glistening, crimson chest

He huffed and puffed. His eyes were red. Nose runny. He smelled of sweat and physical exertion. His breath was wheezy. Rasping. Gasping. Starving. The ground underneath him wet and gravelly. His feet bare and each minute piece of the gravel that rolled around but into his skin, those pieces that he had enjoyed at the start of this all were now starting to hurt. The feel of it on his soles. It had been pleasurable. Natural. Now it was terrible.

Blood was running down his bare chest. His eyes, which had been filled with a twinkling before it began, were now dulled. This was moving towards the endgame, and he could not be more upset about it. He did not know how or what or why or where. He knew it was coming. Hurtling down towards them like a meteor, like the one that allegedly wiped out the dinosaurs. And they would not go in a blink. They would go, to each their own. Each one according to their own worst nightmare.

Lines of blood running down his chest, leaving behind a series of lines in different shades of crimson. Some clung to the hairs on his chest, leaving those sparkling in the light of the fiery sun. His fists were clenched. White was showing on and around the knuckles. The knuckles themselves were bruised purple.

He rasped. His heart was still racing. He felt he might at any second drop down. Dead. It might even be better. Beads of sweat glistened around his forehead.

Better this than the alternative. He would have to think of something.

One long gasp. He looked down. Three bodies lying there. Bloodied. Bruised. Unmoving.

His hands. He looked at his hands. Fists still clenched. Clenching deeper. Covered in blood. His own and then some. Heart racing. How. Why. He had been outside his body, looking in with indifference as the expressions on his face had changed. Anger. Pain. Regret. Anger. Furious. Fast. Dangerous. He had been outside his body looking in. This was where they stood now.

He looked down at the three bodies. One had been his wife. Another was her brother. The third, the third he could not bear to think about. How had he been so indifferent. Who was he? These hands, he looked at them, hot tears beginning to fall from his face, who did they belong to. What? How? Why? His wife had come to him. He had done something. She had accused him. Her brother began to push him. He was fine. Until he looked down and saw the tears and betrayal in his daughter’s face. He had lost it. He had begun shouting, all that pent up anger built up over the years, now out in the open. He had forgot about his daughter. He began to hit his wife. Her brother had stepped in. He began to hit him.

When he came to, he was here. Looking down at the still bodies. He gasped. And fell down dead.