I don’t know how I got here or who this person is, but that doesn’t stop me from watching him. Silently, I stand watching this stranger as he sleeps in a bed that is also unfamiliar to me. Leaving crosses my mind briefly, but something is holding me in place. 

I was drawn to this house. I was walking in the dark of night, along the empty streets, and this place called to me. It was easy for me to slip into the dim, silent house. The stairs didn’t utter a single creak as I crept up them. The only sounds heard throughout the house are the soft snores of the man in front of me and a dripping plop. 

Drip, drip, drip—it is a steady noise, and it is close. It’s in the same room as the sleeping stranger and myself. He stirs gently in his sleep, rolling over to his back and revealing his face to the cold night air and to me. 

His face shocks me. I’ve seen it before, in the terrible lighting of a bar. He was charming as he was slowly getting me drunk the previous night. He wouldn’t stop telling me I was beautiful and stroking my face. To my drunken eyes and ears, it was sweet. If only my mind had not been corrupted with alcohol, if only I had stayed home, I may still be alive.

Instead, I stand before him, covered in mud and my own blood. I now realize that the dripping sound is coming from me. My once-white dress is now a dingy brown with a mixture of dirt, blood, and water from his sprinkler system trailing down the front and down my legs until it collects on the floor at my muddy feet. The front of my once-gorgeous dress is now torn, revealing most of my torso, and the hem is beginning to fray. My shoes are in front of the bathroom, where he must have left them when he carried my lifeless body down the stairs and into his basement. That was the last room I would ever see. 

I stand there looking at the man who killed me. The man who is responsible for killing many other women that were all in the wrong place at the wrong time, just as I was. 

A smile crosses his face in his slumber. He’s probably thinking back to the previous night when he brought me back to his place and proceeded to take me up the stairs. In my mind, I was in for a night of regretful fun, until he suddenly changed. He shoved me against the wall before he began to strangle me. I tried to fight back, but with the amount of alcohol in my system, it was useless. 

It all turned dark for a while. Then I woke up tied down to a bed, not this bed but a cold metal bed. I still wore my white dress, and it was carefully tucked beneath me as if he cared about my comfort. There was something tied around my mouth so tightly it was digging into the sides of my face. Tears came to my eyes as I realized I was going to die here, in this house, because of this seemingly charming guy. 

Stepping out of the shadows was the man that was about to kill me. There was a plethora of surgical tools on a tray in his hands. “Sorry about this, beautiful” was all he said before he took out a scalpel and began cutting into my abdomen.

I wish I could say my death was instant. I wish this murderer would be able to rot behind bars for the rest of his life, but he won’t get that chance. 

Anger boils inside of me at the sight of him sleeping as if he didn’t just strip me of my life. He took me from parents, who would never know what happened to their twenty-seven-year-old little girl. My body is buried in a shallow grave in the middle of the woods behind his house. Will anyone ever find me or the others buried back there? Only time will tell, but the police will find one body tonight: his. 

Something happened to me when I was wishing for my own death, when I had given up on begging for anyone or anything to save me. Something answered me; it just waited until I was already dead to answer my prayers.

Two men stood before me after I died, one dressed in all white and one in all black. I was given an option, and I’m not sure I chose correctly. The man in white told me to go with him for everlasting peace. The man in black told me to go with him if I wanted revenge for not only my death but for those of all of the women that my murderer had killed before me. At that moment, I was so filled with pain and anger that revenge was all that consumed my mind. Even in death, I was angry. 

I now know that what I chose was the wrong choice, but there is no going back. So I silently step out of the black puddle and up to the side of the bed, still watching him with an intense glare. The closer I get to him, the more I know what I must do.

The last step I take is the first time I make a sound. It’s a small creak, but it’s enough to awaken mister charming. 

His eyes grow big when he recognizes me, and he tries to jump out of bed, but that doesn’t happen. I’m too fast for his slow mortal body; I’m also too strong. I pin his body down to the bed, using only my weight. My mouth begins to water at the very thought of what I’m about to do. “Please, don’t hurt me,” he begs, and tears start to come from his eyes. 

“You mean the way that you hurt me?” I whisper in his ear.

My teeth start to protrude out of my mouth, and they are so sharp that they cut my lip on their way out. A growl erupts from my throat as I bite down on his delicate throat. His scream turns into a gurgle before no sounds come from him at all. I have stripped him of his life just as he has stripped not only me of mine but so many others of theirs before me.

His blood drips from my chin and down my body until it lands on his chest. A bloody smile plays at my lips as I look at his lifeless body. Though I know I have to spend an eternity in hell for the decision I made, it’s rewarding to know he will never kill again. 

“You’ve done well,” comes a voice from behind me. The man dressed all in black holds his hand out to me, urging me to take it.

There is no longer a choice for me because I gave it up when I chose revenge. I’ve made my peace with that.

“Let’s go. I have much for you to do.” 

I take his hand, and we make our way down the staircase. A trail of blood follows me throughout the house and out the door. When we emerge outside, there are police cars everywhere, but they all run right by us as if we’re not even there. There is shouting, and neighbors in their pajamas are all looking toward the charming house. I turn back and watch as they storm into the house with flashlights and guns raised. I smile knowing what they are about to find.

The demon beside me laughs as we continue our walk, unseen, down the street. “I believe you will make the news for killing the son of the mayor of this fine city. It's a shame they will never know of the dark things he has done. Sometimes revenge isn’t the answer, because now people will mourn the death of a serial killer. Worst of all, they will never find the bodies of any of the young girls that he has killed, and there are hundreds of them.” 

I grow cold knowing that because I made a rash decision, I have ruined everything. True, he will no longer kill, but now no one will ever know that he killed in the first place.

“And don’t worry, beautiful, you won’t be cold for much longer.”