The skin peels when I twist the knife right. It doesn't scream. Flesh doesn't scream. People do. But the skin? It's obedient. It opens like paper. Wet paper.
His eyes were the first to betray him. Not fear. Wonder. As if he was watching a star go out. Maybe I was his star. Ha. That's poetic, isn't it?
No. Focus. The blood. It came hot. It always comes hot. I like that. The warmth tells me I'm real. Sometimes I wonder if I'm just a ghost pretending to be a man. But blood is honest. Blood doesn't lie.
He was shaking. Mouth wide, words caught in the back like a fishhook in a throat. His hands clutched the orchard soil. Apples above us. Red. Like the blood. Like the knife handle. Red is a beautiful color.
I didn't know his name. Didn't need to. He was just the first. Like breaking a hymen. The first tear is always the loudest.
Why an orchard? Because it was quiet. Because death should have an audience of trees. Because I like the smell. Because I wanted it.
Am I a monster?
He asked me that. With his eyes. Not his mouth. That was too busy dying.
And I wanted to say: No.
I'm just hungry.
Hungry to know what it means. To hurt something. To take something no one can give back. To feel alive.
Is that wrong?
Does it matter?
I watched the light leave. I timed it. Eleven seconds. The same as turning off a light and waiting for the afterglow to fade.
After, I buried him under the roots. The tree deserved a gift. The earth eats too, doesn't it?
I walked away with red hands and silence in my ears. The kind of silence that makes the rest of the world feel like a lie.
And I smiled.
Because I knew this was the beginning.
The first hymn in a song written in crimson.
The orchard remembers.
So do I.