My Heart Bleeds for You

The blood blended with her dark skin, only the moonlight’s reflection on the dripping fluid showed that it was there at all. The white men had found her, and when her legs could no longer run, she had fallen. Her gasping breaths, and the pounding of the blood in her ears could almost drown out the calls of the men chasing her, but not quite.

She held her broken arm to her chest and tried to run again, but the blood loss was making her dizzy and she fell to the ground.

He found her there, and with a whoop to the others he turned her over and pinned her to the ground. “You led us a merry chase little lady. It looks like your time is all up though. Any last words?” He held a knife above her heart, and his eyes widened when her hand grabbed it by the blade.

“I will rip the heart out of you.”

“Hard to do when yours ain’t beatin’ no more.” He slid the knife between her ribs into the frantically beating muscle beneath. She gurgled as her chest filled with blood, and her last act was to spit a mouthful of blood into her murderer’s face.

They dumped her body in the swamps, and none of the men involved threw her resting place a second look as they went home to their families.

The murderer of Delphine Dupont snuck into his home late that night to cover the evidence. The dead woman’s blood ran into his eyes as he washed his face off, but other than a mild irritation, and the need to burn his clothes, nothing really bothered him. I’ll burn them tomorrow. He stepped into his son’s room to make sure he was ok. Sleeping soundly in the moonlight was his legacy, his precious baby boy.

He rubbed his eyes as they began to bother him, and a sound echoed through the room. Laughter, and an echoing voice of a woman. “I will rip the heart out of you.” His eyes turned red as he reached for his knife.

“Where are you? I killed you once, I’ll do it again.” A red mist formed in front of him and took the shape of the murdered woman. He rushed forward, and as he felt the knife slide between her ribs again, he felt little arms go lax around him as his son fell to the floor drowning in his own blood. He screamed out in terror.

“I will rip the heart out of you.” Said a grinning, ghostly Delphine. She was behind him, and as he lunged for her, he heard his wife’s scream as she too became a victim of his knife.

He sat in shock amongst the corpses of his dead family. The knife in his hand covered in blood, his family’s, and that of a murdered woman. He hadn’t even known the woman, it had just seemed like fun at the time, a way to blow off steam. As he stared at the knife he brought it to his neck, but a ghostly hand stopped him. He started screaming in pain at what he had done.

A neighbor had heard the screaming and rushed into the room to see him drenched in the innocent blood of his loved ones.

It was in front of the entire town that the man found guilty of familicide was hanged before a silent crowd. Justice.