A Two Sided Coin

Carson woke up in a faintly familiar hallway. His mind was foggy and he couldn’t grasp his surroundings in their entirety. He looked around once he could focus a bit more, that’s when he saw the blood on the wall. He stared at it for a few moments, stupefied.

The haze around his mind lessened, allowing him to follow the spray of blood on the wall with his eyes. When he got to the end of the horrific smear, he worked up the will to rip his eyes away from the wall. What he saw tore his mind completely out of his dumbfounded state into down right horror.

There were dozens of bodies down the hall, all killed in grotesque, brutal ways. Some ripped in half, some so mangled you couldn’t tell if they were even a person and some, all you could see were the pieces. But what shocked Carson more than the bodies, was the sheer amount of blood. It was everywhere, the walls, the people, even the ceiling was dripping with the crimson liquid. Whoever had done this wasn’t satisfied with just killing, they got a satisfaction out of causing as much pain and brutality as possible.

He wandered down the hall dazed with shock, not fully computing what he was seeing, all the while trying to keep his stomach contents where they belonged. It was in this state of shock, during his wandering that he heard a soft moan. He opened a door to his right, where he thought he heard the moan originating. He had to step over a corpse to open the door and go into the room. What he saw inside was a woman, a woman who looked exactly like his mother.

She backed up when she saw him, terror in her eyes. She continued to back up until she could no longer, the wall stopping her retreat. Then she dropped to her knees and began to plead in broken sobs, “Carson, honey, sweetie… Why are you doing this? You know I love you… I only did those things for your own good. You know that don’t you…?” by the end of this she drifted between mumbling and weeping to indistinct to comprehend.

Carson tried walking slowly towards her, bending over, arm outstretched but she just hunched over in horror.

He tried again, “Mother… Beatrice… I’m not going to hurt you, whoever did this is gone now, you’re safe. No need to worry anymore, just let me take your hand…”

He reached his hand out again and his mother almost took it but then Carson felt a cold rage that was not his own, fill him with such anger. In a moment it was gone, but it was too late, his mother had seen it in his eyes and screamed, “No! I won’t believe you! I won’t let you take me like the others! I am the commander of my own fate!”

With that she brought a small knife out from underneath her legs. He backed up, wary, but then she did the unexpected. Beatrice brought the blade down on her own throat and with a last manic smile she ended her own life. A wave of nausea hit him like a hammer, causing him to stumble back, tripping over a body on his way out. He puked before he could even fully get up again.

***

Carson wandered for hours until he could find an exit. When he did he walked outside and noticed it was night time. He giggled to himself “Funny the things you notice after a massacre.”

He continued giggling and wandered onto the street in front of him, completely lost and alone.

***

Carson wandered the streets for days, dazed. He avoided contact with people and spent most of his time giggling and talking to himself. One day however, he saw his reflection in a puddle on the road. He was covered in blood and vile unknown substances, his clothing was in tatters and his eyes held a look only a mental case should have. The sheer change that had come over him shocked him out of his stupor.

He sat on the curb of the street and simply cried. He did this for what seemed like hours then, he suddenly stopped. When he looked up his face had changed, a change that no eye but only intuition could detect. He smiled, a look filled with cruelty and malice, and then, he vanished.