When things were simpler.

He was prepared to leave, without a drop of hesitation. He stared, for a moment. Gazing down at the impeccable serrated blade of the knife that caressed the granite counter top; staring back at him, smiling.

Sun bursts of crimson red drops, swirls and smears, rhythmically spilling and sliding from the tip to the chrome handle.

Oh, the dance.

The delicious dance.

This was what his life looked like now. 
 
He knew that there wasn’t a single thing he could say or do or defend to change the course of what would most certainly come next.

Justice.

He was pleased.

Packed up his trek bag and stopped for a moment, a hairline step before the front door. Yes. Left unlocked, just as he found it.

Time.

That’s all that was left now.

That is all that was certain.

They would find him. Eventually. He would hide, in plain sight; for a time. Perhaps for an eternity. For he had remained unscathed from the City’s tormented state. He was not like the others.

They were weak.

Uninterested in the greater good. They had the luxury of haunting. Child’s play. Though they would likely never fully understand why they were chosen, and he wasn’t.

Their crimes against their gifts would keep them in limbo indefinitely. He knew how to manipulate the game.

Play his role with convincing devoutness.

When the time came, he’d succumb to his gift, but never abuse it.

He’d take them down, one by one.

Extinguish them like the festering red ants that he saw them as. Nothing in him, cared that his gift required him to hunt. He was more than up to the task.

He would cycle, again and again. Full term, to old age, newborn once again.

Soleil was gone.

There was no one left to filter his conscience, anymore. After she slipped through his hands, no witnessed atrocity could seep through and stab his black heart into red.

Bastards.

All of them.

Their time would come.