Please note: This story is inspired by Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
The sky sounded like it was breaking in half.
Streams of salty water streaked the windows with a fury and desperation that shook the trees and lamp posts outside, scattering whimpering dogs, mercilessly ending lives at whim. As it hammered against the pane impatiently, I watched as the mighty beast tried to break in and wash away the thing that stuck to the glass with feverish fervour, to no avail. The thing was dark and evil. Bright and crimson. Even power so great as the rain could not erase it. I should know— I had tried, too. So I sat and watched as the drops of water rounded the sill in grim failure and fell away, reduced from the powerful creature that boomed overhead to nothing. I laughed dryly, invulnerable in the tangy, dirt scented fumes of the apartment.
The building shook in a moment of vulnerability to the dark clouds. My mirror shattered as a result, the prickly shards flying across the floor indignantly, mocking me in an array of disorderly reflections staring back up at me. I sneered at the mess, just pleased at the prospect of more debris to clean up. Gathering the tiny remnants, I looked down once to see my broken face caught in an expression between still indifference and silent grief, before shutting again into a snarling one of power and strength. Ignoring the crimson pain that welled up from clutching the sharp shards so tightly, I walked stealthily to the half empty dustbin and tossed the fragments away without hesitation.
Something pained in my chest as I was finally brought back to my wits to my place before the window and the object now lying cold at my feet. I pressed my hand against my heart, speculating, calmed by the steadily rapid beats of the recent thrill that I had experienced, then cursed when I realised that by doing so, I had stained my new shirt. It was black with a golden Valentino sign embedded onto it. All my attempts trying not to stain it earlier were all shards on the floor—for it was now bright red and dripping in taunting caresses, whenever I looked down. My lip curled in annoyance and hatred toward myself before I creeped into the kitchen to grab a wet cloth to wipe away the abomination. It seemed to be that I was surrendering to the Water God’s power after all.
I tried not to make noise while wringing the cloth, out of habit, but my efforts were rendered pointless because the rain already drowned out all sounds inside, thunder crackling and slashing outside like the sound of a child loudly popping the bubble wraps on a new toy.
That was one of the benefits of choosing that night as the one.
I leaned against the table and started scrubbing my shirt. My fingers burned from where I had hurt myself from the mirror’s glass a few moments before. After multiple, thorough swipes at the mark on my shirt, I pulled the cloth away and peeked down to see the verdict. My brows furrowed in confusion and frustration at what I saw.
The mark on my shirt remained. In fact, the blood had spread even more and was gradually making its way in a web through the threads of my shirt, instead of dulling away. I pulled my shirt up to see if I had an unknown wound in my chest—that would explain the pain, too. But I didn’t. Breathing heavily, I looked down at my hands and could not believe what I saw.
They were red, yes. But they were also dried red. The blood from my glass injury could not have dried that fast.
Growing more worried and confused by the second, I frantically clawed at the red thing on my hands. I tried to scrape it off, scratching at myself furiously, opening the tap and shoving my hands under the water to clean it off. But it wouldn’t come out. I was standing in a pool of blood. My pants were red; I could feel warm liquid oozing down all inches of my face. I was completely and utterly bloodstained.
My face crumbled and I fell to the floor, sobbing into my red hands, and all I could see was red, red, red. Everywhere I looked, I saw red. I closed my eyes and was met with crimson. I didn’t know what was happening, and yet, somewhere inside, I did. I was a killer. The glacier in my eyes melted and salt water was gushing down, streaking my cheeks red, cooling them as I rocked in my position, arms wrapped around red knees. The rain seemed to be gagged red too and the pitter patter rapped against the windows lightly, as if showing understanding for the murderer tainted with red. That thought crumbled soon enough as well, for I knew the skies would erupt and harshen on me in no time. I had, after all, violated the laws of nature. I trembled and trembled from the cold, coppery heat enveloping my dead girlfriend’s apartment and suffocating me until all I could see was red.
They were making me pay. As they always did.
As if in an ode to what I had predicted about the rain, lightning struck a building next to mine haughtily, the sound ringing aloud in my ears, as if in one last angry acknowledgement of what I had done. I screamed at its hypocrisy. The hypocrisy of the sky, the world, the corpse drying out on the floor in the other room. They are the real killers, not me, I wanted to say. This conclusion soothed me as much as the sound of the rain did when it loudened again outside in fits of violence, screeching like the sound of a body being dragged across the floor.
And then all I could hear was the sound of breaking in half.