Bled

He smiled, and there was a sharp razor slicing open her skin. Soledad winced.

Each friendly word preceded a sharp punch straight to her solar plexus. He had a painful accuracy, damn him.

He smiled again, kindly, mischievously. The razor slid a little deeper, cut a little sharper, carving out a tattoo; and inch of skin, a pound of flesh.

Soledad bled.

Still he smiled, seemingly impervious to her wounds. Cracked a joke.

'The joke's on me...' she thought.

Her insides were ripped apart. Viscera spilled out, raw and red. Soledad gasped.

'How will I survive...?'

And then, finally, silence from him.

This time, her heart was rent from her breast viciously, scrambled like crushed eggs.

Soledad tasted bile on her tongue and faded into numb, hollow unconsciousness.

'I wish that he had really cut me...'

Physical death would have been so much easier to endure.